This thread discusses the Content article: Zigbee/802.15.4 Chip Comparison Guide

Hi Akiba,

Congradulations!!!
It's a nice forum for new ZigBee developers and informative too.

Please give a information on ZigBee Stack used on different ZigBee transceiver.

Thank You.....

Thanks. I need to update a lot of the info since it was made about 6 months ago. A lot has changed since then and a lot more information became available.

Hello Akiba

Nithin here from Bangalore, India. I am very new to Zigbee, i am working on a Home Automation and building project, here various sensors are housed on each floor. They have to be networked and also the range has to very large. I have been searching for Reference Power Amplifier Designs for quite some time now but until now i am unable to find any reference design except cc2591. I need something similar for 800-900Mhz Frequency range, i.e. RF Front end for AT86RF212 or CC1101. Please enlighten me

Thank you
Regards
Nithin

You may also want to check out the UBEC module user guide which has the UBEC 802.15.4 transceiver along with a RF amp and LNA. The Tx power is +22dBm which is actually higher than the CC2591 and the Rx sensitivity is -101 dBm which rivals the Atmel radio. You can find the user guide for the module including the schematic here:

Link

Hi Nithin,
You can find many 2.4Ghz RF Hi-power schematic designs.
Are looking for readymade HI-Power module or you want
design it yourself?
You check with PA's available with SeGe. You can also check
RIF411 FEM, which has in buiit Switch and LNA PA.

Hello TheXman

Thank you TheXman for useful information.
Actually i am looking for a RF Front End(switch,PA and LNA in one chip) for AT86RF212 to increase the range to 10 Km. Also i am also looking for RF Front End for At86rf231(2.4Ghz) to increase the range to 5km. If i find a RF Front End IC i.e. IC with switch, LNA and PA it would make my work easier else i would have to find individual LNA, PA and switch and integrate them. I request you to provide me with the links of High Power RF designs. I have found only 2 reference designs for 2.4Ghz modules. Also i tried to download RIF411 FEM datasheet, i am unable to find the datasheet itself. So could please provide me with the link. Also what is the full name of company SEGE? Can you also provide me with link for the SEGE Company?
Thank you

Best Regards
Nithin Prakash

Hi Nithin,

Sorry for my spell mistakes.
You can check for RIF211 on www.rfarrays.com. You can download datasheet from the website. I have implemented this FEM for audio module which give range around 1km.
It also works fine with 802.15.4/ZigBee modules.
For other PA's you can visit to www.sige.com, here you have to search for PA suitable to requirement.

Hi,
I have some doubts in MAC layer of zigbee.
What is the bevaviour of MAC when it receives a request from higher layer while previous request is in the middle of processing. Say for example what is the behaviour of MAC when it receives MCPS-POLL.request command when the previous command say MCPS-DATA.request is being processed currently

In the case of a non-pre-emptive OS, you wouldn't need to worry about this because normally, you would execute until you reach the end of your call chain. So if you're doing a data request, you will probably keep on running until you reach the mac tx function, which should send the data to the radio. Then you would handle the poll request.

If you're using a pre-emptive OS, then you would need to take care of these type of synchronization issues on your own. However most of the Zigbee stacks I've seen so far are single threaded and even if they are run on a multi-threaded OS, are run inside their own process.

Good comparison table. But one thing missing is range ( distance ) offered by these devices. Can anyone comment which is the best in terms of distance it can cover. Can I understand this by looking at output power. Is there a chip/module which can give 1Km ?

Range isn't missing. It is dependent on the location, obstacles, topography, channel traffic, etc. Hence it would be different for different people in different locations. Instead, the tx power and rx sensitivity implies the range. The greater the link budget (tx power + rx sensitivity), potentially the greater the range. Range can also be increased by using antennas with directional gain so range isn't really a good indicator of chip performance.

As Akiba rightly said range depends on lot of factors. U should use the application note from Atmel
to arrive at number for Range. In the atmel Application note pdf there is an excel attachment
for range calculation. Feed in TX gain, RX gain, Rx sensitivity, TX power and factor n, which depends on operating conditions (n factor is very important, read abt it app note) to get the
range offered by device.

Range Calculation App note can be found below
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc9144.pdf