Renesas' ZigBee ^® Initiatives

Renesas was an early supporter of ZigBee and IEEE802.15.4 short range wireless communication network technologies,
and has assembled an array of hardware and software required for these technologies to provide total support for the development of ZigBee and IEEE802.15.4 application products.

Note: ZigBee is a registered trademark of ZigBee Alliance, Inc.

ZigBee Overview

In recent years, the demand for short range wireless communication networks has been increasing.
ZigBee is a low-cost and low-power short range wireless communication standard for such short range wireless communication networks. Specifications consisting of a lower layer (MAC/PHY) conforming to IEEE802.15.4 and an upper layer of a protocol stack with added ZigBee network layer and so on, have been formulated by the ZigBee Alliance.
A feature of ZigBee communication is the support of multiple star and mesh network topologies, with a communication speed of 250 kbps (2.4 GHz band) and a communication range of tens of meters. Depending on usage conditions, a ZigBee device can operate from an AA battery for several months to several years.
In addition, applications for which a star network is sufficient often employ only IEEE802.15.4.
The market for short range wireless communication network technologies is expected to expand to a great variety of applications, including air conditioning control, lighting control, home automation, measuring equipment control, automatic meter reading, wireless sensor networks, and more.

ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 network topology