Tekmos' Blog

There are so many aspects of IoT (Internet of Things), that one can hardly list all the topics and issues. The number of IoT conferences these days is so large that one could just about go to one every week. Tekmos decided that one conference we really wanted to take in this year was the Internet of Things Developers Conference held May 25 and May 26 in Santa Clara, California.

The Unify Program at Tekmos focuses on the ability to unify many chips into a single package. Unify is a methodology, a capability, or a usage of technology, to yield several advantages. The users of the Unify Program are most likely to be the developers of IoT. The best place to describe the Unify Program is face to face with the IoT developers.

A short definition of Unify is the combining of chips from different technologies into a single package using a Tekmos ASIC as the base. It combines sophisticated cutting edge, off-the-shelf, chips that are inexpensive because of their volume, with added circuitry along with a Tekmos ASIC. the Tekmos chip performs like a silicon PCB. By implementing this as the Tekmos chip base with other die stacked above it, issues of mismatch pinouts between the standard parts are solved. This stack of die is in a single package. The small size of the resultant "System in a Package" (SIP) can be important for many IoT products. (Think wearables, such as fitness monitors.)

Other real advantages are cost and time to market. For example, a design with Flash memory and a microcontroller could use highly sophisticated ICs, which are already developed, mounted on a relatively inexpensive customized ASIC built with an older, less expensive technology. A common theme here is only pay for the technology you need in the parts of your system that require it. A high end processor can be mounted on a slower, less expensive technology base. The processor is inexpensive even though it uses cutting edge technology because its volume in the general market is high. This IC is combined with a specialized base ASIC that makes the design very hard to copy. Since 90% of the design implementation as utilizes commercially available parts it so far less risky than building a large expensive complex chip from scratch.

As expected, there were a number of conversations with developers that need to have small form factor and low power product designs. We are excited about the future for offering these benefits to many customers.

On the second week of May, Lynn Reed and Bob Abrams went to the HiTEC Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. HiTec is dedicated to high temperature electronics. While there are many applications that require electronics to work at high temperatures, the largest commercial usage has been in the oil industry. Oil exploration is a very expensive endeavor. Being able to put electronics deep underground is necessary in order to determine what is going on a couple miles down where it is quite hot, perhaps 200ºC to 300ºC. The lifetime of electronics can be quite short under these harsh conditions. Tekmos has introduced several state of the art products that are rated at 250ºC with proven operation to over 300ºC (570ºF).

There are applications that also require high temperatures, such as geothermal. Generally, designers make trade-offs between the highest operating temperature and cost. Silicon based parts seem to offer the best trade-off for oil exploration applications. The Tekmos approach can offer the best trade-off because it is silicon based and at the high end of temperatures which can be achieved with silicon.

Unfortunately, oil exploration is in quite a slump because of the lower price of oil. The attendance at the conference was down significantly from prior years due to current economic conditions. The conference was still successful because it is the quality of the contacts made that is important, not the quantity.

When we travel on business, we try to take a little time to do something that is related to the place we are visiting. Not having much free time on this trip, our outing was limited to a stroll and dinner in Old Albuquerque. It is an interesting area with a number of quaint shops and restaurants. Before dinner, we took in a local group playing by the gazebo in the town square.

The crowd seemed to be mostly local people enjoying the music, inspiring some of them to dance. After a great Mexican dinner, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the next day, having enjoyed some of the local talent and a chance to get away for a few hours.

Tekmos looks forward to exhibiting at the Internet of Things Developer's Conference May 25-26 in Santa Clara, California and will feature Tekmos Unify, our solution to the IoT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) goes way beyond and interconnects virtually unlimited numbers of smart objects and changes the way we interact with our environment. To help rein in the vast IoT world, the IoT DevCon 2016 will focus on technologies ranging from the ultra-low power microcontrollers to the multicore-enabled aggregation hubs to the software and security infrastructure required for monitoring and management of the enormous bundles of data.

Stop by booth #11 to learn more about Tekmos' Unify, ASICs for the Internet of Things.

The excitement that IoT offers great new possibilities to all phases of our lives is beginning to be tempered by the realization that having standards is critical and that agreeing on them takes a herculean effort. Talk to someone who remembers trying to decide between buying a VHS and Betamax VCR. The two video recording/playback formats lived side by side for many years. While each had their own merits, they were not compatible. If you had one you could not use products designed for the other. Incompatible IoT devices is a much larger problem because of the very large number of types of products and companies involved. Virtually all types of consumer products, from home entertainment to home appliances and from automobiles to retail sales can have IoT aspects to them. All manufacturing, commerce, and infrastructure will have some connection to IoT issues.

For example, plumbing may seem a long way from any IoT concern, except perhaps in remotely controlling flood gates or remotely monitoring water flow in streams. Consider that a washing machine can detect its own stuck valve and, using IoT, have the water main valve to your home shut off. This may sound far-fetched until one considers that water damage from such occurrences are a major reason for homeowner insurance claims. Without standards, it is unlikely that devices in unusual pairings will be able to communicate with each other.

Each potential vendor in the IoT space has an interest in some aspect of the standard. Any standard will likely cause some winners and some losers. Should all communications between devices go through the cloud? It would be far too cumbersome to have everyone's in-home entertainment center communicate through the cloud to dim the lights when movies start. Would there be a master list of all lightbulb serial numbers to know which ones to dim? How will the maker of the light switch dimmer interact with the changes requested by the entertainment system? In this arena, it certainly appears that communications for these devices must be local. This can be contrasted with the wide area issues of coordinating energy sources and users on the power grid.

It is difficult to get agreement on standards within a committee when each company participating has their own vested interest in standards favoring their approach. Perhaps worse than that, the number of standards committees is growing. Any major company will likely participate in competing standards committees to follow trends as well as to influence the standards being developed.

There seem to be two groups emerging to dominate the discussions: The Open Interconnect Consortium and the Allseen Alliance. Each want to be the single standard for IoT. Not surprisingly, the standards each is moving toward do not necessarily agree with each other. Much will need to happen before there is anything like a single standard. Meanwhile, products are being designed and manufactured which may not function well with designs produced after there is more agreement on standards.