March 26, 2013 - GreenPeak Technologies announces the GP501 ZigBee transceiver, which contains a sophisticated coexistence scheme that allows Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee chips to work side by side in the same device. The GP501 also contains Deep Packet Inspection allowing deep sleep modes of set-top boxes and other host devices by means of Wake-on-LAN messages. ZigBee shares the 2.4 GHz frequency band with other Wi-Fi equipment. The GP501 has a coexistence interface to allow optimized and co-located ZigBee/Wi-Fi radios to work in the same device, successfully avoiding RF interference when operating simultaneously.
This coexistence interface enables arbitration over the shared radio frequency medium to prevent contention, signal degradation and data loss. Another advantage of the GP501 is its small size: its 32-pin 5x5 mm2 footprint allows integration into even the smallest product form-factors. A key feature of the GP501 ZigBee transceiver chip is the Deep Packet Inspection for ZigBee applications. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) enables advanced packet management, allowing the host processor to go into a deep-sleep mode to conserve power.
While most other ZigBee transceiver chips only include a superficial inspection of the MAC and PHY headers, the GP501 looks beyond these layers and executes a Deep Packet Inspection and based on the outcome, the chip can decide if the packet has to be passed on to the higher layer application or can be ignored.
The DPI engine is also security aware, blocking unauthorized packets without involving the host processor and ensuring the system does not waste energy analyzing non-compliant packets. The DPI feature can be used for Wake-on-LAN functionality, where ultra-low power ZigBee is used to wake up the main processor from its sleep mode to enable Wi-Fi networking.
