News

Cypress Ships WirelessUSB Sensor Network Development Kit (16/12/2004)

Award-Winning WirelessUSB(TM) Solution Tackles the Challenges of Low-Cost, Low-Power, Wireless Sensor Networks For Commercial And Industrial Wireless Applications

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY), today announced production availability of its WirelessUSB(TM) N:1 development kit (CY3635). WirelessUSB N:1 replaces the wire on low data rate, high node density systems with a low-cost, low-power, highly reliable wireless solution. The WirelessUSB N:1 development kit speeds development of multipoint-to-point wireless applications using Cypress's WirelessUSB 2.4 GHz radio SOC technology and the WirelessUSB N:1 wireless protocol, which was specifically developed for consumer, industrial, medical, building and home-automation systems.

"Developers become frustrated when wireless technology introduces unwanted complexity and cost when the objective is simply to eliminate wires," said Norm Taffe, managing director of the Wireless Business Unit in Cypress's Personal Communications Division. "WirelessUSB N:1 stresses on simplicity and low cost, while still providing a sophisticated 2.4 GHz wireless solution."

WirelessUSB N:1 is based on a wireless star topology, consisting of multiple nodes connected to a central aggregator or hub. The hub ties directly to the controller through either a serial connection or an existing wired control system. Wireless nodes use the WirelessUSB N:1 multipoint-to-point protocol to receive and send data to the hub via Cypress's WirelessUSB 2.4 GHz Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) radio technology. WirelessUSB has received several industry awards for outstanding interference avoidance, high-node density (up to 65,000 nodes) and long-range wireless capabilities--all of which contribute to a cost-effective, simple, yet highly reliable wireless sensor environment.

WirelessUSB N:1 is optimized for low power. The hardware is fully off until an event occurs. Because a WirelessUSB sensor node can be asleep for a majority of the time, the radio is transmitting and/or receiving for less than 0.1 percent of the time. Thus, the average current consumption is very low (in micro amps). A WirelessUSB sensor node can achieve 5 plus years of battery life using typical batteries.

WirelessUSB N:1 Development Kit

The CY3635 provides a scalable wireless node development environment, allowing rapid development of a wide variety of wireless sensor systems. The hardware consists of four wireless sensor boards and a hub board that connects to a host controller via RS-232. The sensor boards use Cypress' PSoC(TM) configurable mixed-signal arrays to control several on-board analog and digital components including a thermistor, magnetic reed switch, potentiometer, dip switches, buttons, and LEDs. A prototyping area with additional digital and analog I/O capabilities is also present to allow external sensors and/or actuators to be attached to the sensor nodes.

The kit contains five WirelessUSB LR radio modules that connect to each of the boards via a small 2x6 pin header. The WirelessUSB LR radio modules were designed to also connect to target applications for additional prototyping needs. The kit ships with a host software application which graphically represents the data collected from the wireless sensors and can also be used to set the wireless system parameters like individual node report rates, the number of nodes in the system, designated channels, and node descriptions. The CD contains extensive documentation including several protocol examples, hardware schematics and bill of materials for the RF components and example nodes layouts, a battery life calculator, and a quick start and extensive user's guide.

Pricing and Availability

The CY3635 development kit is available now for $795 (MSRP) and is available through Cypress sales offices and via the web at http://www.cypress.com.

www.cypress.com