Radio chip enables link budget of up to 120dB

The AT86RF212 800/900 MHz IEEE 802.15.4 RF transceiver is ideal for low power wireless applications, including ZigBee. It offers an “industry best” RF performance with a link budget of up to120dB in the 800MHz and 900MHz ISM bands available in Europe and North America, respectively. The link budget is the result of the -110dBm sensitivity offered by the device and the maximum output power of +10dBm. The extremely high link budget combined with the reduced path loss in the 800/900MHz enables long range wireless communication without the use of costly external LNA or PA.

Designing products with the AT86RF212 chipset enables battery operated devices to run for many years on a single battery because of the chip’s low current consumption in both active and in sleep mode. The current consumption in receive mode is 9mA and the consumption in transmit is 17mA at a power output level of 5dBm. The sleep mode current consumption is down to 0.2µA.

To support the wide range of wireless applications requested by the market, AT86RF212 handles multiple data rates. The 20/40Kbps and 100/250Kbps supported by the device is compliant to IEEE 802.15.4-2006. High-speed data rates such as 200/400/1,000Kbps are also supported, enabling wireless applications demanding more bandwidth.

Security is handled by an AES 128-bit onboard hardware engine. The security engine improves the overall system power efficiency and timing. The stand-alone 128-bit AES engine can be accessed in parallel to all PHY operational transactions and states using the SPI interface. A set of firmware and applications notes has been prepared for AT86RF212 to shorten time-to-market for the customers. This includes low-level drivers for simple wireless applications, IEEE 802.15.4 MAC for standard compliant solutions as well as solutions for ZigBee.