RF Technology

RF Applications

mSemicon is very active in RF (radio frequency) product development. Whether it be GSM, Bluetooth, general ISM, LORA, or proprietary, mSemicon can develop the product for you.

GSM and later standards

The GSM network is the one used by mobile phones. It is available almost everywhere, but is relatively power hungry. It can handle large data transfers and is truly mobile. It is not the most economical, but it is sometimes the only choice.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a familiar standard to many. This local communication standard can often be economical to implement on a custom product, obviating the need for a physical connection.

Sigfox

A relatively new network available in many territories, and growing. This is suitable for applications that need to transfer very limited amounts of data, reliabily. Devices can be very low power, meaning that they can be deployed in the field for very long periods without the need to change batteries (years). Low cost.

NB-IoT

A new IoT network that uses the mobile phone network's infrastructure and therefore has the benefit of potentially great coverage when it will be more widely deployed.

ISM

The ISM band refers to the part of the RF spectrum reserved for industrial, scientific, medical applications, and is typically where many custom or proprietary solutions operate. It is used for less sophisticated applications, normally, especially where the two communicating nodes are part of the same system, for example a remote gate opener. One is not restricted to existing established protocols, and can therefore optimise the solution for the particular application involved.

ZigBee

If a mesh network, or even a point-to-point (under 100m) solution is what you need, ZigBee may be the answer. This protocol is low power, and is used in multipoint applications such as domestic water meters, and intended to be lower cost than solutions such as Bluetooth.

6LoWPAN

There are other mesh solutions too, such as 6LoWPAN, that are quite new and very powerful. mSemicon is working with this at the moment.

LoRa

LoRa is another low payload, low power, point-to-point transmission solution. It requires the use of a separate gateway. mSemicon has used this technology for communication within buildings.

_{Photograph by Coyotechnical (Max) on Pixabay}