19th Feb 09
Freescale takes number one position
in Zigbee chipset market
The Zigbee is buzzing a lot in the market, its more true
for Freescale. It has shipped 7 million units of ZigBee
and IEEE802.15.4 chipsets in year 2008 to take number one
ranking in this market. With this, Freescale garners a market
share of 60% in IEEE802.15.4-based ICs.
Zigbee is extremely suitable for wireless sensors networks,
wireless meter reading, home automation and industrial control
and automation.
Since energy management is a global agenda, Zigbee and
other IEEE802.15.4 devices has a bigger role to play in
wireless energy meter and other household metering solutions.
Through little market analysis we did, by year 2011, it
can be estimated; the IEEE802.15.4 based chipset market
demand might reach greater than 100 million units. Peak
consumption of these devices may start in 2010 and continue
up to 2015. In about 4/5 years of timeframe from 2009, there
is a market demand for about 1 billion unit shipments.
The low power microcontroller with built in Zigbee transceiver
is a right combination for the above said applications.
Freescale has mastered both and ready to take on the market.
"We've seen high demand for our IEEE 802.15.4 and
ZigBee products as wireless applications such as home entertainment
control, smart energy, industrial and process control and
monitoring continue their rapid growth," said Brett
Black, manager of Freescale's Wireless Connectivity Operation.
"Our customers need platform solutions that help them
get to market quickly so they can keep pace with this growth
and be ready to develop their next applications."
IEEE 802.15.4 has different variants; such similar technologies
are ZigBee technology, RF4CE consortium, SynkroRF network
technology and WirelessHART technology.
There is lot of scope for designers to research and develop
interesting products by using these devices. It can be a
simple home security system, centralized remote control,
e- metering, and industrial sensor networking in the areas
where wiring is not feasible and costly.
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