PLC (Power Line Communication) is a technology of transmitting data over power lines which are meant for electricity distribution. Power lines are ubiquitous and readily connected to data terminals, making PLC easy-to-implement and cost-effective "last-mile" data connection solution.

However,due to high level of noise and interference, reliable data transmission over power lines has been a great challenge and PLC technologies have kept envolving.

PLBus is the new generation of narrow-band PLC technology based on advanced OFDM modulation and zero-crossing transmission(thus referred to as Z-OFDM). Comparing with traditional single-carrier and simple modulation technologies, PLBus uses tens or even hundreds of orthogonal subcarriers to transmit encoded data, thus offering much improved performance in coping with power line noise and interference while allowing higher data rate. With more than 50 millions installed nodes operating in fields, PLBus represents the most massviely deployed new generation narrow-band PLC technology in today's market.

LME offers single-chip PLBus transceiver IC with embedded MCU to run PLC protocol stack, so single-chip PLC modem can be easily developed and embedded into smart devices. The chip supports network consisting of one master node and one or more sub-nodes. Module solutions are also available from LME for both master and sub-nodes.

PLBus can be used in any application systems which uses power line to transmit data, including:

• Smart meters, AMR(Automatic Meter Reading)
• Smart home, smart appliances
• Smart cities, street lighting remote control & management;
• Electric car charging control & management
• Data transmisstion over low-voltage, medium voltage and DC power lines