Greentech Lead India: STMicroelectronics has launched
an ultra-low-power wireless transceiver for automatic meter infrastructure and
other wireless sensor node applications.
STMicroelectronics said its SPIRIT1 transceiver combines
better receiver sensitivity with unbeatable current consumption, offering 50
percent power reduction over existing solutions in the market.
The new solution is expected to replace traditional electromechanical
meters and bring many advantages for utility providers and consumers alike. It
features full remote control, power peak and consumption analysis,
anti-tampering mechanisms, fault alert, and time-variable tariffs.
ST’s SPIRIT1 transceiver is designed to handle communication
between smart meters in households and businesses and the neighborhood data
concentrator, which relays the information to the utility provider control
center.
SPIRIT1 ensures low current consumption, slashed by 50
percent over existing solutions in the market. This enables SPIRIT1-equipped
applications to be in operation for up to twice the time of other solutions
without the need to replace batteries.
SPIRIT1 provides an outstanding receiver sensitivity of
-120dBm. This allows the designer to lower the output power of the transmitter
and thus further decrease the overall current consumption, while maintaining a
highly robust communication channel. The transceiver supports advanced
technologies like frequency hopping, auto-acknowledgment and antenna diversity
to secure error-free data transmission even in harsh-environmental or
challenging-logistical conditions.
Additional embedded features include 128-bit data
encryption, error correction and detection, FIFO memory blocks, as well as
highly flexible and programmable data packet management, which contribute to
reducing the computation load of the host microcontroller and the overall
system cost.