Single-chip RF transceiver for wireless ZigBee and IoT connectivity

Zilog’s MG2420 is a low-power 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee compliant radio transceiver. Its operation frequency covers an ISM band of 2.4–2.48GHz. In addition to the standard data rate specified in IEEE802.15.4, the MG2420 provides enhanced multiple data rates with channel coding (1-3Mbps). This transceiver can be controlled by an external microcontroller and its operations configured through a high speed Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). The MG2420 has ultra-low power consumption, 15.4mA in the receiver (Rx) mode and 16.1mA in the transmitter (Tx) mode with 0 dBm output power. The MG2420’s high data rate utilisation (3Mbps) helps minimise transmission and reception time, leading to further reduction in power consumption.

When developing various types of systems, the engineering community often looks for an effective, well-designed RF transceiver, which provides the flexibility vital for the design. Zilog’s MG2420, a single-chip RF transceiver in a compact 4x4x0.85mm package, meets this requirement. It includes an RF front-end, VCO, PLL, digital block including baseband modem, MAC, power management, and a high speed SPI.

The MG2420 core operates at 1.2V, and its I/O pin voltages can range from 1.8-3.6V. There are several on-chip voltage regulators to separately power the analog and digital blocks. The current consumption is just under one microamp in the power saving 'Deep Sleep' mode. Also, no external T/R switch and filter are needed since the bidirectional differential RF pins are used. Other key features include Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), MSK (O-QPSK) modulation, digital RSSI output, two 256-byte FIFOs, AES-128 engine, and automatic ACK transmission.

“The MG2420 displays excellent interference rejection. It can receive a desired signal even when there is interference from ZigBee or other communication devices such as wi-fi or bluetooth. It also has a longer communication range based on high transmit power up to +9dBm and high sensitivity of –97 dBm at 250Kbps,” remarked Steve Darrough, Zilog’s VP of Marketing. “Only a few external components like RF matching network, crystal, bias resistor, and antenna, are necessary to achieve an optimised lower cost solution.”

This transceiver from Zilog is well suited for such applications as home automation and security, automatic meter reading, factory automation and motor control, remote keyless entry with acknowledgement, low power telemetry, toys and gaming peripherals, remote controller for consumer electronics, audio/video, and medical devices.