Microchip Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHP), a leading provider of microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog and Flash-IP solutions, today announced an addition to its LoRa® technology product line. The new RN2903 wireless modem works with North American Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWAN) and is FCC certified for use in the 915 MHz band. The RN2903 modem is designed to be an efficient way to add long-range LoRaWAN™ network capability to any embedded design by integrating a proven LoRaWAN protocol stack running on a low-power PIC® microcontroller, along with the LoRa radio and embedded antenna matching circuit.
Driven by the LoRa Alliance, LoRa technology is able to achieve a range of up to 10 miles and 10-year battery life. The technology targets low data rates and low-duty-cycle applications such as energy metering, location tracking, utility infrastructure monitoring and control, smart city and agriculture. Although predominantly used for the uplink of sensor data, bidirectional communications allow real-time acknowledgement of mission-critical data and downlink control of remote actuator nodes.
“LoRaWAN is already the dominant LPWAN technology choice in Europe, with numerous private and public network deployments,” said Steve Caldwell, vice president of Microchip’s Wireless Solutions Group. “Until today, the rollout of LoRaWAN in the USA has been hampered only by the lack of credible end-node solutions – which the cost-optimized RN2903 from Microchip solves. Microchip was the first to pass LoRa Alliance certification and we plan to continue to be an innovator in this space and a proud member of the LoRa Alliance.”
The RN2903 is designed to be easy to adopt, which minimizes research and development investment and speeds time to market. The simple ASCII-over-UART interface can be controlled by any embedded system, even down to a tiny, eight-pin PIC12 MCU, and the embedded antenna matching circuits and FCC modular certification require minimal radio expertise.
