Alliances
Freescale will hold a seat on the ZigBee board of directors along with Ember, Honeywell, Invensys, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Philips and Samsung. Additional new member companies include Analog Devices and Silicon Laboratories. The alliance aims to make ZigBee the leading wireless connectivity technology for monitoring, sensing and control applications in residential and commercial environments.
Figure 8 Wireless' ZigBee protocol software is to be integrated with Atmel's 802.15.4 compliant Z-Link chip set. The ZigBee wireless communications standard aims at cost effective, wireless, low data rate products. Atmel's Z-Link solution now includes Atmel's 868/902-928 MHz DSSS transceiver, a ZigBee-customized AVR microcontroller, 802.15.4 firmware, reference designs and the Figure 8 Z-Stack ZigBee software and related development tools.
Tim Kubitschek, Atmel's Wireless Business marketing manager, comments: "Atmel's optimised chip set with Figure 8's proven firmware and development tools create a compelling total solution for OEM customers in the building automation, home control, industrial control, healthcare and consumer electronics markets."
ASSET InterTech claims that its ScanWorks will be the first test system to support Intel's next-generation test technology, Intel IBIST (Interconnect Built-In Self Test). Intel plans to embed Intel IBIST capabilities into many of its future chips to lower the overall cost of test and more effectively validate high-speed buses. ASSET worked with Intel to produce the system. ASSET has particular expertise in boundary-scan (IEEE 1149.1/JTAG) test technology.
ASSET's Intel IBIST capabilities for its ScanWorks test environment consists of software test controllers to validate high-speed buses such as PCI Express (PCIe) and others, as well as fault diagnostic tools. ScanWorks with IBIST tools is currently in beta test at Intel, where it is validating the implementation of IBIST in Intel chips and platforms. General availability of Intel IBIST tools in ScanWorks has been scheduled for Q1 2005.
