Maxim Integrated’s ZON M3 single-phase electricity meter (via Maxim)
Virtually gone are the days of the analog electric meter with the massive rotating dial that keeps tabs on how much ‘juice’ the house is using. New, efficient digital smarty readers are slowly replacing those bulky monstrosities and are capable of sending data wirelessly back to the main offices of the power companies using them. In an effort to squeeze every penny from their customers, power companies are increasingly turning to e-reader manufacturers, which offer digital technology that is more efficient at measuring power consumption. To help those utility companies strengthen their stranglehold over the masses, Maxim Integrated has released their new ZON M3 single-phase low-cost, highly accurate SoC for e-readers and solid-state systems. The company’s new device is equipped with four 24-bit ADCs for 4-channel data acquisition down to an amazing +/-0.1% accuracy over a ratio of 5000:1 in dynamic range. The ZON M3 sports a 32-bit onboard metrology-compute engine to process all the data it collects that is accessed over an IR communications interface. Actually, to accommodate most utility companies, the SoC is equipped with multiple interfaces, including SPI, I2C, and 4 USART ports for parallel and serial connections. It also comes packed with a host of hardware to maintain its data-gathering efficiency, such as an RTC equipped with a digital temperature sensor for electrical compensation. Data is stored on the device’s onboard Flash and RAM memory modules, which can be accessed through the myriad of options mentioned above. The ZON M3 is available now in a 100-pin LQFP package, starting at $2.81 for 1000 e-readers and up, however it is not yet known which power companies have or will acquire the devices in the near future.
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