Semiconductor IP company Arm has built a full-stack solution for Internet of Things (IoT) technology that is aimed at making connected product development faster and easier for technology companies. The firm’s Total Solutions for IoT line now includes Virtual Hardware, a cloud-based solution that offers a virtual model of its Corstone technology to help users develop solutions without the need for physical silicon. With this latest offering, the company predicts an IoT solution development that would previously have required a design cycle of approximately five years can now be accomplished within about three years.
Semiconductor firms Alif Semiconductor and Himax Technologies, as well as hardware and software company Arduino, and software developers Linaro and TensorFlow, are among those using Total Solutions for IoT, along with the company’s Virtual Hardware offering. Total Solutions for IoT leverages Arm’s existing Corstone subsystem, which several silicon companies have deployed in an effort to accelerate their time to market.
Mohamed Awad
Arm launched Corstone in 2018 as an earlier drive to help partners accelerate time to market, and the company calls it the foundation of Total Solutions for IoT. The platform pre-integrates Arm IP according to a reference system architecture, forming a hardware foundation on which the Total Solutions for IoT line is developed. To date, more than 150 designs have used Corstone, including nearly 70 percent of the company’s Cortex-M55 licensees, according to Mohamed Awad, Arm’s IoT and embedded VP.
Virtual Hardware is targeted at software developers, original equipment manufacturers and service providers. This cloud-based platform consists of a virtual model of the company’s Corstone subsystem, thereby simulating memory and peripherals. The first configuration includes Cortex-M55 and Ethos-U55 processors, and Arm says its IP for intelligent ICs makes it suitable for machine-learning use cases developers may be targeting.
Previously, Awad says, IoT developers had faced challenges around slow product design, inefficient software development and a lack of scale, meaning software and services cannot be easily leveraged across multiple platforms. Arm says it thus seeks to accelerate IoT development, and to do so at a time when requirements for intelligence, security, connectivity, versatility, power and performance are becoming more difficult to address for traditional embedded developers. “It is the right time to switch gears,” he states, “and to change how IoT products are developed.”
The company believes that Total Solutions for IoT will transform Internet of Things economics, Awad says, while accelerating product-design cycles. Virtual Hardware provides a representation of a physical SoC, simulating its software-visible behavior. It operates as a simple Linux application and allows developers to run and test IoT software directly in the cloud. “With Arm Virtual Hardware, we’re putting technology in the hands of millions of software developers that before just wouldn’t have access to it,” Awad explains. “It’s an entirely new way for software developers to innovate and develop for diverse IoT devices, all in the cloud.”
As a result, the company reports, IoT product developers can start writing code months or years before the final hardware is available. To accomplish this goal, Total Solutions for IoT combines Corstone with the more recently released Virtual Hardware. Through this combination of existing technologies and new elements was specifically developed for Total Solutions for IoT, Awad notes, the firm hopes to see developers launch use-case-led IoT products, and the components Arm is offering as part of its solution could be used by several types of partners.
For example, Awad says, embedded software developers can utilize the software elements to build applications faster and would benefit from standardization. They can start developing earlier by employing Virtual Hardware, he adds, without having to wait for the silicon to become available. In a typical development project, Total Solutions for IoT would provide the fundamental building blocks for the construction of an IoT system, including computation, machine learning, security, software and cloud support, as the basis of a company’s development. That business could then focus on its own differentiating features for its specific product.
Arm does not directly produce or provide silicon chips, though OEM customers can access its ecosystem of silicon and design partners to satisfy product requirements. Awad says the partners can provide design services if needed, as well as software and other tools. The company also has a partner program serving as a global network of design service companies endorsed by Arm. “The IoT is a huge and diverse market,” he states, “with incredible innovation already taking place across many applications.”
According to Awad, Arm provides the IP for partners to bring intelligence to endpoint devices, such as the Cortex-M55 and Ethos-U55 processors. The Total Solutions for IoT line is intended to give developers as much freedom as possible, he says, and the company expects to see more use-case-specific solutions starting with ML applications, such as keyword recognition. For example, Amazon is using Virtual Hardware to scale Alexa wake-word testing.
As part of Total Solutions for IoT, the company offers its Project Centauri software platform, a new ecosystem initiative for Cortex-M, which can be leveraged with Virtual Hardware. Project Centauri is intended to drive standards and frameworks to grow serviceable markets, Awad says, as well as scale IoT software innovation. “Thanks to easy portability of the whole software stack,” he states, “Project Centauri enables capitalization of software investments, instead of reinventing the wheel when migrating from one chip to another.”