“Talking about IoT in terms of “hot” is outdated these days, as it was a few years ago. Right now, nothing is more appropriate than “ubiquitous”, and the positive sentiment displayed by the major IoT communities and most IoT end markets reflects the thriving market, and data from analysts also proves that this is not just a The appearance of optimism is the status quo.

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Talking about IoT in terms of “hot” is outdated these days, as it was a few years ago. Right now, nothing is more appropriate than “ubiquitous”, and the positive sentiment displayed by the major IoT communities and most IoT end markets reflects the thriving market, and data from analysts also proves that this is not just a The appearance of optimism is the status quo.

From the perspective of market size, the data of research institute Beijing Yanjing Bizhi predicts that by 2025, the global IoT market will exceed 1.5 trillion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of 44.59%!

Underlying this growth is the high growth in the number of IoT devices – the global IoT market is expected to grow by 18% by the end of 2022, with the number of connected devices reaching 14.4 billion, according to a recent report from IoT Analytics. Globally, IoT devices are expected to grow to 27 billion units by 2025 as chip supply constraints ease and application growth further accelerates.

Among them, China’s IoT market is also developing rapidly. Data from iResearch predicts that the size of China’s AIoT market will reach 750.9 billion yuan in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 30.49% in the next three years!

All this seemed unimaginable a few years ago, what happened?

The Invisible Hand: Connectivity Technology

The Internet of Things aims to realize the “interconnection of all things”, connecting items to the Internet for information exchange and communication. In making this happen, the connection is the invisible hand behind it. And unlike the Internet, IoT is the seamless communication between IoT devices, the cloud, and the network. Only in this way can the full potential of the IoT be ensured. Therefore, it is the development of connection technology that promotes the development process of the Internet of Things industry.

Specifically, the development of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE, and LPWAN, including wireless communication, and USB technology for data exchange, provide the foundation for realizing the Internet of Things. And, different from the local point-to-point connection method similar to ZigBee technology in the early days, today’s IoT devices use cloud intelligent connection more widely to realize the whole system of network domain devices to form an autonomous connection, which can carry out self-learning and intelligent control applications. surroundings.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE play the leading role

In this application environment, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE technology can be said to be the protagonist of the connection, and the application share exceeds half.

Intelligence, multi-standard, and multi-protocol have always been the development direction of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi technology has developed from the early 802.11b to the current Wi-Fi 6/6E, which is more powerful in terms of power consumption, coverage, and network efficiency. Advantage. Wi-Fi 6 uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology to improve network performance and higher-order Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) formats to increase data rates. Wi-Fi 6 devices operate in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, and as an extension to Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E uses new spectrum for the first time in the standard’s history and can operate in the unlicensed 6 GHz spectrum to access more bandwidth.

Support for uplink MIMO, wider modulation, higher capacity and efficiency, scheduling-based work, and multi-band are the main features of Wi-Fi 6, which make it more suitable for use in mobile phones, routers, and network adapters in addition to traditional applications. AR/VR and projectors, HD cameras and other AI-assisted media devices, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications such as cameras, real-time instrumentation, and military (AR glasses and other visual aids).

In IoT devices, Bluetooth is mainly used for interconnection during networking, including as an entry point for connections, such as wearable devices and Bluetooth remote controls for smart home appliances. In July last year, the Bluetooth SIG (Bluetooth SIG) officially released the latest Bluetooth specification 5.3. Although it is the same as Bluetooth 5.2 with a transmission rate of 42Mbit/s and a theoretical transmission distance of 300 meters, compared to Bluetooth 5.2, Bluetooth 5.3 By improving the periodic broadcast, connection update and channel classification in BLE, the communication efficiency of BLE and the wireless coexistence of Bluetooth devices are further improved. The power consumption of Bluetooth 5.3 is lower than that of Bluetooth 5.2, and it also introduces some new features to enhance the security of classic Bluetooth BR/EDR (basic rate and enhanced rate). In short, Bluetooth 5.3 has lower latency, stronger anti-interference, and improved battery life. These features make it more suitable for IoT applications such as smart medical devices, portable medical devices, access control, door locks and commercial lighting, human-machine interfaces, and industrial.

The above-mentioned low-power Bluetooth, or BLE, is a feature of the Bluetooth V4.0 version. It is a low-cost, short-range, interoperable and robust wireless technology that works in the license-free 2.4GHz ISM radio frequency band. . It was designed from the ground up as an Ultra Low Power (ULP) wireless technology that uses intelligent means to minimize power consumption, a feature that makes it widely applicable to locally connected Internet-connected devices.

Technology iteration drives new applications and brings market growth. In 2021, global Wi-Fi chip shipments will be 4.7 billion, and it is expected to increase by 4.3% to 4.9 billion in 2022; Up 3.9% to 5.3 billion.

eSIM application press “shortcut key”

Unlike Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which are mainly used for local or local IoT connections, the mainstay of wireless IoT connections in a wide area is LPWAN, or low-power wide-area network. The transmission rate of each channel of LPWAN is between 0.3 and 50 kbit/s. It can be used to build a private wireless sensing network, but it can also be a service or infrastructure provided by a third party. LPWA can be divided into two categories: one is ZETA, LoRa, SigFox and other technologies working in unlicensed spectrum; the other is 2/3/4/5G cellular communication technologies supported by 3GPP working under licensed spectrum, such as EC -GSM, LTE Cat-m, NB-IoT, etc. In the process of applying the latter, eSIM is a necessary and promising technology.

eSIM technology has brought three major changes: first, the removal of the card slot brings greater freedom of terminal design. At the same time, because the chip is embedded in the device, it can comprehensively improve the waterproof and shock resistance performance; the second is the remote download of numbers , bringing users the convenience of accessing the Internet anytime, anywhere; third, the multi-scenario eSIM makes the access of pan-intelligent terminals more convenient and brings more possibilities for the application of the Internet of Everything.

Obviously, the development of eSIM is closely related to the requirements of miniaturization and functional stability of smart terminals, and will also become an important starting point for operators to expand new services. Back then, when Apple just added the eSIM function to the beta version of iOS 12.1, global operators responded positively and opened eSIM services one after another. However, for more than a decade, despite being promoted by many companies such as Apple, the development of eSIM in China has not been as expected due to various factors. After the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued an approval document in October 2020, agreeing to China Telecom and China Mobile to carry out eSIM technology application services in the Internet of Things and other fields, it can be said that the technology has ushered in the spring in the Chinese market.

Behind this, it actually reflects the rapid development trend of the global cellular IoT market. The global cellular IoT module and chip tracking research report released by research firm Counterpoint shows that global cellular IoT chip shipments in the fourth quarter of 2021 increased by 57% year-on-year. Among them, China accounted for nearly 60% of the total cellular IoT chip market shipments, while 4G LTE connections increased by 25% year-on-year.

In addition to the above wireless connection technology, as a transmission interface bus technology, USB has now evolved to the USB4 standard, which is transmitted through the Type-C port, and the maximum data transmission bandwidth reaches 40Gbit/s. Also, standard cables with Type-c connectors can pass currents of 3A or even up to 5A. In September 2021, the USB-IF organization released the latest USB Type-C interface and cable v2.1 version standard protocol, and the power supply capacity has been increased from 100W to 240W! Laptops of the future won’t even need a separate power adapter as standard.

These characteristics make the Type-C interface accelerate the unification of the global transmission interface. On June 7 this year, the European Parliament and the European Council unanimously agreed that the Type-C interface will be used uniformly in the EU for charging mobile devices from the fall of 2024.

In general, in addition to traditional applications such as mobile phones, computers, power banks and miniaturized devices, the application of USB Type-C will expand to fields such as automobiles, high-end lighting, projectors and security.

Matter will launch a new wave of killer apps

Speaking of applications, since last year, the concept of whole-house intelligence has become popular. An important reason behind this is the maturity of a connection technology – Matter, which is an IPv6-based smart home interconnection protocol, which aims to connect many different networks. Factions come together to simplify the process of transferring information from device to device, while strengthening the protection of privacy and security. The Connectivity Standards Alliance (formerly the Zigbee Alliance) formed the Matter Working Group, which consists of experts from more than 170 large market players, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Infineon, Johnson Controls, Schneider Electric, LG Electronics and other giants enterprise. In the fall of 2022, the Matter 1.0 standard will be available.

As a highly standardized, generalized and easy-to-use interconnection standard, Matter can help ecosystem service providers, device manufacturers and end users eliminate the dilemma of IoT fragmentation, while avoiding homogeneous competition. To reach a wider range of home scenarios, on the other hand, it will also promote the differentiation of the whole house smart industry to complete the competition dimension, from the pursuit of the breadth of scene coverage to personalized services. At the WWDC2022 developer conference held not long ago, Apple announced that its ecological products will fully support the Matter protocol. It is foreseeable that Matter will drive the whole house intelligence to become a new round of killer applications for the Internet of Things.

Visible Hand: Product Portfolio

The important connection technologies of the Internet of Things and the application fields in which they play a role have been introduced in detail above. So, how can we use these technologies to keep turning heads in the complex and diverse field of the Internet of Things? Perhaps, there is no more suitable reference than Infineon. The company takes “connecting the reality and the digital world” as its development vision and mission, and has deep technology accumulation in each of the above fields, and has launched a rich product portfolio.

Since the completion of the acquisition of Cypress, Infineon has become more powerful in “connectivity”, including eSIM-based secure cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB and USB-C-based connectivity technologies, which can be said to cover almost All mainstream wireless and wired connectivity technologies and apply these technologies to a wide range of IoT applications in consumer, commercial, industrial, automotive, and more.

Coexistence of multiple wireless connections becomes mainstream

For Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Infineon has specially launched a new brand AIROC, which includes Wi-Fi+Bluetooth Combo, single Wi-Fi, single BLE, or dual-mode classic Bluetooth and BLE Bluetooth products. Form factor for small IoT designs.

Featuring advanced Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence, interoperability, and lifecycle support, AIROC products operate reliably in all environments with dramatically reduced power consumption, including extremely low sleep, transmit and receive current consumption, and optimized and extended Network management features for battery life.

In at least five aspects, AIROC shows its core competitiveness:

1. It can provide a rich and new product lineup for users to choose;
2. It can provide stable and reliable software for different platforms to facilitate user integration. ModusToolBox can help simplify the process of software integration;
3. It can provide reliable and stable connection in various complex use environments;
4. Including the integration of chip technology and system software, feasible solutions are provided;
5. The optimized wireless chip design supports high performance in terms of throughput, power consumption and long-distance coverage. According to the test, the efficiency of AIROC’s Wi-Fi network is close to 3 times that of friends! Due to the 28nm chip manufacturing process (currently, Wi-Fi chips in the market are generally still 40nm), its receiving power consumption is 50% lower than that of Wi-Fi 4 products on the market, 70% lower than that of Wi-Fi 5 products, and its transmit power consumption is 1 /4.

Leveraging a common software framework across Android, Linux operating systems, RTOS platforms, and pre-integration with Infineon’s ModusToolbox software and tools, AIROC products allow developers to deliver high-quality differentiated products to market on time and within budget. These characteristics have been recognized by the market. Currently, AIROC wireless connectivity products including Wi-Fi (4-6/6E), Bluetooth/BLE, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combos have sold over 1 billion units.

These products are widely used in smart home, multimedia, wearable, office and entertainment. Among them, smart home includes traditional home appliances, as well as smart apartments, sweeping robots, thermostats, garden power tools, smoke detectors and security, Bluetooth networking lighting and other equipment; in terms of multimedia, mainly smart speakers, TVs, headphones, Remote controls, projectors, game console projection screens and gamepads; in the wearable field, mainly AR/VR glasses, watches and TWS headsets. On the latest Wi-Fi6, AIROC’s products are mainly the CYW5557x series, targeting high-end wireless applications such as high-end gamepads, VR/AR devices, high-resolution security control, real-time industrial control, and high-bandwidth home theater video application.

IoT software services extending to the cloud become the key

The current form of IoT has developed into seamless communication between IoT devices, the cloud and the network, so cloud services based on IoT connections are also essential.

In response to this demand, Infineon has launched the Cirrent software service, which mainly includes two components: INI and MAI. INI is a client component, and MAI is a mobile phone component. Through this service, Infineon can gain insight into the user’s usage environment and ultimately improve product applications. For example, when it comes to smart home device connectivity, Cirrent enables one-click wireless routing, automatic password synchronization of all devices, and remote network connection monitors for improved reliability, quality and support.

Whole house intelligence is expected to enter the Matter era

In terms of smart home, as mentioned earlier, Matter will set off a wave of whole-house smart industry. Infineon is very optimistic about the prospects of Matter in the future AIoT market, and has developed the Matter protocol stack in its BLE MCU and AIROC combo and Bluetooth chips, and has completed the implementation of basic functions and the establishment of a testing and certification environment. It is expected to launch a mass-produced version of the chip supporting Matter early next year.

In addition, the hardware security chip is the key to realize Matter. As the leader of the Matter security working group, Infineon can be said to be the leader of the entire Matter standard, and has put forward many innovative ideas and suggestions for solving security problems, including contributing open source implementation code, standard text and capabilities beyond security . Infineon’s PSoCTM (Programmable System-on-Chip) and OPTIGATM family of products not only enable smaller, more energy-efficient and cheaper designs in very small IoT devices, but also provide the secure identity certificates required by IoT and cryptographic functions, including random number generators, encryption/decryption, signing and verification, and more. These chips are suitable for use in controllers, networks or nodes of IoT devices. Key pairs and certificates can be pre-installed on each device, and additional key pairs can be loaded when a device joins the Matter network.

Promote the large-scale implementation of eSIM

When it comes to OPTIGA™, anyone familiar with Infineon products knows that this is the company’s family of hardware security controllers that combine software. For eSIM, Infineon’s turnkey solution, OPTIGA™ Connect eSIM, fully supports all GSMA standards from 3G to 5G, and can securely log in and authenticate to the contracted operator network. The solution is based on Infineon’s SLC37 security chip, which meets the GSMA security requirements and has passed the CC EAL4+ test. It is equipped with a rugged and trustworthy security guarantee, so it can ensure the security of sensitive data and keys and prevent fraud. Not only that, the solution is fully compliant with the latest 5G specifications from GSMA and 3GPP. It supports profiles of major mobile operators, has remote SIM card configuration, and provides up to 1.2 MB of available memory for users to store operator profiles, data and other applications. Its ultra-small package size of only 2.9 mm x 2.5 mm x 0.4 mm enables new designs, especially for terminals where PCB space is very sensitive.

Thanks to its small form factor, the eSIM is particularly suitable for smartphones, tablets and wearables such as smart watches or fitness bands. In addition, by combining hardware and software into an easy-to-integrate system, Infineon can help manufacturers develop product designs efficiently, reduce eSIM integration effort, and accelerate time-to-market.

In addition to the consumer market, Infineon also has a layout in automotive and industrial eSIM products, and has been recognized by the majority of car manufacturers and smart industrial customers. Its product line tracking for more than ten years has accumulated rich high quality and high reliability. sexual experience.

Time-honored USB technology

In addition to the aforementioned broad product portfolio in wireless connectivity for the Internet of Things, Infineon is also the market leader in USB and USB-C technology. The company offers the industry’s most complete line of USB products, including device controllers, embedded hosts, hubs, specialized bridges and transceivers. Infineon’s EZ-PD™ product family is the first in the industry to support the latest USB Power Delivery (USB PD) 3.0 specification, which provides a more durable end-to-end power supply and charging solution for laptops and mobile devices. Infineon also offers AEC-Q100-qualified versions of its controllers to meet automotive-grade performance requirements.

Infineon’s Type-C controller is based on the Infineon PSoC™ 4 programmable system-on-chip architecture, which includes programmable analog and digital blocks, an Arm Cortex M0 core and 32 KB of flash memory. These products join top PC manufacturers in driving the industry’s first Type-C products, enabling them to bring these benefits of USB Type-C to market. In addition, Infineon also provides online reference designs for EMCA and dongle applications to shorten the user’s design cycle.

Since 2008, Infineon has delivered more than 1 billion USB-type products to the market.

direction is the answer

As we have seen, by seamlessly integrating various connectivity technologies, Infineon offers a broad portfolio of easy-to-use, interoperable products for consumer, industrial, medical, automotive and other applications, enabling customers to faster enter the market. As the world’s leading semiconductor technology company, the company is committed to creating a more convenient, safe and environmentally friendly world, by providing comprehensive semiconductor solutions for efficient energy management, smart mobility and secure, seamless communication, connecting reality and digital world.

When Infineon focuses its strategic direction on the five directions of “sensing, computing, execution, connection, security,” perhaps, the phrase “we want to be the bridge connecting the real world and the digital world” already contains how All the answers to “keep turning heads in the IoT space”.