NXP launches ARM based energy monitoring chip
1 min read
Anticipating the emergence of a new market for energy monitoring devices, NXP has launched the EM773, an ARM based device designed specifically for non billing applications.
The EM773 is said to make it easy for system designers to integrate energy metering functionality into almost any type of device and to make information on electricity consumption more accessible to end users. Applications are expected to range from smart plugs and green consumer electronics to data centres.
Rolf Hertel, NXP's director of smart metering, said: "The EM773 is 'metrology made easy' – it makes the design of non billing metering applications accessible to designers without a deep background in metrology. This part is aimed at companies that don't know about metrology and at applications where there is no need for billing accuracy, but where an indication is needed of power consumption."
Featuring a metrology engine with automatic single phase, power and energy measurement, the EM773 also feature an ARM Cortex-M0 processor. With this, the EM773 can support complex communication tasks such as running a feature-rich wireless m-bus stack.
The metrology engine calculates active power in Watts with an accuracy 1%. It also calculates reactive power, apparent power, the power factor ratio, and total harmonic distortion.
Alongside the Cortex-M0, the device has 32kbyte of flash and 8kbyte of sram. Wireless communication is via m-bus which Hertel said is 'favoured' in Europe.
NXP is working with early adopters and anticipates products featuring the EM773 to appear early in 2011.
