User:Ellyschietse/GreenPeak

Company
GreenPeak Technologies is a fabless semiconductor company, offering ultra low power wireless and battery-free data communication technologies for consumer electronics and sense and control applications.

GreenPeak was formed in June 2007 through the merger of Dutch company Xanadu Wireless and the Belgian company Ubiwave. Both companies focused on extreme low power sensor networks and their strong synergy resulted in the eventual merge. In July 2007, the company was launched as GreenPeak Technologies.

The company offers ultra low power wireless communication controller chips and modules with energy harvesting ready interfaces, using ultra low power mesh protocol, compliant to industry standards (IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee). GreenPeak offers its wireless products and technology to leading OEMs for integration with their applications.

GreenPeak is based in Utrecht (Netherlands) and has offices in Zele (Belgium), Japan, Korea and the United States. The company focuses on the world market and distributes its products in the United States, Europe and Asia.

GreenPeak is privately owned and backed by venture capitalists: Gimv (Belgium), DFJ Esprit (UK), Robert Bosch Venture Capital (Germany), Motorola Ventures (USA) and Allegro Investment Fund(Belgium).

GreenPeak was selected by the World Economic Forum as a 2009 Technology Pioneer, in the “energy” category, for its accomplishments as an innovator of the highest caliber, involved in the development of life-changing technology innovation and with the potential for long-term impact on business and society.

Technology
Battery-less operation represents a real market need that will enable large scale adoption of wireless sense and control networks. However, in the current situation, providers solve only a part of the problem: they provide wireless solutions for eliminating cabling to enable a quick installation. The power consumption of wireless communications creates a maintenance problem since batteries need regular replacement. Both problems (installation AND maintenance) need to be solved and GreenPeak has developed its technology to provide an answer to both requirement for the implementation of truly wireless sensor networks.

The Emerald GP500C chip is a standards compliant communications controller that incorporates a transceiver with integrated communications layer and an on-chip energy manager. The GP500C is an “autonomous transceiver” able to drive and control the data communication instead of being driven by a microcontroller. The chip only consumes a fraction (10-25%) of the energy of traditional microcontroller based designs by using a lower peak current, an ultra low leakage current, and very short transmission times via just-in-time transmission scheduling. By reducing energy consumption, this unique architectural concept enables end nodes to run on energy harvesting devices and to be truly wireless, free of power cords and free of batteries.

Industry standards
Wireless sensor applications prosper best within the sphere of industry standards. Standards offer OEMs the freedom to purchase from a larger pool of suppliers and most importantly, standards allow devices from different vendors to interoperate, a feature which is paramount in applications ranging from building automation to industrial automation.

GreenPeak's development is based on open industry standards and based on the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless network standard and supports the open global standards of the ZigBee Alliance

ZigBee RF4CE (Radio Frequency For Consumer Electronics) is defined by the ZigBee Alliance and is the standard for the communication protocol for radio frequency-based remote controls for audio/video consumer electronics.

The ZigBee RF4CE protocol provides a multi-vendor interoperable remote control solution for consumer electronics that promises an easy to use, robust and low-cost communication network for two-way wireless connectivity for home entertainment and automation applications requiring simple device-to-device control communication that do not require the full-featured mesh networking capabilities offered by the other ZigBee standards.

The ZigBee RF4CE specification is based on IEEE 802.15.4 MAC/PHY radio technology in the wireless 2.4 GHz unlicensed frequency band and enables worldwide operation, low power consumption and instantaneous response time.

In comparison to traditional IR infrared remote controls, RF radio frequency remotes are faster, more reliable and provide a greater range. RF also removes the line-of-sight barrier of today’s IR remotes. The additional benefits of ZigBee RF4CE include richer communication, increased reliability and interoperability between vendors.

GreenPeak was one of the first ZigBee members to obtain RF4CE certification.