IEEE 802.15.4- 2011 - MAC and PHY

Overview

LTIMindtree IEEE 802.15.4 MAC and PHY semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) is based on IEEE 802.15.4 specification. This standard defines the Physical layer (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layer specifications for low power and low data rate wireless connectivity.

Our IP is a software and hardware co-design. The time critical functions are implemented in hardware and logical functions are implemented in firmware. The interface between the hardware and firmware is through AHB, APB, EBI, and SPI bus.

Software Stacks such as Zigbee, RF4CE and Thread can be ported on top of our 802.15.4 hardware. Our IP consists of all essential components needed for a complete 802.15.4 system. For RF, Mindtree has partnered with several leading RF IP suppliers across the globe.

LTIMindtree’s 802.15.4 IP has been licensed to top semiconductor companies and is in production. Today companies can choose to license our 802.15.4 IP standalone or can choose too license our IEEE 802.15.4 along with our BlueLitE Bluetooth low energy IP to make a combo chip.

Key Features

Mindtree IEEE 802.15.4 MAC

Our MAC implementation is fully compliant with IEEE 802.15.4-2011 MAC specifications. We support all mandatory and optional features. Some of the features of our MAC implementation are:

Association and disassociation
Beacon management
Channel access
Frame validation and acknowledgement
All defined security mechanisms.

MAC operates in two different modes based on the specification:

Beacon enabled
Non-beacon enabled.

Mindtree, currently, supports the non-beacon enabled mode. Support for beacon-enabled mode and its features such as GTS will be available by Q4, 2017.

Key advantages of Mindtree IEEE 802.15.4 MAC

High degree of configurability based on target application
Designed for portability across 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit processors
Firmware architected for low foot-print
Optimized memory architecture
Built-in power management module for ultra-low power consumption
Flexible interfaces for easy integration with third party modem/RF
Run time configurability

Mindtree 802.15.4 - PHY

Our PHY implementation is fully compliant with IEEE 802.15.4-2011 PHY specification.
Mindtree has implemented 802.15.4 digital PHY for 2.4 GHz ISM band which easily integrates with customer‘s Radio front end.
It supports modulation/demodulation, Automatic Gain Control (AGC), Energy detection(ED), Link quality identification (LQI) and channel selection/assessment (CCA) algorithms.
Mindtree 802.15.4 – PHY supports:

Frequency Band: 2.4 GHz (ISM/Worldwide)
Data rate: 250 kbps ( over the air)
Coding: Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
Modulation: Offset-QPSK

Key advantages of Mindtree IEEE 802.15.4 PHY

High performance modem
Configurable architecture based on RF front end
Optimized gate count
Easily customizable for different RF Frontend

Benefits

IP Maturity

Meets all specification requirements
Licensed to top semiconductor companies
Successfully Taped out
First Chip, based on our 802.15.4 IP to be in production shortly

Supported Software Stacks

Zigbee
RF4CE
Thread

Block Diagram

Video

Mindtree's IEEE 802.15.4 Demo

Demo of Mindtree's IEEE 802.15.4

Deliverables

MAC Layer Deliverables

Delivery of MAC hardware RTL
C-test cases for MAC hardware
MAC firmware
Hardware build and other shell scripts (Unix/Linux)
Firmware make file for Windows
Documentation

MAC Architecture document
MAC software programmer manual
MAC IP user guide

FPGA synthesis & PAR scripts for Mindtree FPGA platform.

PHY (Modem) Deliverables

RTL source code in Verilog for digital PHY (modem) for both transmitter and receiver.
ASIC Synthesis and STA scripts for EDA tool flow
RTL Simulation Environment
Test Suite for integrated MAC and PHY
Test scripts
Documentation

Software Deliverables

MAC firmware C source code targeted at Cortex M0 + RVDS compiler
Source code of sample application to illustrate the use of APIs
API Documentation

Technical Specifications

Maturity

In Production

Availability

Now available

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