The CC2420 with external PA well-suited for ZigBee nodes

16 May 2007 Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT

The CC2420 from Chipcon is a true single-chip 2,4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 compliant RF transceiver designed for low-power and low-voltage wireless applications. The CC2420 includes a digital direct sequence spread spectrum baseband modem providing a spreading gain of 9 dB and an effective data rate of 250 Kbps.

The CC2420 with external power amplifier (PA) solution (Figure 1) has been developed to comply with the IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee standards' requirements as well as worldwide regulatory requirements. Compliance has been tested against regulations covered by ETSI EN 300 328 (Europe) and FCC CFR47 Part 15 (US). The CC2420 with external PA has been developed with a form factor and connectors suitable to be plug-in compatible with the CC2400EB for ease of testing with SmartRF Studio. A discrete transistor has been used as the PA.

The CC2420 with external PA has a nominal output of 10 dBm and a current consumption of 27-34 mA across temperature at 3,3 V making it highly suitable for battery-operated nodes. The range measured outside (line-of-sight) extends as far as 580 metres.

Overview

The principal overview of the CC2420 with external PA design is shown in Figure 2. The power amplifier network consists of two 2/1 switches separating the TX and RX branches, a discrete transistor amplifier long with a low-pass filter in the TX branch and control logic and bias network. The signal from the TXRX_SWITCH pin is level shifted and buffered. The level in TX is 1,8 V and 0 V in all other modes. The GaAs FET switches used assures low RX current consumption.

Due to the system's low power consumption (it is actually lower than industry standard solutions at 0 dBm) this solution is highly suitable for IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee nodes.

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