IoT connectivity and the benefits of a single ecosystem
Of course, the radios themselves have to meet the highest standards of quality and performance. But Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee are also all richly featured communications technologies which offer a broad range of valuable capabilities. The top device OEMs therefore also need effective means, highly integrated with the RF IC, to develop connectivity applications, and to upgrade those applications as RF standards change and new capabilities emerge.
WICED
Today, the most popular choice of platform for designers of devices that connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Zigbee – or a combination of these technologies – is WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices), an integrated hardware, software and application development solution provided by Cypress Semiconductor for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The WICED platform includes WICED Studio, a single, common development environment for multiple wireless technologies. The WICED Studio features a simplified application programming interface (API), code snippets, sample applications and Cloud agents. Taken together, these elements provide a highly effective resource which accelerates the development process.
Successful as the WICED solution has been, there is no disguising the fact that implementing a Wi-Fi or a combination Wi-Fi + Bluetooth or Wi-Fi + Zigbee chip in an end product design is a complex and lengthy task. These standards have evolved over many years to provide a huge range of capabilities, and this means that configuring the protocol stacks appropriately requires deep knowledge of the standards.
At the physical layer, too, considerable specialist expertise is required to implement a successful antenna design, and to ensure conformance to relevant RF regulations imposed regionally or nationally, while maintaining compliance with the industry standards for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee in order to ensure interoperability with any other compliant device.
Because of the complex nature of the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee standards and the wealth of features that they provide, the WICED Studio development environment itself needs to be richly featured. Inevitably the designer will take time to become familiar with it, as with any sophisticated tool.
For the world’s largest device manufacturers, there is no difficulty in committing the time of many engineering staff to acquiring specialist expertise in the implementation of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or Zigbee connectivity applications and to learning to use appropriate tools. But for the mass market of small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs), engineering effort must be focused on the core application, not on peripheral functions such as internet connectivity. Wireless connectivity development platforms, and the radio technologies that they support, cannot be picked up quickly and implemented easily by SMEs without interfering with the design team’s main mission.
SMEs
SMEs, however, will want to benefit from the performance, proven interoperability and rapid upgradeability offered by the WICED portfolio of ICs just as much as the world’s top OEMs do. Of course, the normal model by which IC manufacturers supply their products to SMEs is through electronics component distributors.
But in the case of the WICED platform, Cypress’ primary means of supporting SMEs is different. That’s because the needs of SMEs that make IoT devices are complex and broad-ranging, and encompass far more than simply integrating a chip into a board design. IoT device OEMs of all sizes have also got to provide for:
- regulatory compliance, interoperability testing and frequency band co-existence
- connection to a cloud service
- development of the embedded connectivity application to enable functions such as authentication and identification, cloud certification, status monitoring, and transfer of sensor data to a server
- development of the cloud application and a GUI by which operators can interact with it
- in some cases, development of a mobile app as well
This is why Cypress has established an ecosystem for SMEs which can, if required, take care of the entire connectivity and cloud element of the system design, leaving the OEM free to concentrate exclusively on its core application. This ecosystem consists of third-party suppliers of RF modules, engineering and cloud service providers, value-added resellers and original design manufacturers (ODMs).
This ecosystem provides an integrated solution combining hardware, software and cloud service elements that are all compatible with the other parts of the partner ecosystem that Cypress has developed.
Challenges involved in connectivity for IoT devices
Experience shows that SMEs commonly encounter three types of difficulty when implementing wireless connectivity for IoT devices:
- Definition of wireless connectivity requirements – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Zigbee are used in applications which implement functions such as internet access, content streaming, control and monitoring. But which technology is best for each individual application requirement and set of operating conditions? It is hard for non-specialists to navigate through the many operating modes and configuration options in each of these RF technologies.
- Software development – constantly changing standards and protocols intimidate SMEs, and the complex Software Development Kits (SDKs) and drivers that are applied to wireless solutions drain development resources from core design tasks.
- Turning IoT design ideas into viable commercial products – to integrate wireless hardware and software, cloud support, embedded applications and mobile apps requires expertise in multiple domains. Functional testing and regulatory compliance testing and validation are lengthy and costly processes.
The aim of the Cypress partner ecosystem is to eliminate all of these difficulties by providing a combination of off-the-shelf hardware and software modules together with services and support (see Figure 1). The ecosystem can take care not only of implementing the short-range wireless connectivity, but also embedded and cloud application development, cloud service provision, and regulatory compliance and validation.
Fig. 1: The elements of the Cypress partner ecosystem enable the rapid implementation of IoT designs based on WICED wireless ICs
The foundation of the solution for SMEs is the Cypress WICED portfolio of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee radio ICs and controllers, supported by the common WICED Software Development Kit (SDK). But the reason that the partner ecosystem is able to simplify and accelerate IoT product development for SMEs is because it provides a kind of engineering ‘abstraction layer’ away from the ICs and their firmware. It does so by providing a rich set of ready-made products and capabilities based on the WICED framework (see Figure 2).
Wireless connectivity is provided in hardware form as modules from partners such as Murata, SPIL and USI. Value-added resellers such as Laird, Inventek and Lantronix extend this offering by providing certified, ready-to-use modules and integrated software support. This gives OEM product developers a turnkey solution which draws on the value-added resellers’ extensive experience and ability to provide in-depth support.
Fig. 2: WICED ecosystem partners offer expertise in various domains
Technology partners provide for accelerated embedded application development. Users of modules based on the WICED platform can complement their hardware with integrated software tools and products to:
- Simplify the SDK by providing a higher level interface
- Provide a canned solution so that OEMs just have to write their application to run on top of a ready-made platform
- Take advantage of pre-built apps that provide common functions
- Integrate a cloud agent either in ROM or in software
- Manage cloud agent provisioning at the manufacturing site
- Enable immediate connection and identification of the SME’s ‘thing’ in the cloud
The partner ecosystem also includes cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services and IBM Bluemix: support for the cloud APIs of these providers is integrated into the WICED platform. Other WICED partners are specialists in cloud application development: in many cases, they can write the cloud app to work with multiple cloud service providers, allowing the customer to choose the provider of its choice.
Other ecosystem partners are specialists in mobile applications, and can provide pre-built apps for customers to modify to meet their particular requirements.
A summary of the capabilities of each type of partner is shown in Figure 3.
Fig. 3: OEMs may use one or more of the partner types to support a wireless system implementation
All of these partner resources are available equally to support any of the very broad range of WICED RF products listed in the Cypress Product Selector Guide for IoT Solutions, available online at https://community.cypress.com/docs/DOC-3021. The document includes more than 100 connectivity products from both Cypress and the various strategic partners within the Cypress ecosystem.
Conclusion
The entire partner ecosystem is selected, vetted, trained and monitored by Cypress to ensure that it provides a seamless set of solutions based on Cypress’ wireless connectivity ICs. OEMs can use this ecosystem to get to market quicker with new IoT products, with less risk and uncertainty over development timescales and product performance, while remaining focused on the core application in which they have specialist expertise.
By basing new IoT designs on the WICED platform, SMEs can be confident of achieving interoperability with the huge installed base of Wi-Fi-, Bluetooth- and Zigbee-capable routers, computers, smartphones and smart devices that have already been built on this same platform.
