ZigBee Status and Prospect Analysis

From the establishment of ZigBee Alliance in 2002 to the launch of the more mature ZigBee 2006 standard protocol in 2006, ZigBee has gone through many springs and autumns. When Zigbee first appeared a few years ago, its supporters had envisioned this based on IEEE 802.15. 4 Specification wireless technology has a potentially huge market. In low-throughput, short-range communication applications, cost is the number one trump card, while specifications such as Bluetooth, 802.11x, and 802.15.3 are too powerful. But for some Zigbee supporters, the original vision did not become a reality.

Any communication protocol standard is inseparable from the support and promotion of upstream chip manufacturers. As a low power consumption; ZigBee standard for low-speed wireless short-distance transmission applications is naturally inseparable from the support of chip manufacturers. From the perspective of the entire ZigBee industry alliance, there are five major upstream chip suppliers, namely Jennic; TI (Chipcon); Frescale; Ember; Ateml. "Chip" is actually just a chip that conforms to the physical layer standard. It is only responsible for modulating and demodulating wireless communication signals, so it must be combined with a single-chip computer to complete the reception and transmission of data and the realization of the protocol. In order to further reduce the cost of OEM manufacturers, some upstream chip manufacturers have launched a single Soc solution that integrates physical layer transceiver and single-chip functions on a single chip. The single Soc integrates the radio frequency part and the single-chip part together. An additional single-chip microcomputer has the advantages of cost saving and simplified circuit design. And basically every chip company provides ZigBee protocol stack based on its own chip for free, which greatly accelerates the application and popularization of ZigBee.

With the gradual improvement of the ZigBee protocol standard and the IoT environment, the entire ZigBee industry can be said to be developing toward a more and more prosperous trend. With the continuous efforts of the five major upstream chip manufacturers and the ZigBee alliance, based on ZigBee applications The emergence is endless, and it is in line with our actual life, making people's lives more intelligent and beautiful! The global sales revenue of ZigBee chips is increasing year by year. ABI statistics and forecasts the global chip sales revenue from 2005 to 2012, as shown in Figure 1 below:

The application of ZigBee technology is very extensive. At this stage, the focus is on commercial building automation, home automation control (new installation) and instrument control. Commercial buildings can use ZigBee to complete automatic control. Administrators can effectively manage various switch control systems such as air conditioners, lights, fire induction systems, etc., which can save energy costs and reduce management manpower. For consumers, if they have a ZigBee system at home, they can conveniently monitor the overall operation of the home, effectively control the use of electricity, water, and gas. They can also have security functions. For example, wireless sensors can be installed at home to monitor various In different situations, once an abnormality is detected, a warning is automatically issued. ZigBee in the instrument control market With the international instrument giant China Huali Instrument Group; South Korea NURI Telecom, etc. have begun to introduce ZigBee technology instrument control system, this market began to receive attention. The ZigBee instrument control system is quite suitable for places with high manpower, vast territory, or poor quality of meter readers, and the accuracy of meter reading is not high, or it is difficult for meter readers to enter water, electricity, and gas meters. With such a background, ZigBee instrument control market has a certain demand.

Although ZigBee applications are increasing, and chip shipments are increasing year after year, in general, the ZigBee market is still in the initial stage of exploration and has not really taken off. The main manifestation is that the applicable terminal commercial products are still in R & D. At this stage, there are few real listings, and there are few typical application directions and fields, and there are many peer-to-peer applications. There are few mesh network applications that reflect the advantages of ZigBee, and there is a lack of large-scale ZigBee networking applications.

Although ZigBee is advancing through difficulties, the future ZigBee products are still worth our expectations. From the perspective of technical standards, ZigBee will closely meet the development of the concept of the Internet of Things in the future, and strive to play a role in the interface of the transport layer. In ZigBee Under the impetus of the alliance, ZigBee technology will develop towards the development of SoC (system on chip), more specifications, combined with IPV6, cheaper, more power-saving and faster. From the perspective of application fields and directions, ZigBee has a full opportunity to develop applications in the current smart phone field. At present, short-distance data transmission in the smart phone field is mainly achieved through Bluetooth, but compared to Bluetooth, ZigBee The low power consumption is more advantageous. Two No. 5 dry batteries can support one node to work for 6 ~ 24 months or even longer. Compared with Bluetooth, it can work for several weeks, and WiFi can only work for several hours. At the same time, the positioning of valuable equipment is also a large potential application area that is worthy of attention in the future. It will increase its application in large parking lots and mine personnel positioning.

As the nearest Chinese market to us, the application of ZigBee products may take longer to erupt. The wireless network market in China is not yet mature, and the participation of local manufacturers is still very limited. In the future, ZigBee industry people will increase the wireless automatic meter reading system. , Industrial applications such as automotive wireless, and high-end market applications such as portable devices.

In summary, as an emerging short-range wireless communication technology, ZigBee products will come to us quickly in various ways and become an indispensable part of human work and life.