LONDON - Invensys Controls and Cratlon Ltd. announced a joint development agreement to embed the Invensys wireless software stack and application protocols into Cratlon's single-chip wireless sensor family. Temperature-to-RF and humidity-to-RF sensor chips will be sampled in 2006, with light sensors and certain flammable gas sensors following in 2007.

Geoff Mulligan, director of technology, Invensys Controls Advanced Building Systems, commented, "Invensys has over 40 points of presence in the average U.S. home, including thermostats, heaters, and smoke detectors. Safety legislation, reduced installation costs, and energy savings are very strong market drivers to interconnect all these points of presence. Cratlon's sensor-to-RF single-chip integration path is precisely what is needed in the cost-conscious markets of domestic and industrial building controls to connect these wirelessly. We are delighted to support and help accelerate their plans."

Tim Cummins, chief executive officer of Cratlon, added: "We believe we are the first company in Europe to deploy real-world operational 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks for building monitoring and control. Our roadmap is to shrink the functionality of each wireless sensor node to a single CMOS IC, employing our patent-pending on-chip sensors and 18-bit analog-to-digital converters. The wireless sensor market is predicted to reach $5 billion by 2010, driven by standards such as ZigBee and IPv6, and we are delighted to have product definition and application software support from Invensys."