Introduction - Texas Instruments Chipcon CC2420 User Manual

Introduction

The CC2420 is a single-chip, IEEE 802.15.4 compliant and ZigBee™ ready RF transceiver. It
provides a highly integrated, flexible low-cost solution for applications using the world wide
unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency band. The CC2420 ZigBee DK Development Kit is a natural
supplement to the already established Chipcon CC2420 kits, i.e. the CC2420DK
Development Kit and the CC2420DBK Demonstration Board Kit. The hardware is
representative of an actual application, and is well suited as a prototyping, evaluation and
demonstration platform targeting various ZigBee applications. With this kit a ZigBee Logical
device type mapped to the IEEE 802.15.4 Full Function and Reduced Function Devices (FFD
and RFD) using the CC2420 can be demonstrated. An FFD can take the role of a ZigBee
Coordinator, Router, or End Device depending on the ZigBee logical device type
configuration. An RFD can act as ZigBee End Device and cannot serve as a ZigBee
Coordinator or ZigBee Router.
The CC2420 ZigBee DK has the capability to demonstrate ZigBee low power capabilities.
The CC2420 ZigBee DK is bundled with the Figure 8 Wireless ZigBee stack for evaluation,
demonstration, prototyping and developing purposes of the Z-Stack features. The hardware
platform is based on the CC2420DB Demonstration Board. The hardware contains an
integrated PCB antenna, the IEEE 802.15.4 compliant RF transceiver CC2420 with
necessary support components, an Atmel Atmega128L AVR microcontroller, 32 kB external
RAM, and, as well as a joystick, buttons and LED's that can be used to demonstrate the
current ZigBee Home Lightning Profile. Please note that CC2420DB includes this memory
because it can be used for debugging purposes, to buffer and store data if desired. The 32kB
external RAM size is not a requirement nor necessary for a low cost ZigBee logical device.
The CC2420DB is also furnished with connectors where the internal signals on the PCB are
available for further sensor daughter boards addition to easy add additional profile hardware
when desired. The details of the CC2420DB features are described in the CC2420DBK User
Manual. Please refer to the references section of this document.
The CC2420 ZigBee DK provides, in addition to five CC2420DB's, a CC2400EB that together
with CC2420EM can utilize the capability of running Chipcon's Packet Sniffer with the new
ZigBee packet parser addition.
This User Manual describes how to use the CC2420 ZigBee DK Development Kit. The
Figure 8 Wireless Z-Stack, tools and documentation will be provided as a distribution
package available for download from the Chipcon ZigBee Developer Site after the purchase
of this kit. When purchased, customers will be provided with a user name and password to
access this site to download the Z-Stack End Customer distribution package. The Chipcon
ZigBee Developer site will be available in the beginning of October.
Please refer to the reference section of this document for links to Atmel's documentation on
how to use their tools.
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