News and New Products

RF transceiver tackles 2.4-GHz ISM band

By Bill Schweber -- EDN, 12/11/2003

The latest RF entry from Chipcom AS extends its family of RF transceivers past the 1-GHz line in the ether into the 2.4-GHz unlicensed ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) band. The CC2400 IC meets European, Japanese, and US regulations and provides data rates as high as 1 Mbps. The device targets use in point-to-point links, such as game controllers, wireless-audio headsets, and leisure equipment. It uses direct I/Q upconversion for continuous transmissions without a limit on packet length, an attribute that some headset and audio applications require.

You can select data rates as low as 10 kbps if you don’t need the highest rate but do wish to reduce power dissipation. Range is up to 100m at the lowest data rate. The CC2400 is well-suited for frequency-hopping spread-spectrum systems and multichannel systems, such as game controllers with four simultaneous users. It sells for $2.40 (100,000) and is available with a PC-based/USB-port development kit, which includes a pair of motherboards and radio modules for a full-duplex development environment.

Chipcon AS, www.chipcon.com.