1 Introduction

The CC2652R⁽¹⁾ device from Texas Instruments™ is the ideal System-on-Chip (SoC) for high-performance Zigbee applications, addressing many product specifications from a low-power standpoint. The CC2652R combines a powerful 48 MHz Arm®Cortex®-M4F CPU with up to 80KB of RAM and 352KB of on-chip flash. With a dedicated Radio Controller handling low-level RF protocol commands stored in ROM, it can handle complex network stacks ensuring ultra-low power and great flexibility.

In the world of IoT, battery life is tremendously valued by customers, cutting down on the bill of materials and battery replacement costs, while enabling easy maintenance and product convenience. Therefore, current consumption of devices inside a connected network must have their current consumption tightly controlled. The CC2652R is designed with the lowest power performance in sleep mode, active mode, and during sensor and data processing.

When range is an important consideration for an application, Texas Instruments offers the CC1352P⁽²⁾ device, which contains a +20-dBm integrated high-power amplifier with a best-in-class efficiency for long range applications. The CC1352P is a multiprotocol Sub-1 and 2.4-GHz with the same powerful system, offering the ability for a high-performance, long range Zigbee device.

This application report references examples from Z-Stack 3.5.0⁽³⁾, which is based on the Zigbee 3.0 profile. Z-Stack comes packaged as part of the SimpleLink CC13X2/CC26X2 SDK⁽⁴⁾, which is designed for simplified development within one environment using industry standard APIs, TI Drivers, and TI RTOS to provide a robust foundation for application development. The version used in this report's test is v3.30.

Section 2 describes the hardware and topology used to test a large network. Changes to the default Z-Stack configuration are explained in Section 3. The actual test procedure is provided in Section 4, along with packet error rate (PER) and latency results.