IoT applications are growing rapidly, TI is poised to ignite market opportunities

The IoT application market continues to heat up. Well-known semiconductor manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, Freescale and NXP are expanding their support for IoT segmented applications. The development of this technology field has attracted widespread attention from all walks of life, and driven by the latest standards of Android and Bluetooth Alliance, the scale of the IoT market is expected to expand further.

　　In fact, the transformation of the Internet of Things from conceptual discussion to actual application is the only way for the development of China's Internet of Things industry. According to the data of the 2013 China Internet of Things Conference, driven by applications, the scale of China's Internet of Things market has exceeded 300 billion yuan, and will reach 1 trillion yuan in the next five years, with huge room for development. The development of the Internet of Things is accelerating, and it is likely to become the leader of emerging industries.

Haviv Ilan, vice president and general manager of wireless connectivity solutions at Texas Instruments (TI)'s embedded processing business unit, said that whether it is Bluetooth, Zigbee or the latest Wi-Fi products, Texas Instruments has an independent team to fully support the Internet of Things industry.

　　Texas Instruments is targeting this huge business opportunity. Haviv Ilan, vice president and general manager of wireless connectivity solutions at the embedded processing business unit of Texas Instruments (TI), said that as embedded wireless technology gradually flourishes in the field of the Internet of Things, its application market opportunities have also begun to ferment, thereby attracting chip manufacturers, module manufacturers and equipment manufacturers to accelerate their research and development progress and seize market opportunities. According to the analysis of Texas Instruments' annual global embedded wireless IC shipment data, shipments have continued to soar from 50 million in 2009 to about 150 million ICs this year.

　　Ilan further pointed out that in view of the explosive development opportunities of the Internet of Everything in China, Texas Instruments has established a special team to support the Internet of Things industry. Looking back at the development of the Internet of Things in China in 2013, in addition to the demos that can be seen on site, the main markets of Texas Instruments include the three-meter segment, such as water meter, steam meter, heat meter, and electricity meter applications; home appliance applications; access control and door lock applications; the lighting segment has been promoted in recent years; more and more remote controls are now switching from infrared to wireless; and the current hottest wearable device market. In different markets, we have many customers in China cooperating with Texas Instruments to develop new wireless products.

　　
        
The above picture shows some wireless application demos at Texas Instruments.

　　The IoT market is rapidly expanding, and as governments around the world work hard to deploy smart grids and smart energy infrastructure, the importance of high-performance, energy-saving processing and wireless connection technologies will become more prominent, becoming one of the main drivers of demand for connected devices with low power consumption. According to industry experts, by 2015, the number of IoT-connected devices will exceed 1.5 billion, and by 2020 it will reach 5 billion.

　　IoT applications are flourishing everywhere, and Texas Instruments is not the only company that sees the opportunity. Manufacturers such as Freescale, NXP, and Dialog have also made strong entries, which may cause a reshuffle in the industry. How can TI seize the opportunity and expand the overall market opportunities?

　　Ilan emphasized that, in the final analysis, the advantage of TI lies in its very broad product line. In wireless technology, many IC manufacturers that make wireless products may mainly focus on one or two different wireless technologies. In contrast, TI's products cover products from many different needs, such as Zigbee, Bluetooth or Sub-1G. In addition, we see that the IoT market is indeed not a market that can be covered by just one technology. In addition to wireless products, TI also has MCUs, processors, analog devices and Power products, all of which are accelerating their penetration in the IoT application market. Especially in the product part, TI has a wide coverage, which explains an important reason why TI can quickly match many reference designs and products.

　　With the recent establishment of China's first national IoT industry alliance (IoT industry technology innovation strategic alliance), it is bound to accelerate the popularization of IoT applications in China. The IoT market, including popular applications such as car networking, industry, mobile medical and home health care, wearable devices and smart homes, requires intelligent low-power IoT solutions that can save system costs at the same time. Only chip manufacturers that can launch highly integrated and miniaturized wireless solutions will have the opportunity to stand out in this market.