Top-level view: Multi-protocol wireless software solutions become the core of IoT!

提到物联网中的短距离 无线通信 技术，可能不少人第一时间想到的会是 蓝牙 和 Wi-Fi ，但实际上，包括 ZigBee 和Thread等在内的其他技术，其发展速度正在大大加速，并迅速占据市场。从去年开始，中国市场对ZigBee技术的发展态度有了显著转变。越来越多的中国厂商开始加入ZigBee联盟，包括WULIAN、 华为 、美的等都已经成为ZigBee联盟成员。

Regarding the market and technology development trends of ZigBee , Mr. Skip Ashton , Vice President of Software Business at Silicon Labs and Chairman of the ZigBee Architecture Review Committee, said in an interview with C114 China Communications Network, "In Silicon Labs' view, ZigBee is a very critical wireless protocol for the Internet of Things, and the related software has now become the core of the entire Internet of Things product." Please click "Read Original Text" to view the full interview report.

ZigBee 技术发展加速 中国市场态度显著转变

The "Global ZigBee Activated Device Market 2016-2020 Report" shows that the global ZigBee activated device market will grow at a CAGR of 29.73% during the period 2016-2020. Silicon Labs recently announced that the company's cumulative shipments of ZigBee chips have reached 100 million units. Skip Ashton pointed out that "of these 100 million chips, it took eight years to ship the first 50 million units, and only two years to ship the next 50 million units." This also shows that the development speed of ZigBee technology has accelerated in the past two years.

At the same time, more and more Chinese companies are joining the ZigBee Alliance. This is a big change for the ZigBee Alliance, because in the past, the organization was mostly led and participated by foreign manufacturers. In fact, the ZigBee Alliance has set up a special Chinese group because the domestic market has found that ZigBee technology is becoming more and more important, and Chinese companies are becoming more and more involved in the development of ZigBee.

In the past, many domestic customers that Silicon Labs had contact with manufactured ZigBee products for export to overseas markets, but now "many customers have started to work on domestic ZigBee projects." It is reported that most ZigBee products in the domestic market now use the ZigBee HA or HLL standards, and domestic manufacturers are particularly active and are also actively pursuing ZigBee 3.0.

Bluetooth, Wi-Fi , ZigBee and other technologies will continue to coexist

We know that short-range wireless transmission technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee each have their own technical advantages, and thus play their strengths in different applications of the Internet of Things, but the competitive relationship between them is undoubted.

"In the wireless field, different suppliers may have different product strategies. The emergence of any wireless standard is due to market demand and is not something that comes out of thin air. However, no single standard can meet all wireless application requirements, so supporting multiple protocols is also a strategic focus of our development," said Skip Ashton.

Silicon Labs plans to include various standards such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and Wifi in the future, and both software and hardware can run on the same platform. Silicon Labs hopes to make customer development easier and more relaxed by doing so. By using the same platform, the same interface, and universal management, the protocol can be turned into a module, making the entire design modular and available for customers to assemble at will.

Figure: Skip Ashton, Vice President of Software at Silicon Labs and Chairman of the ZigBee Architecture Review Committee

Software has become the core of IoT products

Silicon Labs has always been known as a semiconductor company. In other words, it is a company that is more hardware-oriented, but Skip Ashton said, "We have gradually discovered from past developments that software has now become the core of the entire IoT product. When many products have problems, the manufacturers of these products may solve the problem by pushing a software update. Software has now become the core of the problem and the solution to the problem."

He gave a very intuitive example. Ten years ago, we never updated our mobile phones . Five years ago, we thought it was troublesome. But now, we may update our mobile phones (Apps) every day. Silicon Labs believes that embedded systems will also develop in this direction, so supporting multiple protocols will become an increasingly important part for IoT industry manufacturers.

Skip Ashton said that customers will no longer develop products for a single ecosystem, and so-called "flexibility" is becoming increasingly important. For example, today we have a system that we hope to connect to Google's Nest ecosystem, but we may want to connect to Samsung 's SmartThings ecosystem later. As a manufacturer, we need to consider whether we should make two completely different products or whether the product itself can be compatible with different ecosystems and whether it is more ideal to do this part through different means (such as software updates).

"It's becoming more and more common for an embedded product to use the first protocol for a period of time, then do a software update and become a product using another protocol," he said.

SiliconLabs Multi-protocol SoC Simplifying IoT connectivity

^{In response to the market demand for multi-protocol products, Silicon Labs announced the launch of the multi-protocol system-on-chip (SoC) Wireless Gecko TM} product series as early as March this year , providing flexible connectivity and price/performance options for IoT devices.

“The Wireless Gecko portfolio simplifies wireless design by providing customers with indispensable multiprotocol IoT connectivity through a one-stop choice, with flexible price/performance options, best-in-class software stacks and a unified development environment,” said Daniel Cooley, vice president of marketing for Silicon Labs’ IoT products. “From Bluetooth Smart to Thread and ZigBee to proprietary stacks, our Wireless Gecko SoCs offer the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of protocols to meet the needs of a wide range of customers.”

At the same time, when analyzing Silicon Labs' overall market strategy, Skip Ashton said that in addition to the powerful hardware platform that can be applied to different fields and cover different standards, Silicon Labs will also ensure the best quality in the software part. In addition, he also emphasized the importance of tools. "How customers can better use our hardware/software must be through our tools. If the tools are not easy to use, it will be difficult for customers to use our products well."

It is reported that Silicon Labs' Simplicity Studio ^TM software development tool is the industry's most complete software toolset for IoT connected device applications. It is currently the only embedded development environment that widely supports 8-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), multi-protocol and multi-band wireless SoCs, and fixed-function devices.

ZigBee Other technologies will be NB-IoT and Lora Complementary

In addition, in Skip Ashton's view, Lora, SigFox, NB-IoT, ZigBee, Thread and other technologies are complementary, and their applications are different.

Lora, SigFox and NB-IoT are targeted at ultra-long-distance applications and require operators to connect. Operators have their own 2G network assets and can make better use of existing network resources. However, in a home environment, the number of nodes and timeliness requirements are different from those of long-distance applications. A general home environment will not have such a long distance point, and the number of nodes in a home environment will be particularly large. Silicon Labs believes that ZigBee and Thread will occupy a very important position in the home environment.

At the end of August this year, Huawei announced that it officially joined the ZigBee Alliance. However, at the Honor 2nd Anniversary Conference last December, Huawei defined its HiLink framework protocol as the "Mandarin" of communication protocols, with the goal of solving the compatibility issues of the three major wireless technologies: WiFi, Bluetooth and ZigBee. In addition, in terms of IoT connection standards, Huawei is also actively promoting NB-IoT. At this time, Huawei chose to join the ZigBee Alliance again, one of the considerations being that it saw the complementarity between ZigBee, HiLink and NB-IoT.

"In the wireless field, there will not be a single standard that can meet all needs, so the above-mentioned technologies are complementary," said Skip Ashton.

For more information on Silicon Labs Wireless Gecko multi-band, multi-protocol wireless SoCs and modules, visit: http://cn.silabs.com/products/wireless/pages/wireless-gecko-iot-connectivity-portfolio.aspx

Original link: http://www.c114.net/news/41/a979367.html

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