Technology provides low-cost, low power method to add infrared wireless
connectivity to high-volume embedded applications
April 17, 2002- Microchip Technology Inc., a leader in providing microcontroller
and analog semiconductors, announced today a device that provides embedded
system designers a very low-cost method of adding Infrared Data Association®
(IrDA®)-Standard wireless connectivity to their systems. The MCP2140 is
a fixed speed 9600-Baud IrDA-Standard protocol stack controller designed for
high-volume applications such as wireless LANs, modems, cell phone peripherals,
wireless handheld data collection systems, door locks and fleet management
systems among others.
When used with the recommended discrete transceiver implementation, this device
enables a complete IrDA-Standard wireless link (protocol handling plus transceiver)
to be added to an embedded system while typically consuming less than 100?A
of additional current. In comparison, many industry-standard integrated transceivers
alone have current consumption values greater than 1.0mA. The MCP2140 employs
the same patented technology that embeds the complex IrDA-Standard protocol
stack on other Microchip devices, however, the communications speed is lowered
and the user-interface is simplified to target low-cost, high-volume embedded
applications.
In addition, the MCP2140 has an automatic low-power function that reduces the power consumption when there is no activity on the link. In this low-power mode, the MCP2140 has a typical current consumption of less than 25µA. This low-current consumption enables the addition of IrDA-Standard links to battery applications without taxing overall system power budgets.
The MCP2140 is an 18-pin package and is priced at each in quantities of 1,000.
