Duolog Technologies tapes out IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee radio which offers significant time to market reductions for semiconductor customers

-- Duolog Technologies today announced the tape-out of a 0.13um IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee radio test chip as part of their 802.15.4 transceiver development program.

According to Ray Bulger, CEO, Duolog, “This tape-out is a significant step for Duolog along the value added line as a fabless semiconductor house and accelerates our path to the complete 802.15.4 SoC.” He added, “This market leading IP reduces the time to market for our semiconductor customers by more than two years.”

This 802.15.4 transceiver offers a low data rate solution with multi-year battery life and very low complexity. These transceivers operate in an unlicensed, international frequency band. Potential application areas include building automation, industrial automation, health monitoring, and home automation.

The Duolog radio has been carefully designed with a top down approach and includes many novel features and architectures.  “This radio has been designed to be best in class in terms of power and current consumption due to the advanced architecture and careful circuit design.” commented Jason Drew, Radio Development Manager, Duolog.

Duolog has also developed an optimised hardware-centric 802.15.4 MAC and baseband designs to ensure an ultra low power transceiver. This hardware intensive solution offers an optimal power and cost balance, ensuring that the system maintains flexibility while minimising silicon area.

Designed exclusively in Duolog’s Analogue/RF IC design centre in Hungary, the tape-out will de-risk major components in the RF signal paths prior to full transceiver tape-out.  In addition to the radio components, the power management block is included on the silicon and features an LDO, battery monitor and bias current generators.

About Duolog

Duolog Technologies has offices in NovaUCD (Dublin), Galway (Ireland) and Budapest (Hungary).  Duolog offers a complete 802.15.4 based transceiver IP and is currently implementing this solution in silicon. 802.11abg MAC and baseband IP has also been developed. This is currently being extended to include new high throughput, security and Quality of Service .11ein extensions. Comprehensive customization, RTL to GDSII and verification services are also offered with the IP. For further information visit www.duolog.com