LONDON — Essensium NV (Leuven, Belgium) has agreed to design a transceiver IC for the Wavenis wireless system of Coronis Systems SA (Montpellier, France), a provider of wireless systems for sensor, control and metering applications.
Coronis is a subsidiary of Elster Group SA (Luxembourg) and has been selling Wavenis systems for wireless metering and sensor networking for several years. The Wavenis protocol operates in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands of the radio spectrum. The technology offers a data rate of between 4.8- and 100-kbits per second.
Coronis, which has previously developed its own RF ICs, has engaged with Essensium to complete the development of its next generation wireless chip, the company said. Essensium has experience working with the current generation of Wavenis IC
"Extreme low power is an essential element to our technology. The selection of Essensium for its core expertise in low-power wireless system-on-chip design means we get to work with a partner that has the ability to help us meet our needs and expectations," said Laurent Maleysson, general manager of Coronis, in a statement.
Essensium has agreed to integrate an upgraded Wavenis wireless transceiver with an "innovative low-power 32-bit RISC controller." The embedded RISC controller will run the Wavenis communications protocol stack and on-chip embedded memory is available for a customer's program code and data. Coronis did not disclose the source of the microcontroller.
"Knowing that Wavenis enjoys such a strong reputation among industrial companies with extreme demands in terms of range and power, I'm very pleased that we can apply our expertise to develop the next generation Wavenis device," said Johan Danneels, CEO of Essensium, in the same statement.
Essensium has also agreed to join the Wavenis Open Standard Alliance, a forum being put together by Coronis.
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