ZeroG was formed in 2005 to develop low power RFICs. In June 2007, ZeroG closed $13 million in first round funding from Cisco, Greylock Partners and Morgenthaler. In October 2008, ZeroG closed $17 million in Series B financing led by Battery Ventures and including Morgenthaler Ventures and Greylock Partners. The company has more than 35 employees.

ZeroG believes a new paradigm of wireless connectivity is coming, the “4th Age of Wireless — the Internet of Things.” To capitalize on this vision, ZeroG is developing low-power Wi-Fi chips and argues that its design approach dramatically reduces the power of wireless chips, enabling a true Internet of Things.

ZeroG recently unveiled the ZG2100M “Wi-Fi I/O,” an easy-to-implement, low-power, low-system cost Wi-Fi solution. Providing Wi-Fi connectivity for nearly any electronic device, the Wi-Fi I/O consists of ZeroG’s ZG2100 single-chip Wi-Fi, pre-certified modules, and the Easy-Fi software suite.

ZeroG technology has been developed for integrating into the more than 7 billion microcontroller-based systems sold yearly that have limited processing power, few memory resources, and minimal or no operating systems, while requiring modest resources from the host system. By focusing on tight integration with MCU providers, their existing IP stacks and ecosystems, ZeroG allows a diverse set of customers, regardless of volume, to adopt Wi-Fi with very little effort.

The ZG2100 single-chip Wi-Fi transceiver is a single-chip solution features an on-chip MAC, power amplifier, baseband, and hardware acceleration for supporting WEP, WPA and WPA2. The device supports data rates up to 2 Mbps, and is optimized for low-duty cycle, low-power applications, featuring four different power modes, extremely low leakage, and a fast “wake-up” architecture.

The wireless architecture is optimized for applications with low duty cycles and low bandwidth. The chip automatically goes on standby between receive and transmit sessions, along with a “fast wake-up” call at the receipt of packet. Power-saving modes are optimized for long battery life. Battery life lasts as long as 10 years for “once-a-day-wake-up.”

A key component of Wi-Fi I/O is ZeroG’s Easy-Fi software, which includes a very small and easily ported driver with a footprint that uses as little as a few hundred bytes of RAM from a host microcontroller, and less than 10kB of ROM. The driver includes a comprehensive suite of commands that allow it to run easily in small or no-OS systems.

These features, coupled with a unique memory and system architecture, facilitate integration of the ZG2100 into nearly any system.

ZeroG is co-developing complete solutions with leading microcontroller suppliers. These solutions include certified modules, production-quality drivers, and integrated IP stacks. The first set of kits available are Microchip-based and feature dedicated “PICtail” hardware, an optimized driver with seamless integration into the MCHP stack, documentation and demo applications.

ZeroG sells the ZG2100 as part of the ZG2100M module combined with the Easy-Fi software. The ZG2100M is in the process of receiving certification from FCC, ETSI, Japan and Canadian regulatory bodies across a variety of antenna configurations. With ZeroG’s fully certified modules and Easy-Fi software suite, a simple SPI serial interface from a host microcontroller is all that is needed to add ZeroG Wi-Fi to nearly any product.

Development kits featuring the ZG2100M are available for Microchip PIC microcontrollers. The ZG2100M module is sampling now; production at the end of Q1; $16 @ 10Ku. The ZG2100 single-chip transceiver will be available as a standalone product in mid-2009, and will be priced less than $5 in million-unit quantities. The device is fabricated by TSMC on a low leakage 0.18u process.

G2 Micro is the most obvious direct competitor as it also offers a module solution targeting the same application arena. ZeroG argues that G2 integrates a processor, which is perceived as a threat by potential microcontroller partners. ZeroG believes its pricing, tight integration with MCU partners, and software that fits into embedded engineers’ development environment provide the company with a distinct advantage.

Target applications include smart energy, consumer electronics, home and building controls, portable medical devices, sensor networks, and more. ZeroG argues that most target customers don’t have RF expertise, and it’s not worth the effort to develop their own module for less than 200,000 units, which covers many applications in the “long tail.”

Tim Colleran, Interim CEO & VP of Marketing (most recently VP of the Consumer, Automotive and Broadcast business units at Altera)

Goran Andersson, VP of Sales, North America & Europe (previously VP of Sales for the Americas at IDT)

David Friedman, VP of Business Development (previously spent six years at Matrix Semiconductor, initially as product marketing manager and eventually overseeing European sales and mobile content markets)

Andrew Karanicolas, Ph.D., VP, Engineering (previously Design Director at True Circuits and held management and technical positions at Maxim, Level One, which was acquired by Intel, and Bell Labs)

Thomas Lee, Ph.D., Founder and Director of Advanced Development (concurrently a tenured Stanford professor. He co-founded Matrix Semiconductor, which was acquired by SanDisk in January 2006)

Mike Morrione, VP of Operations (previously VP of Operations at Tzero, Fairchild, GHz Tech, PMC Sierra, Micro Linear, National, QED, and Trident)

Mark Shen, VP of Sales, Asia (previously worked at ACER, AT&T, Rockwell, Lucent, Agere and RFMD)