About

CAMPBELL, Calif., July 14, 2009 – Adding to its already successful low-power Wi-Fi Epsilon family of Wi-Fi RTLS chips, G2 Microsystems today launched its new G2C543 low-power Wi-Fi SoC, G2M5437 module and Icon development kit that will make it easy for designers to connect consumer electronic devices directly to the Internet or to future Wi-Fi Personal Area Network systems.       

Wi-Fi has become ubiquitous in the home, allowing a new category of devices to connect directly to the Internet or to a laptop through the emerging Wi-Fi PANs.  Overcoming the range limitations of Bluetooth and the gateway requirements of other technologies such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi can now be considered for applications such as home energy management and health monitoring, and for laptop PAN peripherals such as mice, wireless speakers and high-fidelity headphones.

Available now, G2 offers three ways to quickly and affordably embed ultra low-power Epsilon Wi-Fi technology into battery-powered CE devices:

• G2C543 SoC – The G2 Wi-Fi and networking SoC includes 32-bit CPU, operating system, network stack, crypto accelerators, power management subsystem, real-time clock and a versatile sensor interface, allowing it to serve as a networking slave or a standalone host.
     
• Complete G2M5437 Module – Drastically reduce design times with this low-power, low-cost Epsilon Module that includes a power amplifier and antenna, G2C543 SoC, 8Mbit flash memory, and comes pre-certified for FCC and CE regulations and tested for Wi-Fi Alliance WMM and WMM Power Save modes.
     
• Icon Development Kit - Affordably and quickly add Wi-Fi to an applications processor-based design with the G2-IDK, which includes a small board with standard interfaces (UART, SPI, SDIO) and an Epsilon module pre-loaded with the Icon application.  Icon enables a G2 module to become a Wi-Fi networking interface for mains- and battery-powered devices. The platform is especially suited for use with 8- or 16-bit host applications processors that do not have the ability to connect to other Wi-Fi chips, or for use with 32-bit host processors that do not have enough additional bandwidth to run a network stack.
      

“G2 is a demonstrated leader in ultra low-power Wi-Fi,” said Geoff Smith, G2 founder and CEO. “With our second generation silicon and module, it is now faster and easier to deploy a new class of consumer-priced, Internet-enabled wireless devices like internet radios, cameras, toys, health monitoring devices, home automation/energy management devices, and media center remote controls.”

More G2C543 Facts   

     
• It is self-contained, incorporating the 802.11 b/g protocol, security and TCP/IP stack providing Wi-Fi capability on a single chip.
     
• It only draws 4 uA in standby mode and can wake up and transmit a packet in less than 11 msec.  This allows the G2C543 to provide low latency Wi-Fi solutions driven from alkaline batteries with extended battery life.
     
• For simple devices no other microprocessor is required as the application can reside on the G2C543. For applications already running on a microcontroller, even an 8-bit micro, the G2C543 offloads all Wi-Fi communication allowing for fastest time to market.
     
• This SoC is a derivative of G2 Microsystems’ award-winning G2C547 integrated circuit, which earned a “Best Electronic Design 2008” award from Electronic Design magazine.
      

Availability   

     
• Epsilon Family products available in volume now.  The G2C543 SoC is housed in a 72-pin QFN package and is priced at $4.80 in volumes of one million units. The G2M5437 Module is sampling now and is priced at $13 in 10K unit volumes, and the Icon Development Kits are value-priced at $129 each.