Ember Announces General Availability of Next-Generation ZigBee Development Kits

BOSTON -

Ember, a leading provider of ZigBee wireless networking technology, announced today the general availability of its new EM35x InSight Development Kits through its worldwide distribution channels. The EM35x InSight Development Kits enable development and debugging of ZigBee products on the ARM Cortex-M3 based system-on-chips (SoCs) — EM351 and EM357 — in the recently launched EM300 Series semiconductor platform.

The EM351 and EM357 SoCs, pack the industry’s highest wireless networking performance and application code space into the lowest power-consuming chipset.

Development Kit Components

The EM35x Development Kits include hardware, network development and debugging software, compiler and EmberZNet PRO networking stack for embedded applications, all delivered in a complete development environment.

The hardware package consists of: - Three (3) EM35x InSight Adapters (ISA3s) for programming and debugging ZigBee applications; - Three (3) breakout boards with EM357-based modules; - Module variety pack with six (6) modules — EM351 and EM357 variants — that can be connected to the breakout board; - Sample pack with ten (10) EM357 chips for customer designs; and - Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) switch and cables for network scale testing.

“The quality of Ember’s ZigBee development tools has always been best in industry,” said Ember CEO Robert LeFort. “The EM35x Development Kits renew Ember’s commitment to set the standard for powerful, yet easy-to-use embedded wireless networking tools with a great out-of-box experience.”

Enhanced Features and Out-of-Box Experience

The EM35x InSight Development Kits contain Ember’s industry leading InSight Development Environment, which provides a suite of software tools for rapidly developing and debugging ZigBee PRO applications including Smart Energy and Home Automation. The InSight Development Environment includes the following new features:

- Support for IAR EWARM IDE - With this feature, Ember’s InSight AppBuilder will support the generation of project files to work with IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM v5.40. - This feature also allows developers to build ZigBee certifiable projects that can be directly read and built by IAR EWARM v5.40. - Enhanced out-of-box experience - When connected, users will be able to automatically detect development hardware and select the sample applications to put on the nodes in the development network.

Pricing and Availability

The EM35x Development Kits cost $2,500 USD at the base level and include a 30-day evaluation license for IAR EWARM v5.40. A version with a permanent IAR EWARM license is also available.

Customers in North America can order the kits on the Digi-Key Web site (www.digikey.com/scripts/dksearch/dksus.dll?Cat=3539644&vendor=636).

Customers outside North America should contact their regional distributor (www.ember.com/buy_distributors.html) for Ember products.

The kits will begin shipping later this month.

About Ember

Ember Corporation (www.ember.com) develops ZigBee wireless networking technology that enables companies involved in energy technologies — enertech — to help make buildings and homes smarter, consume less energy, operate more efficiently, and keep people comfortable and safe. Ember’s low-power wireless technology can be embedded into a wide variety of devices to be part of a self-organizing mesh network. Ember is headquartered in Boston and has its radio development center in Cambridge, England, and distributors worldwide. The company is a promoter and Board member of the ZigBee Alliance and its platform is the “Golden Suite” for 802.15.4/ZigBee interoperability testing.

Source: Ember Corporation

Ravi Sharma of Ember Corporation, +1-617-951-1236, ravi.sharma at ember.com; or Michelle Dillon of Beaupre & Co. Public Relations, +1-603-559-5835, mdillon at beaupre.com