Expert View

Geetanjali Babbar

UNITED STATES -- Founded in 2001, Ember Corp. is a wireless semiconductor company, which develops solutions that help buildings consume less energy, manufacturing plants run with fewer breakdowns, and the country’s borders and infrastructure remain safe and secure. Its vision is to help create an "Internet of things" by enabling the eight billion microcontrollers built into products each year to support low-cost, low-power networking applications in any industry.

Headquartered in Boston with offices and distributors worldwide, the company is a promoter of the ZigBee Alliance and was named one of Fortune Magazines top "Cool Companies" for 2004. Ember is uniquely positioned in the low-power, low-cost mesh networking space offering a full system solution, including RF chips, networking software, and development tools, which are ZigBee ready. Consequently, Ember commands an 80 percent share of design wins in the IEE 802.15.4/ZigBee space. Ember’s technology is real, shipping in volume today to real customers with real applications in real deployments.

Convergence Plus met Andy Wheeler, chief technology officer, Ember, to discuss the developments taking place in the ZigBee space globally. Excerpts from the interview.

Convergence Plus: What is ZigBee technology?

Andy Wheeler: ZigBee is an embedded wireless network standard that solves the unique needs of remote monitoring and control, and sensor network applications. It is the set of specs built around the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol. The name "ZigBee" is derived from the erratic zigging patterns that bees make between flowers when collecting pollen. This is evocative of the invisible Webs of connections existing in a fully wireless environment. A group known as the ZigBee Alliance, with over 150 members worldwide, regulates the standard itself.

The technology is designed to provide highly efficient connectivity between small packet devices. As a result of its simplified operations, which are one to two full orders of magnitude less complex than a comparable Bluetooth device, pricing for ZigBee devices is extremely competitive, with full nodes available for a fraction of the cost of a Bluetooth node.

CP: What are the general characteristics of this technology?

AW: ZigBee enables very low-power networking devices, which can typically operate for five years powered by a single household battery, eliminating the need for end devices to be plugged into electrical power. While battery life is ultimately a function of battery type, capacity and end-use application, the ZigBee protocol was designed from the ground up to support very long life battery applications. ZigBee is highly reliable and scalable due to its ability to automatically form self-organising, self-healing networks. Also, ZigBee networks are simple and inexpensive to deploy.

CP: What sort of applications can be offered using this technology?

AW: ZigBee is suited to a wide range of building automation, industrial, medical and residential control and monitoring applications. Essentially, applications that require interoperability and/or the RF performance characteristics of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard would benefit from a ZigBee solution. Some of its applications include, lighting controls, automatic meter reading, wireless smoke and CO detectors, HVAC control, heating control, home security, environmental controls, blind, drapery and shade controls, medical sensing and monitoring, universal remote control to a set-top box, etc.

CP: What would be the target market for ZigBee devices in India and globally?

AW: ZigBee would be ideal for any low-power, low-data-rate sensor or control network in India and elsewhere where the cost and complexity of installing wired networks is cost-prohibitive. For example, ZigBee is proving to be a great solution for automatically monitoring electric, gas and water meters in Chinese households and apartments to accommodate the country’s enormous housing boom. India is experiencing a similar building boom due largely to the growth of its economy and of the middle class. ZigBee is well-suited in rural areas of India for monitoring the condition of bridges, roads, dams, environmental controls, etc.

CP: What is the role of ZigBee Alliance in pushing the technology?

AW: The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable reliable, cost-effective, low-power, wirelessly networked, monitoring and control products based on an open global standard.

Its goal is to provide the consumer with ultimate flexibility, mobility, and ease-of-use by building wireless intelligence and capabilities into everyday devices. ZigBee will be embedded in a wide range of products and applications across consumer, commercial, industrial and government markets worldwide. For the first time, companies will have a standards-based wireless platform optimised for the unique needs of remote monitoring and control applications, including simplicity, reliability, low-cost and low-power.

It focuses on defining the network, security and application software layers; providing interoperability and conformance testing specifications; promoting the ZigBee brand globally to build market awareness and managing the evolution of technology.

CP: ZigBee is still in a nascent stage. How do you see this technology taking off in India and globally?

AW: We believe 2006 will be a breakout year for ZigBee. Ember already has many OEM customers shipping products today, and we’re not alone. More than 200 companies have joined the ZigBee Alliance. The first market to take off will probably be in building and home automation and control. There are a number of global companies like Siemens and Hitachi developing such products for worldwide distribution. We are also seeing more of the big semiconductor companies getting into the ZigBee market, including Motorola, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics.

CP: What unique features is it capable of offering?

AW: ZigBee was created to address the market need for a cost-effective, standards-based wireless networking solution that supports low data-rates, low-power consumption, security, and reliability. ZigBee is the only standards-based technology that addresses the unique needs of most remote monitoring and control and sensory network applications.

CP: India being a cost-sensitive market, how is ZigBee suited for this marketplace?

AW: ZigBee is a low-cost solution for low-power applications. Implementation of this wireless solution in applications that currently need wires will significantly reduce costs. Also, the efficiencies obtained by deploying these self organising, and self healing networks will mean lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

CP: Will ZigBee compete or complement Bluetooth?

AW: Not really compete. ZigBee is a complement to Bluetooth where both are used for different applications. ZigBee is designed for low-power, low-data-rate sensing and control applications that can span long distances and many devices. Bluetooth is designed as a cable-replacement technology for peripherals. Bluetooth networks support higher bandwidths between just a few devices over shorter distances.

CP: What initiatives are being taken to push applications based on ZigBee?

AW: OEMs have already started shipping products in a variety of applications, including home control, home automation, building automation, and automatic meter reading. ZigBee has established a process for compliance testing and certification, and ZigBee member companies are assisting its customers in designing a variety of innovative applications.

Contact:
Ember Corp.
www.ember.com