GreenPeak Technologies

Last updated

GreenPeak Technologies was an Utrecht, Netherlands-based fabless company developing semiconductor products and software for the IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee wireless market segment. Zigbee technology is used for Smart Home data communications and to facilitate the Internet of Things, the term used to refer to devices designed to be operated and managed by internet-enabled controllers and management systems.

Contents

GreenPeak Technologies
Company type Private
Industry Semiconductors
Founded2005
FounderCees Links [1]
Headquarters,
Number of locations
Belgium, France, Japan, Korea, United States, China, India
ProductsRF Silicon - Communication controller chips for wireless Smart Home applications & the Internet of Things
Number of employees
100
Website GreenPeak.com

Industry standards

Wireless sensor applications prosper best within the sphere of industry standards. Standards offer OEMs the freedom to purchase from a larger pool of suppliers and most importantly, standards allow devices from different vendors to interoperate, a feature which is paramount in applications ranging from building automation to industrial automation.

GreenPeak's development is based on open industry standards in addition to the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless network standard. GreenPeak is a member of the Global Semiconductor Alliance and supports the open global standards of the Zigbee Alliance. [2] [3]

Products

GreenPeak’s product offering contained communication controller chips for Zigbee Smart Home and IoT applications for IEEE 802.15.4. [4] [5] The product portfolio featured small size, ultra low-power communications chips, with integrated software, tools and reference designs [6] for seamless integration into residential and consumer electronics applications.

Acquisition by Qorvo

On 17 April 2016, it was announced that GreenPeak had agreed to be acquired by Qorvo. [7] [8] After the acquisition, GreenPeak would continue to function in the Netherlands, Belgium and Hong Kong as the "Low-power Wireless Systems" business unit in the Infrastructure and Defense Products (IDP) group of Qorvo. Cees Links, former CEO of GreenPeak Technologies, was announced to take over as the General Manager of the Wireless Connectivity business unit.

Related Research Articles

Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and other low-power low-bandwidth needs, designed for small scale projects which need wireless connection. Hence, Zigbee is a low-power, low-data-rate, and close proximity wireless ad hoc network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nordic Semiconductor</span> Norwegian multinational semiconductors manufacturer

Nordic Semiconductor ASA was founded in 1983 and is a Norwegian fabless technology company with its headquarters in Trondheim, Norway. The company specializes in designing ultra-low-power wireless communication semiconductors and supporting software for engineers developing and manufacturing Internet of Things (IoT) products.

The neuRFon project was a research program begun in 1999 at Motorola Labs to develop ad hoc wireless networking for wireless sensor network applications. The biological analogy was that, while individual neurons were not very useful, in a large network they became very powerful; the same was thought to hold true for simple, low power wireless devices. Much of the technology developed in the neuRFon program was placed in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and in the Zigbee specification; examples are the 2.4 GHz physical layer of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and significant portions of the Zigbee multi-hop routing protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z-Wave</span> Wireless standard for intelligent building networks

Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol used primarily for residential and commercial building automation. It is a mesh network using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device, allowing for wireless control of smart home devices, such as smart lights, security systems, thermostats, sensors, smart door locks, and garage door openers. The Z-Wave brand and technology are owned by Silicon Labs. Over 300 companies involved in this technology are gathered within the Z-Wave Alliance.

Qualcomm Atheros is a developer of semiconductor chips for network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. The company was founded under the name T-Span Systems in 1998 by experts in signal processing and VLSI design from Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and private industry. The company was renamed Atheros Communications in 2000 and it completed an initial public offering in February 2004, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol ATHR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daintree Networks</span> Building automation company

Daintree Networks, Inc. was a building automation company that provided wireless control systems for commercial and industrial buildings. Founded in 2003, Daintree was headquartered in Los Altos, California, with an R&D lab in Melbourne, Australia.

IEEE 802.15.4a was an amendment to IEEE 802.15.4-2006 specifying that additional physical layers (PHYs) be added to the original standard. It has been merged into and is superseded by IEEE 802.15.4-2011.

MiWi is a proprietary wireless protocol supporting peer-to-peer, star network connectivity. It was designed by Microchip Technology. MiWi uses small, low-power digital radios based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, and is designed for low-power, cost-constrained networks, such as industrial monitoring and control, home and building automation, remote control, wireless sensors, lighting control, and automated meter reading.

Duolog Technologies was an Irish-based company that developed electronic design automation tools that assist with the integration of complex System-on-Chip (SoC), ASIC and FPGA designs. In 2014, Duolog was acquired by ARM Holdings plc, a multinational semiconductor and software design company headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparison of 802.15.4 radio modules</span>

An 802.15.4 radio module is a small device used to communicate wirelessly with other devices according to the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol.

Ember was an American company based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, which is now owned by Silicon Labs. Ember had a radio development centre in Cambridge, England, and distributors worldwide. It developed Zigbee wireless networking technology that enabled companies involved in energy technologies to help make buildings and homes smarter, consume less energy, and operate more efficiently. The low-power wireless technology can be embedded into a wide variety of devices to be part of a self-organizing mesh network. All Ember products conform to IEEE 802.15.4-2003 standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Labs</span> Global technology company

Silicon Laboratories, Inc. is a fabless global technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, other silicon devices and software, which it sells to electronics design engineers and manufacturers in Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XBee</span> Motherboard

Digi XBee is the brand name of a popular family of form factor compatible wireless connectivity modules from Digi International. The first XBee modules were introduced under the MaxStream brand in 2005 and were based on the IEEE 802.15.4-2003 standard designed for point-to-point and star communications. Since the initial introduction, the XBee family has grown and a complete ecosystem of wireless modules, gateways, adapters and software has evolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index of home automation articles</span>

This is a list of home automation topics on Wikipedia. Home automation is the residential extension of building automation. It is automation of the home, housework or household activity. Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC, appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

Thread is an IPv6-based, low-power mesh networking technology for Internet of things (IoT) products. The Thread protocol specification is available at no cost; however, this requires agreement and continued adherence to an End-User License Agreement (EULA), which states that "Membership in Thread Group is necessary to implement, practice, and ship Thread technology and Thread Group specifications."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qorvo</span> American technology company

Qorvo is an American multinational company specializing in products for wireless, wired, and power markets. The company was created by the merger of TriQuint Semiconductor and RF Micro Devices, which was announced in 2014 and completed on January 1, 2015. It trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol QRVO. The headquarters for the company originally were in both Hillsboro, Oregon, and Greensboro, North Carolina, but in mid-2016 the company began referring to its North Carolina site as its exclusive headquarters.

Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) is an American smart home technology provider and manufacturer of universal remote controls, IoT devices such as voice-enabled smart home hubs, smart thermostats, home sensors; as well as a white label digital assistant platform optimized for smart home applications, and other software and cloud services for device discovery, fingerprinting and interoperability. The company designs, develops, manufactures and ships products both under the "One For All" brand and as an OEM for other companies in the audio video, subscription broadcasting, connected home, tablet and smart phone markets. In 2015, it expanded its product and technology platform to include home automation, intelligent sensing and security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cees Links</span> Dutch entrepreneur

Cees Links is a Dutch entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of GreenPeak Technologies (2004), a fabless semiconductor company for Smart Home and Internet of things (IoT) applications, in 2016 sold to Qorvo Inc., a USA-based semi-conductor/technology company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Develco Products</span> Danish wireless technology producer

Develco Products is a B2B wireless technology producer, headquartered in Aarhus, Denmark. The company was established in 2007 and develops white label devices for B2C solution providers and has over 3,500,000 devices deployed worldwide... Their main business areas are home care, security, and smart energy. They are a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance as their main technological expertise lies in Zigbee-based devices that communicate through a mesh network. The company claims their most popular product is the Squid.link gateway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connectivity Standards Alliance</span> Group that maintains and publishes the Zigbee and Matter standard

The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), formerly the Zigbee Alliance, is a group of companies that maintain and publish the Zigbee and Matter standard, along with several others.

References

  1. Cees Links (recorded pre-takeover) interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network
  2. "Global Zigbee Enabled Devices Market 2016-2020 – MilTech". www.military-technologies.net. Retrieved 2018-02-15.
  3. "Members – Global Semiconductor Alliance". Global Semiconductor Alliance. Retrieved 2018-02-15.
  4. "GreenPeak releases Lime CM-08 wireless module". automation.com. 2007-10-03. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  5. "GreenPeak chips are networking-protocol agnostic for wireless smart-home communications". ledsmagazine.com. 2017-07-24. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  6. "GreenPeak Offers RF4CE-Compliant Software and Reference Designs". fierceelectronics.com. 2009-03-04. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  7. "Qorvo to Acquire IoT Solution Provider GreenPeak Technologies - Qorvo". www.qorvo.com. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  8. Clarke, Peter. "Qorvo Buys Wireless IoT Specialist Greenpeak". EETimes.