Zigbee will spring into action this year
Published: 11 Apr 2003 14:24 BST
Two Taiwan-based chip design houses have announced that their Zigbee products will be launched towards the end of the year.
Uniband Electronic expects its Zigbee chips to debut by year-end, reported Taiwan's Digitimes. The company expects OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to pay $2.50 (£1.60) per chipset, about half the current price of the Bluetooth equivalent, according to the report.
ITE Tech, a spin-off from major chip foundry United Microelectronics, will also launch its Zigbee wireless chip this year.
Both companies are new members the Zigbee Alliance, a consortium of companies working on the new low-cost, low-power wireless networking specification. Other members include Philips Semiconductor, Motorola, Mitsubishi, Honeywell and Invensys.
The ZigBee specification is a combination of HomeRF Lite and the 802.15.4 specification. The spec operates in the 2.4GHz radio band -- the same band as the 802.11b standard, microwaves and cordless phones -- over 16 channels.
It is capable of connecting 255 devices per network. The spec supports data transmission rates of up to 250kbps at a range of up to 30 meters. ZigBee's technology is slower than 802.11b, at 11 megabits per second, and Bluetooth, at 1mbps, but it consumes significantly less power.
Wireless standards like Bluetooth and Zigbee all aim to allow cable-free wireless communications between different devices.
Despite a three-year headstart, Bluetooth has yet to gain mass adoption among gadget makers, with the cost of its chipsets seen as one of the major barriers.
News.com's Richard Shim contributed to this report.
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