AMICCOM Electronics Corporation (AMICCOM) announced a new generation of ultra-low-receiving current Sub-GHz RF transceivers, named A7149. The A7149's RF core follows the A7139's RF with a low receiving current, the A7149 operates with only half the current consumption compared to the A7139 when receiving and transmitting at maximum power. In addition, A7149 greatly reduces the bill of material (BOM). The operation mode of A7149 is similar to A7139, the external MCU can control the RF mode through the SPI interface and access the built-in FIFO. The supported data rate is 2Kbps ~ 250Kbps. The modulation scheme can be FSK and GFSK. A7149 supports license-free ISM Band applications below 1GHz, such as the 868MHz band used in Europe, the 433.92MHz used in Europe, America, and Asia, and the 915MHz allowed in the United States and Taiwan.
The biggest advantage of A7149 is its excellent RF characteristics. In the 433MHz frequency band, A7149 has high sensitivity (-107.5dBm @ 100Kbps), low receiving current (1.65mA), and maximum +21dBm PA output (current 81mA). These specifications make it very suitable for low-power long-distance applications.
In addition to long-distance transmission capabilities, the built-in RSSI of the A7149 can help software engineers detect clean channels for transmitting. The chip's internal Auto Calibration mechanism is used to overcome the variation of the semiconductor process and can work stably in various environments. AFC function can avoid the sensitivity degradation caused by RF frequency offset.
There are many applications suitable for A7149, such as AMR -- wireless automatic meter reading (wireless heat meters, gas meters, etc.), long-distance two-way car alarms, industrial controllers, energy management for smart buildings, home automation, smart home, and security alarms. Especially it's suitable for applications that are powered by batteries and require a long life cycle. About power management, A7149 supports Deep sleep mode, Sleep, Idle mode, and WOR (Wake On RX), which supports periodic Sleep to RX mode to listen to incoming packets without MCU interaction to extend battery lifetime. Deep Sleep mode switches off all circuitry except SPI (wake-up purpose) with only 40nA consumption. Overall, A7149 is very easy to use to simplify system development and cost.
Supply and packaging:
A7149 is available in a QFN5x5 32L package and is now available from AMICCOM and its authorized distributors. Welcome to request IC samples and development kits and start development work.