News > New AMI project

February, 19th 2008

Advanced Digital Design S.A. (ADD) is a fabless company focused on providing System on Chip (SoC) solutions including microprocessors and communications capability. ADD products are oriented to mass market applications such as AMI or home and industrial automation.

IBERDROLA is one of the principal private energetic groups in the World, present in almost 40 countries and 4 continents.

IBERDROLA has been working extensively in the definition and testing of a new open, public and non-proprietary telecom architecture to support not only smart metering functionality but also to progress towards the Electricity Networks of the Future. IBERDROLA thus leverages its extensive experience in the use of low and medium voltage networks as a telecommunication media.

New smart meters must be able to communicate securely and reliably to a central location, as well as to execute the commands and controls received. And all this becomes a daunting task, when the number of meters escalates to millions of units, and when some functionality associated with smartgrids may require real-time communications. In this new context, the critical issue is telecommunications.

This is why IBERDROLA has gathered the relevant national and international industry players in the areas of metering, telecommunications, and silicon manufacturing to define, test and develop an open, public and standard AMI (Automatic Meter Infrastructure), into what is called PRIME project (Powerline Related Intelligent Metering Evolution). Current industrial PRIME partners are Advanced Digital Design, Current Technologies, Landis&Gyr, STMicroelectronics, Usyscom and ZIV. A large number of European utilities have already expressed their interest in joining the project.

Fully compliant with EN CENELEC 50065 and in band A, whose use is restricted to distribution network operators, in 2007 IBERDROLA performed several tests in different locations of its electricity network, with outstanding results. The success of using OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), a technology widely used in virtually any modern telecom infrastructure, such as xDSL, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, etc., has already been demonstrated in the field: a new high speed, low cost, narrowband PLC generation has become a reality. More advanced field testing will be carried out over the next few weeks.

The final objective of the project is the establishment of a comprehensive set of international standards that will allow for interoperability between different manufacturers, thus boosting competition in the metering market for the benefit of all stakeholders, particularly the end-user. Contrary to other commercially available alternatives, no Intellectual Property Rights will be held on protocols, modulation techniques, data formats, etc.

In this light, the written specifications to be delivered will be detailed enough for third parties to proceed with the manufacture of interoperable meters and associated equipment, based on the defined infrastructure. The first building block of this infrastructure is the Physical layer specification, known as PHY spec, that is publicly available at AMI.info@iberdrola.es . A White Paper on the PHY spec can be downloaded from http://www.iberdrola.com/suppliers/SmartMetering

Should you require further information about the participation of ADD in this project please visit the following links:

• The Physical layer specification (PHY Spec): mail to info@advanceddd.com
• About the contribution of ADD to the project

About Advanced Digital Design S.A.

ADD provides solutions and services that meet the needs of our customers using the best combinations of new electronic digital and hybrid-mode technologies. ADD can act as a Design House to others companies. ADD has experience to design complex digital, analog and hybrid ASIC. ADD can provide reusable IP and to adapt it to the needs of our customers. ADD can provide complete solutions to the needs of our customers from the design of the capture and PCB to the manufacturing, assembling logistic and quality control of the complete system. Further information regarding ADD can be found at this web