All in! A complete explanation of Silicon Labs' IoT plan

On July 26, 2021, Silicon Labs officially completed the sale of its infrastructure and automotive businesses to Skyworks for $2.75 billion. It is puzzling why Silicon Labs would choose to sell this business when the automotive market is booming, especially Silicon Labs' well-known isolation technology, which can be widely used in electric vehicles.

According to Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle, the sale of the automotive-related business will allow Silicon Labs to focus more on the development of the Internet of Things market. In the past few months, Silicon Labs has proved the correctness of its choice through a series of measures. In the field of the Internet of Things, no one is more focused than Silicon Labs.

Silicon Labs is trying to solve the problem of the Internet of Everything. This problem seems simple. After all, standards such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular communications have existed for decades. But in fact, the problem of the Internet of Everything is very tricky: although all these devices are eventually connected to the Internet, they use a large number of ever-changing wireless communication standards to interconnect. Therefore, the Internet of Things faces multiple protocols, high barriers, and difficulties in breaking through not only on the application side, but also on the wireless connection side.

Silicon Labs is using a series of measures to completely break the fragmented status quo of the Internet of Things.

Second Generation Wireless SoC

First of all, strictly speaking, Silicon Labs is still a chip company, so the most important carrier in the development of the Internet of Things is still chips.

Silicon Labs recently launched the Sub-GHz wireless solution, EFR32FG23 (FG23) and EFR32ZG23 (ZG23) SoCs, which have long-range RF and energy-saving features and have passed Arm PSA Level 3 security certification. They can support multiple modulation schemes and advanced wireless technologies, including Amazon Sidewalk, mioty, Wireless M-Bus, Z-Wave and proprietary IoT networks, providing developers with flexible, multi-protocol Sub-GHz connection options. The wide range of applications supported by FG23 and ZG23 SoCs include smart infrastructure, metering, environmental monitoring, connected lighting, industrial control, electronic shelf labels (ESL), building and home automation.

The new FG23 and ZG23 wireless SoC solutions are developed for low-power, long-distance, and highly secure IoT applications. They provide ultra-low transmit and receive power (13.2 mA TX at 10 dBm, 4.2 mA RX at 920 MHz) and first-class RF characteristics (output power of +20 dBm, receive sensitivity of -125.3 dBm at 868 MHz, 2.4 kbps, GFSK), which can support IoT terminal nodes to achieve a wireless transmission distance of more than 1 mile and operate for more than 10 years when powered by a button battery.

For security, the SoC features PSA Level 3-certified Secure Vault™ technology, enabling developers to protect IoT products from software and hardware attacks that could compromise intellectual property, ecosystem, and brand trust.

The SoCs also offer a number of other benefits, including:

Simplified single-ended RF matching reduces the bill of materials (BoM) by 40% compared to existing solutions

Supports a wide range of frequency bands (110-727 MHz and 742-970 MHz) and multiple modulation methods (FSK, GFSK, OQPSK DSSS, MSK, GMSK, and OOK)

Advanced peripheral functions for LCD, buttons, and low-power sensors

The two products also have their own characteristics. Specifically, FG23 is aimed at Amazon Sidewalk, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), smart cities, buildings and home automation, while ZG23 is further aimed at the Z-Wave standard, and its applications include smart homes, hotels, and multi-dwelling units (MDU) markets.

Specifically, the FG23 wireless SoC solution provides flexible antenna diversity capabilities to achieve a best-in-class wireless link budget (920 MHz, 50 kbps, GFSK receive sensitivity of -111.2 dBm). The advanced wireless features coupled with the FG23's low active mode current (26µA/MHz) and sleep mode current (1.2µA) make it an ideal solution for outdoor battery-powered networking nodes, wireless sensor nodes, and hard-to-reach device connections.

By adding the Secure Vault™ feature, ZG23 achieves more powerful Z-Wave wireless features, while providing the same industry-leading RF and power performance as FG23. ZG23 supports Z-Wave long-range protocol (Long Range) and mesh networking, and is the first SoC optimized for terminal devices and gateways, and can also support all protocols supported by FG23. An ultra-compact system-in-package (SiP) module based on ZG23, ZGM230S, will also be launched, which only supports Z-Wave, which can simplify development and speed up product launch.

One-time design, all-in-one software development kit

In addition to the multi-platform support of the chip, Silicon Labs announced the launch of its unified software development kit (Unify SDK), which provides common building blocks to achieve connectivity across the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Developers of IoT cloud services and platforms can design world-class functions in their devices and gateways, and ensure that these products are interoperable between existing and emerging wireless protocols. Unify SDK can provide ready-made protocol-specific conversion functions for Z-Wave and Zigbee (available today), and plans to support Bluetooth, Thread, OpenSync and Matter, greatly simplifying the interoperability of IoT wireless networks. The implementation of this technology allows engineers to quickly develop IoT-related applications without having to master the underlying technology of all wireless technologies, which is very beneficial to the current development of wireless technology. At the same time, Unify SDK can also meet the requirements of more than 600 IoT platforms-this large number makes it difficult for engineers to master all related technologies.

Matt Johnson, president of Silicon Labs and the incoming CEO, said: "All IoT solutions need to communicate with each other, and for this, powerful tools and software are the real catalysts that enable the industry to move faster, not just chips."

Silicon Labs' Unify SDK simplifies and accelerates development by providing a common, well-defined data model application programming interface (API) and state definition functions for common IoT services such as adding, updating and removing devices. Protocol drivers can convert common IoT services into protocol-specific formats such as Zigbee and Z-Wave. Unify SDK simplifies interoperability between IoT wireless protocols by providing a set of modular and extensible software components in source code form. A variety of IoT applications can benefit from Unify SDK, including gateways, wireless access points, hubs, bridges, and host processor-based end products such as smart speakers, thermostats, smoke alarms and cameras.

Matt Johnson

Matter Standards Have Far-Reaching Significance

The release of Unify SDK places special emphasis on the Matter standard. After the Matter standard is confirmed, solutions developed using the SDK can easily achieve cross-platform wireless communication with Matter devices. For example, a Zigbee-based smart speaker can perform the software upgrade function of the Unify SDK to enable Matter, and then run both protocols at the same time, which preserves existing investments while allowing new wireless technologies to join.

According to Silicon Labs, the Matter standard has been supported by Apple, Amazon, Comcast, Google, Schneider Electric and many other ecosystem players. The Unify SDK will help accelerate the industry's adoption of Matter, thereby expanding IoT platforms to enable communication across ecosystems and wireless protocols.

The establishment of the Matter standard also starts with the fragmentation of ZigBee. The fragmentation of IoT network connections not only occurs between different protocols, but also the protocols themselves can cause fragmentation. According to a report by the minority, on May 11, 2021, the Zigbee Alliance was renamed the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and the CHIP project was renamed Matter. The most important reason for ZigBee's name change is that the version protocol is incompatible, the privatization protocol is rampant, and the brand barriers are serious, which are contrary to the current situation of the development of the Internet of Everything.

With the renaming of the ZigBee Alliance and the announcement of the Matter standard, it means that the Zigbee protocol will most likely no longer be the focus of the connectivity standards alliance. However, according to the official website, there are currently 300 million active Zigbee devices in the world. Considering the future compatibility of these devices, the role of Unify SDK can be imagined.

Let’s talk about Matter itself. Its predecessor, the CHIP project, started in December 2019. It is an IPv6-based smart home interconnection protocol jointly initiated by Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance. CHIP is the abbreviation of Connected Home over IP.

The initial version of the Matter protocol will support three underlying communication protocols: Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Thread, and will allow smart home devices with different protocols to communicate with each other. Currently, more than 15 million IoT gateway products are developed using Silicon Labs' first- and second-generation wireless solutions. When the Matter standard is confirmed to be available on the market, the Unify SDK will help these gateway products achieve Matter compatibility. Similarly, companies can choose to use Silicon Labs' Unify SDK to develop IoT products for existing wireless protocols (including Zigbee and Z-Wave), and then use the Unify SDK to easily activate the Matter network communication capabilities in their product portfolio when the time is right.

CHIP Protocol Layer｜CHIP Project Team

Silicon Labs has invested heavily in the Matter and CHIP projects, has more than 15 years of experience in participating in alliance work, mesh networks and multi-protocol, and is the third largest software contributor to the Matter Github (contributing more than 20% of the code). It is currently in in-depth communication with the first batch of customers during the Matter testing project.