Jennic JN513x wireless microcontrollers

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Jennic has launched its second-generation wireless microcontrollers, the JN513x family. The devices provide performance and power improvements over the current JN5121 family. Coupled with the release of the wireless microcontroller family is a range of modules, evaluation kits, software and protocol stacks.

The product family is introduced as part of the company’s ongoing wireless microcontroller strategy.

Extended range is achieved with a new modem architecture that provides 97 dB receive sensitivity and is more robust in noisier environments with greater tolerance to carrier offset and EVM. Transmit power is also improved to +3 dBm. The JN513x family is claimed to be the only single-chip wireless microcontroller with a 100 dB link budget and specified over the full industrial temperature range and wide supply voltage.

Deep sleep current consumption is 400 nA. For an active part of a wireless sensor network, with on-chip oscillator and protocol timers running, sleep current consumption is under 2 µA.

The memory available has been increased to 192 k ROM and 96 k RAM allowing full exploitation of the on-chip 32-bit RISC processor for complex applications and algorithms coupled with ZigBee or other mesh protocol stacks. Variants are available with 32, 16 or 8 KB RAM for simpler, low-cost applications.

The on-chip ROM includes the IEEE802.15.4 version B media access protocol layer, provision for a range of external serial EEPROM devices, over-the-air download, hardware abstraction layers and a simple serial interface. Embedding these features in ROM frees up memory space for applications and allows simple dongle products at low cost. IEEE802.15.4B and ZigBee variants of the JN513x family are available.

Each device has a unique MAC address identifier allowing the saving of external Flash devices. A further 256 bits of one-time programmable memory is available for users to program on-chip AES security keys and other identifiers.

Package and pin-out of the JN513x remains the same as the first-generation JN5121, allowing upgrade of current designs to second generation with no board changes.

A family of modules provides ceramic antenna, SMA and UFL connector options. Standard-power and high-power modules are also available offering link budgets of 100 and 119 dB. The standard module has demonstrated operation over 1 km and the high-power module over 4 km in open space.

A new generation of evaluation kits is available that provides a controller and four sensor units with a range of plug-in modules, offering power and antenna options. Users will now be able to evaluate different module types to suit their application and environment, with a range of site survey tools, including a customisable packet error rate measurement routine.