Cypress’s CyFi™ Low-Power RF Solution Takes Winemaking Wireless

At Clos de la Tech, the New World’s finest Pinot Noir is made. A video shows that Cypress’s new “wireless wire” is a key ingredient.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: CY) today released a new video documenting the use of its revolutionary low-power wireless solution, CyFi™ Low-Power RF. The video was filmed at Clos de la Tech, the boutique pinot noir winery founded by CEO T.J. Rodgers and his wife Valeta.

In the video [http://www.cypress.com/go/wineryvideo] T.J" Rodgers deploys a CyFi Wireless Sensor Network Solution and turns a complex and exacting industrial process into one that can be monitored from a single personal computer. Temperature, humidity, light levels, and other environmental conditions are monitored at points across the winery. These sensor readings are then transmitted in real time to a USB receiver, which displays running charts in any configuration the user requires.

“This is a genuine wireless wire,” said T.J. Rodgers. “And that’s really something because most of the wireless technologies are either too slow, error-prone, complex, expensive, or too unreliable to be trusted with Clos de la Tech. Obviously factory operators feel the same way.”

Because CyFi uses the revolutionary Star Network protocol stack, which is a fraction of the size and complexity of competitors yet far more robust, it has intelligent error correction and can support hundreds of individual nodes simultaneously. With battery life measured in years and range measured in hundreds of meters, CyFi has the ability to replace many remote sensors in an industrial environment, creating operating efficiencies never before thought possible.

Since 1997, Clos de la Tech, with three Northern California vineyards, has produced boutique pinot noir wine. Each bottle has an advanced silicon memory chip embedded in the wax sealing. The winery adheres to old-world methods of vinification, right down to natural foot-crushing and destemming processes, and aims to produce the finest New World pinot noir.

At Clos de la Tech, the CY3271 PSoC FirstTouch Start Kit with CyFi Low-Power RF was used to remotely monitor pinot noir grapes in ’cold soak’; and the optional CY3271-EXP1, a complete weather station that attaches as a module to the starter kit, to measure conditions in the barrel room.

“We’ve been working for two hours,” Rodgers says at the end of the video. “I had exactly 30 minutes of training…and I now have real-time statistical measuring, and I’ve wired my winery.”

See CyFi in Action at Clos de la Tech
http://www.cypress.com/go/wineryvideo

About CyFi Low-Power RF
The CyFi solution from Cypress Semiconductor Corp" uses DSSS modulation to encode data and allow the CyFi receiver to recover the signal when faced with interference. The solution intelligently selects a clear channel from the 80 narrow, 1 MHz channels at the transceiver’s disposal. No other 2.4-GHz solution combines DSSS modulation with this level of frequency agility. The solution can also increase power amplification to overcome interference. This dynamic adaptability to the operating environment also lends to optimizing power consumption. In noise-free environments the CyFi solution communicates at 1 Mbps to minimize transfer time and leverage the ultra-low-power sleep current of 0.8 uA. The solution automatically drops to a slower, more robust 250 kbps data rate when it detects interference, and it can increase power amplification to reduce retransmissions and return to sleep-mode faster.

The CyFi protocol stack has the smallest memory footprint of any comparable wireless solution at 8 KB in Flash for a hub and 5 KB for a node, leaving room for additional system functionality in the controlling PSoC device. Designers can use the compact protocol stack to build a complete wireless star-topology network with fewer peripherals and greater functionality. The protocol stack has a network capacity of up to 250 nodes per hub, all with asynchronous, bi-directional communication.

About Cypress
Cypress delivers high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable solutions that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and exceptional system value. Cypress offerings include the PSoC® Programmable System-on-Chip™, USB controllers, general-purpose programmable clocks and memories. Cypress also offers wired and wireless connectivity solutions ranging from its WirelessUSB™ radio system-on-chip, to West Bridge® and EZ-USB® FX2LP controllers that enhance connectivity and performance in multimedia handsets. Cypress serves numerous markets including consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, and industrial. Cypress trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CY. Visit Cypress online at www.cypress.com.

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