The Case For Narrowband-IoT


Cellular network-based Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) is marching closer to reality as players across the ecosystem put forth silicon IP, software protocol stacks, carrier network software upgrades and more. The kicker came last year when the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the global cellular industry standards body, finalized a NB-IoT standard in its 'release 13.' With that, device mak... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


M&A ARM Holdings this week announced the acquisition of two firms, Mistbase and NextG-Com, to help bring narrowband Internet of Things technology to its chip designs. In addition, the company announced the development of ARM Cordio-N radios to reduce the complexity of adopting cellular IoT connectivity. Meanwhile, Blu Wireless Technology of the U.K. reported that ARM made an equity investment ... » read more

Performance Increasingly Tied To I/O


Speeding up input and output is becoming a cornerstone for improving performance and lowering power in SoCs and ASICs, particularly as scaling processors and adding more cores produce diminishing returns. While processors of all types continue to improve, the rate of improvement is slowing at each new node. Obtaining the expected 30% to 50% boost in performance and lower power no longer can ... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Products Qualcomm reported before the official opening of CES 2017 that it has shipped more than 1 billion Internet of Things chips to date, for such applications as automotive electronics, Internet-connected televisions, sensors, and wearable gadgets (including smartwatches). The company didn’t include chips for smartphones and tablet computers in that total. “We have scale,” said Raj T... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Tools Google this week updated its Internet of Things platform, releasing a Developer Preview for Android Things, enabling application developers to create IoT devices running on the mobile Android operating system. “We incorporated the feedback from Project Brillo to include familiar tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), Google Play Services, and Google C... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Deals The $47 billion merger of Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors will not only affect the automotive chip market; it should also have a significant impact in the Internet of Things business. The companies note they are together strong in microcontrollers, secure identification, mobile transactions, payment cards, transit, application processors, and connectivity systems. Meanwhile, NXP reported... » read more

Keeping NFCs Secure


Short-range communications, including near-field and semi-near-field communications such as Bluetooth, AirDrop, and Zigbee, have become as much a part of our daily lives as our mobile devices. Through some incredible engineering and standards efforts, they have achieved low-power communication over short distances with remarkable accuracy and consistency. But as even more devices begin tapping ... » read more

IoT Design Challenges


Low-cost IoT designs that interface with the real world incorporate multiple design domains that individually are challenging for today’s engineers, so it’s no surprise that putting them all together creates extreme pressure on IoT design teams. The typical IoT device contains a sensor and an actuator that interface to the Internet. The sensor creates a signal based on some real-world ac... » read more

Inside Mesh Networks


Ad-hoc wireless mesh networks will be the great enabler for the IoE. Part one discusses the technology behind them. Mesh networks have a huge upside when it comes to the Internet of Everything, but there are also some big issues that have to be resolved. “One of the real challenges with mesh networks is there is not a lot of control of the devices that are joining and leaving the networ... » read more

Will People Pay More?


Smart devices can do many things. Some of them are useful, some are questionable, and some are just plain ridiculous. But the real issue for semiconductor and system companies isn't whether people will use them. It's whether they will work long enough and well enough to warrant the extra cost. The reality is that very few people use all of the features in any device, or even within a single ... » read more

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