The scale and coverage of the Internet of Things continue to expand-it is expected to increase productivity, convenience and safety in almost all areas of life and work. Statista market research estimates that by 2025, the global IoT market will be worth about US$1.6 trillion.1 This impressive number obscures the fact that the Internet of Things-at least so far-has failed to meet all the hype and expectations in many cases. In fact, IoT projects are rarely smooth sailing. According to Gartner research analyst Ganesh Ramamoorthy, eight in ten IoT projects fail even before they are launched.2 In addition, it takes an average of 18 months to create a market-ready IoT solution.
In such a fast-moving space, that is a long time. In recent years, digitization has undoubtedly accelerated the pace. Many organizations have already embarked on their digital transformation journey before the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no doubt that this crisis has accelerated the adoption of global digital technologies. The need to convert analog products and services into digital products and transfer customer interactions to the digital world has never been more urgent.
Unlock the complexity of the Internet of Things
So why does it take so long to develop an IoT product? In short, IoT projects are complex. Developing IoT solutions involves more than just inserting a SIM card into the device to increase connectivity. IoT devices need to “see”, “hear”, “feel”, “understand”, and may even “smell” the surrounding environment. They can only do this with the help of microelectronics. Electronic chips can give human-like senses to “things” in the Internet of Things. This enables them to process information autonomously, make decisions and initiate chains of action. The semiconductor company Infineon refers to this as the sensing-computing-driving-connection-safe function process-as follows:
- sensor Mark the starting point of any IoT system as they capture environmental information and convert it into digital data
- Microcontroller It is the nerve center of IoT devices, processing these data and generating control signals
- Actuator Start things by converting control signals into actions
- Connectivity Is the heartbeat of the Internet of Things, connecting all these “things” to each other and to the cloud
- Security solution For devices, networks, and data, by protecting data transmission and ensuring the integrity of connected devices and networks, build vital consumer trust in the digital world
Needless to say, not all IoT devices or service providers are experts in the perception-compute-drive-connection-security continuum. For example, a home appliance manufacturer may focus on cooling or induction technology, but it is unlikely to know much about hardware-based security or strong connectivity. In many cases, newbies in the IoT field have neither internal resources nor budget to invest in dedicated security or connectivity features. The question is, how do they balance the need for speed with the same urgent need for reliable connectivity, context awareness, and strong security?
Fast track to success in the Internet of Things
One way to speed up this process is to work with IoT companies such as Infineon Technologies. Infineon has gone beyond the delivery of a single semiconductor product to provide end-to-end solutions that cover the entire range of IoT functions, and combine these solutions with the additional advantages of software as a service to provide complementary analytical insights. This means that customers can use Infineon’s collaborative expertise to develop ready-to-use IoT solutions that cover all functional blocks, so they don’t have to invest in security or connectivity expertise on their own.
Reliable connectivity, context awareness and strong security
Infineon stated that reliable connections, context awareness and strong security are the three key success factors for designing future-oriented IoT systems. Today’s consumers expect fast, stable connections and excellent reception quality. For this reason, connection solutions must support more and more frequency bands and functions in a limited space without affecting antenna performance. Infineon uses innovations such as antenna tuning to meet these conflicting needs, improving antenna efficiency to achieve the highest data rate, excellent signal quality and longer battery life. 5G technology is another key tool to provide ultra-fast and reliable wireless communication in a gigabit interconnected society. Completing these capabilities, advanced analytics and “learning” software are helping to improve today’s connected products for a better end user experience.
Infineon’s XENSIV™ sensor series is meeting the ever-changing needs of users for a relaxed, interconnected, and intuitive IoT experience. XENSIV™ sensors enable things to “see”, “hear”, “feel”, “understand” and even “smell” the surrounding environment. These data streams are processed by the microcontroller and converted into control signals. The actuator then converts the control signal into a contextual action.
In terms of security, Infineon provides easy-to-integrate hardware-based security products and solutions, such as the OPTIGA™ series based on established rapid deployment and interoperability standards. This enables companies to accelerate the development and delivery of IoT product and service models without the need to invest in specialized security knowledge or build their own security facilities.
Bringing everything together-speed and scale
Assuming that all the connectivity, sensing, and security building blocks are in place, designers need to deal with the speed challenge. How can they speed up this process, quickly bring products to the market, and seize the opportunity in the competition? Infineon gave the answer again.
Knowing that missing deadlines is not an option, the company is very focused on shortening time to market and providing customers with the most important speed advantage. As a trusted partner in the field of IoT, the company strives to make customers’ design and production processes as fast and simple as possible.
Take software development as an example. If the builder has the right tools and solutions, it doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process. Infineon has integrated its AIROC™ wireless and microcontroller solutions to work together and complete the heavy work, so customers can focus on easily designing connected low-power devices. Engineers using popular cloud services can rely on Infineon as middleware, so they don’t need custom code, which saves time further. For example, Infineon’s ModusToolbox™ is a modern software development platform that allows customers to instantly access complex software libraries, thereby improving the speed and quality of the development process.
Another key factor in the speed equation is the regulatory factor. Compliance with regulatory requirements is critical to being able to sell products on a global scale. Infineon’s software tools and documentation resources support customers throughout the testing process-regardless of whether their goal is to obtain FCC or CE certification. The rich regulatory resources and tool library for microcontrollers, Wi-Fi solutions, and Bluetooth® products are all designed to help customers succeed once-every time.
Entering the pre-release stage, Infineon has also developed some tools to simplify the feedback process during Alpha and Beta testing so that customers can quickly identify and resolve connectivity, reliability, and security issues. This allows customers to focus on the core development process. For example, the company’s Internet of Things Network Intelligence (INI) solution supports remote telemetry, so errors can be fixed before it affects the customer experience. Its Mobile Application Intelligence (MAI) solution provides the same visibility for Wi-Fi onboarding. INI is very suitable for alpha/beta testing and also allows developers to remotely manage and update products on site.
In short, by combining microelectronics technology that spans full-featured processes with intelligent analysis and intelligent development tools and resources, companies can reduce the typical IoT development time by reducing the complexity inherent in delivering IoT projects at speed and scale Weeks or even months.
