The CC2500 is a low-cost 2.4 GHz transceiver designed for very low-power wireless applications. The circuit is intended for the 2400-2483.5 MHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) and SRD (Short Range Device) frequency band.

The RF transceiver is integrated with a highly configurable baseband modem. The modem supports various modulation formats and has a configurable data rate up to 500 kBaud.

CC2500 provides extensive hardware support for packet handling, data buffering, burst transmissions, clear channel assessment, link quality indication and wake-on-radio.

The main operating parameters and the 64-byte transmit/receive FIFOs of CC2500 can be controlled via an SPI interface. In a typical system, the CC2500 will be used together with a microcontroller and a few additional passive components.

• RF Performance
  • High sensitivity (-104 dBm at 2.4 kBaud, 1% packet error rate)
  • Low current consumption (13.3 mA in RX, 250 kBaud, input well above sensitivity limit)
  • Programmable output power up to +1 dBm
  • Excellent receiver selectivity and blocking performance
  • Programmable data rate from 1.2 to 500 kBaud
  • Frequency range: 2400 - 2483.5 MHz
• Analog Features
  • OOK, 2-FSK, GFSK, and MSK supported
  • Suitable for frequency hopping and multichannel systems due to a fast settling frequency synthesizer with 90 us settling time
  • Automatic Frequency Compensation (AFC) can be used to align the frequency synthesizer to the received centre frequency
  • Integrated analog temperature sensor
• Digital Features
  • Flexible support for packet oriented systems: On-chip support for sync word detection, address check, flexible packet length, and automatic CRC handling
  • Efficient SPI interface: All registers can be programmed with one "burst" transfer
  • Digital RSSI output
  • Programmable channel filter bandwidth
  • Programmable Carrier Sense (CS) indicator
  • Programmable Preamble Quality Indicator (PQI) for improved protection against false sync word detection in random noise
  • Support for automatic Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) before transmitting (for listen-before-talk systems)
  • Support for per-package Link Quality Indication (LQI)
  • Optional automatic whitening and dewhitening of data
• Low-Power Features
  • 400 nA SLEEP mode current consumption
  • Fast startup time: 240 us from SLEEP to RX or TX mode (measured on EM design)
  • Wake-on-radio functionality for automatic low-power RX polling
  • Separate 64-byte RX and TX data FIFOs (enables burst mode data transmission)
• General
  • Few external components: Complete onchip frequency synthesizer, no external filters or RF switch needed
  • Green package: RoHS compliant and no antimony or bromine
  • Small size (QLP 4x4 mm package, 20 pins)
  • Suited for systems compliant with EN 300 328 and EN 300 440 class 2 (Europe), FCC CFR47 Part 15 (US), and ARIB STDT66 (Japan)
  • Support for asynchronous and synchronous serial receive/transmit mode for backwards compatibility with existing radio communication protocols
• Applications
  • 2400-2483.5 MHz ISM/SRD band systems
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Wireless game controllers
  • Wireless audio
  • Wireless keyboard and mouse
  • RF enabled remote controls