Reduce system costs and improve reliability in e-meter designs with new Smart Meter SoC from Texas Instruments

AMSTERDAM, Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Leveraging its proven expertise and leadership in the smart grid market, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN) today announced it is now sampling a fully integrated and optimized Smart Meter System on Chip (SoC) for smart electrical meter (e-meter) designs. The integration of metrology, application and communication functions in one single chip allows developers to simplify designs, increase flexibility and reduce system costs for smart e-metering applications. By eliminating the need for additional discrete components and redundant interfaces, the integration increases the reliability of smart e-meter designs. The new Smart Meter SoC provides developers with the ultimate level of integration, complements TI's complete portfolio for smart grid e-meter designs and now allows customers to scale their smart e-metering designs from several discrete components to the new integrated solution.

The new Smart Meter SoC is a fully integrated solution combining three independent engines. The metrology engine delivers 0.5 percent meter class accuracy and includes support for one-phase or three-phase meters. The independent, industry-standard ARM^® Cortex™-M3 core allows ease of development for meter management firmware (DLMS/COSEM, advanced metrology, application profiles, network stack) and security with memory up to 1MB Flash. An independent, flexible communication engine includes support of multiple standards for power line communication (PLC) and radio frequency (RF) communications to allow developers to design products capable of communicating with wide area network (WAN) and home area network (HAN) domains and enabled devices. For more information on the Smart Meter SoC, visit www.ti.com/smartmeter-pr-lp

Features and benefits of TI's Smart Meter SoC:

• Certified metrology code is fully independent from the application code, allowing developers to make easy software upgrades and maintenance.
• Communications engine has sufficient memory for field upgrades, which reduces system costs by eliminating the need for external memory.
• Supports TI's plcSUITE™ software for all narrowband PLC standards including G1, G3, PRIME, IEEE P1901.2, ITU – G.9903 and G.9904: a single platform for global markets reduces meter development cost and speeds time to market.
• Includes multiple communication interfaces to easily connect external components like TI's RF transceivers to bridge WAN and HAN on one single chip (sub-1GHz or 2.4GHz).
• Encryption table and memory protection enable developers to include a security implementation on their smart e-meter products.
• Expandable platform to support future smart e-meter features sets because of external memory interface.
• Flexible clock scheme on separate engines allows adaption of processing power and power consumption to application requirements.
• Plugs into TI's new Smart Meter Board (SMB) 3.0 to support advanced features and near field communication (NFC), sub-1GHz, ZigBee^® and Wi-Fi connectivity options.
• Supports the following TI smart grid software: metrology libraries or metroSUITE™ compliant with EN 50470-1/3, IEC62053-21/22/23, ANSIC12.1/10/20 for one-phase and three-phase meters; plcSUITE™; RF communication in sub-1GHz bands (including 802.15.4g); ZigBee Smart Energy Profile (SEP) 1.x and SEP2.0 running on the Cortex-M3 core; prepayment MIFARE™, NFC and encryption for design ease and flexibility

Pricing and Availability

The Smart Meter SoC is available immediately for sampling. Production quantities are expected in 3Q 2013. Contact a TI representative for samples and pricing information.

Visit TI @ Metering Europe 2012

Texas Instruments will be showcasing the Smart Meter SoC at the Metering Europe 2012 Expo in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 9-11. Stop by booth #G30 to see other TI smart grid demonstrations, solutions and meet our team of TI smart grid experts at Metering Europe 2012.

TI's smart grid solutions

With millions of energy meter ICs shipped over the past decade, TI is the global systems provider for innovative, secure, economical and future-proof solutions for the worldwide smart grid. TI offers the industry's broadest smart grid portfolio of metrology expertise, application processors, communication systems, wireless connectivity and analog components in readily available silicon, with advanced software, tools and support for compliant solutions in grid infrastructure, utility metering and home or building automation. Learn more at www.ti.com/smartgrid.

Find out more about TI's Smart Grid solutions

• TI's Smart Grid solutions: www.ti.com/smartgrid
• Additional Smart Grid SoC information: www.ti.com/smartmeter-pr-lp
• TI's Smart Metering solutions: www.ti.com/smartmeter
• TI eStore: www.estore.ti.com
• Smart Grid E2E community: www.ti.com/smartgride2e

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments semiconductor innovations help 90,000 customers unlock the possibilities of the world as it could be – smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more fun.  Our commitment to building a better future is ingrained in everything we do – from the responsible manufacturing of our semiconductors, to caring for our employees, to giving back inside our communities.  This is just the beginning of our story.  Learn more at www.ti.com.

Trademarks

plcSUITE and metroSUITE are trademarks of Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). All registered other trademarks and other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

SOURCE Texas Instruments Incorporated