The following are IoT-related news announcements recently released.
PRESS RELEASE:
Trustonic, Microchip Partner on Security Platform for Internet of Things
Analyst forecasts of the number of connected devices deployed over the next decade range into the hundreds of billions. With the vast potential value that IoT brings, also comes a growing concern that those billions of devices and the data they process remain under-protected, posing a serious security threat. Trustonic is pleased to announce that it is enabling the world’s leading microcontroller (MCU) supplier, Microchip Technology Inc., to provide their customers with a secure platform and strong device identity pre-embedded into their MCUs, providing enhanced security capabilities that can be leveraged across the value chain and IoT ecosystem.
Product variants of Microchip’s newly-launched SAM L11 MCUs contain Trustonic’s Kinibi-M security platform and are based on the Arm Cortex-M23 core featuring Arm TrustZone for Armv8-M, a programmable environment that provides hardware isolation between certified libraries, IP and application code. SAM L11 MCUs also include proprietary chip-level tamper resistance, secure boot and secure key storage.
Built using the expertise already gained from securing over 1.5 billion mobile devices, Trustonic’s Kinibi-M software is a new modular, hardware-secured Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), a secure operating system (OS) that has been specially designed for size-constrained IoT chipsets. It is designed to ease development and leverage Trustonic’s implementation resources, saving developers from having to develop expertise in-house. In order to trust data coming from an IoT device, you first need to be able to trust the device itself.
To achieve this, Trustonic embeds a unique and distinct identity for every device during silicon manufacture. Kinibi-M technology enables device makers to record and attest to manufacturing steps, preventing opportunities for fraud & counterfeiting in the supply chain; protect software and IP on devices throughout their entire lifecycle; ensure that updates, personalization and secrets can be securely delivered; and enable devices to identify themselves in the field – for example to enable automatic cloud enrolment.
Trustonic’s solution is supplemented by their breakthrough technology, Digital Holograms, which enables manufacturers to prove that devices connecting to their systems are legitimate and have been through the correct and audited manufacturing stages.
In addition to the key advantages of enabling data to be trusted and devices to be kept secure, Kinibi-M also offers:
• Device Provenance: Manufacturing and lifecycle stages can be securely recorded using Digital Holograms. At any future stage in the device lifecycle, Trustonic’s device attestation can enable proof of secure manufacture or proof of legitimate deployment. For example, cloud services can leverage this capability to automatically onboard attested devices and reject counterfeits.
• Supply Chain Protection: Together the secure OS and Digital Holograms prevent individual devices from being cloned, IP or keys from being removed from a device, or devices from being over-produced. Any attempt to create counterfeit devices can be detected in-factory or in-field using Trustonic attestation services and the fraudulent production step can be highlighted.
• Software Isolation & IP Protection: Code modules are isolated from each other, reducing both the risks associated with errors elsewhere on the device and the potential for firmware updates to invalidate assumptions made during certification. This enables others further down the device’s production chain to add additional software or customization in a safe and secure way. Additionally, IP protection ensures that sensitive code and data cannot be extracted, copied, removed, modified or tampered with. This is essential, as the IP on a chip is often of greater value than the complete device.
“IoT end points often require low power and high security,” said Rod Drake, vice president of Microchip’s MCU32 business unit. “However, the growth of IoT nodes is happening so fast that security is not always adequately addressed. The features of the SAM L11 are exactly what customers need to plan for security early in the design cycle and throughout the remainder of the device’s life.”
Ben Cade, CEO of Trustonic, concluded: “Trustonic’s mission is to provide the best security and to remove the cost and complexity that often accompanies strong security. Our technology is already embedded in over 1.5 billion mobile devices, and we’ve now applied our expertise to simplifying the process for developing and deploying secure IoT. We are enabling Microchip SAM L11 microcontrollers to have a secured trusted identity when they leave the factory, so that subsequent events, additions and developments are built on a truly secure foundation that can be leveraged through the device’s entire lifecycle. We are committed to ensuring that connected devices have the best possible security protections, and we’re delighted to be working with Microchip to deliver revolutionary IoT security to the market.”
PRESS RELEASE:
Tive Announces Supply Chain Tracker With Long Battery Life
Tive, Inc., provider of the first cloud-integrated tracking solution to deliver full visibility into in-transit goods, has announced an upgrade to its multi-sensor tracker that includes a significantly longer battery life, as well as more accurate WiFi-powered location tracking. The enhancements to the Tive tracker are designed to simplify the use of the Tive tracking system and to extend the life and accuracy of each individual device.
Tive provides a sensor and software solution that allows supply chain managers to track and analyze the location and condition of their shipments in real time. The company’s proprietary low-power multi-sensor tracker uses cellular connectivity to provide real-time monitoring and analysis of the location, climate, and integrity of shipments. Supply chain managers access this data and analysis through the Tive software platform, where they can set up custom alerts like ETA warnings, temperature deviations, or geofences. They can also use the Tive API to pull data into external SCM or ERP systems, and gather insights into their supply chain like never before.
Upgrades to the Tive tracker include:
• More accurate location tracking — The addition of WiFi network sensing to the existing GPS and cell tower systems enables Tive’s customers to get more precise location identification.
• Longer battery life — Improved power management extends the life of each tracker to over a year at a six-hour reporting interval, while still using a battery small enough to require no special labeling or handling in any mode of transport.
• New, thinner form factor — Approximately the size and shape of a smartphone, the new Tive tracker is easy to add to a shipment, attach to a shipment box or integrate with returnable packaging.
“The biggest concerns that our customers mention when thinking about an IoT-based visibility solutions are: will this tracker last during my entire shipment, can I get granular enough sensor readings, and can I get accurate location once the goods are in an area where there is no GPS” commented Krenar Komoni, Tive’s Founder and CEO. “Tive’s battery life has gone from 2x to more than 4x better that any comparable tracker in the market and our location accuracy has improved significantly with the addition of Wi-Fi detection. We cannot wait to get this new tracker into our customers’ hands.”
Tive charges a monthly or annual fee per tracker, with unlimited access to the software platform and customer service included. The new tracker is available to beta customers starting in June.
PRESS RELEASE:
TPG Capital Completes Acquisition of IoT Software Provider Wind River
TPG Capital (TPG), the global private equity platform of alternative asset firm TPG, has announced that it has completed its acquisition of Wind River, a leader in delivering software for the Internet of Things (IoT). TPG’s acquisition of Wind River from Intel was announced on April 3, 2018. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.
For nearly 40 years, Wind River has helped the world’s technology leaders power generation after generation of the safest, most secure devices in the world. The company’s software runs the computing systems of the most important modern infrastructure and is accelerating the evolution from automated to autonomous systems across a diverse range of use cases — from collaborative robots to commercial and military drones, connected cars to the connected factory floor — as well as the intelligent communication networks that support these applications.
The newly independent company will be led by Wind River President and now Chief Executive Officer Jim Douglas. Nehal Raj, Partner and Head of Technology investing at TPG, will serve as Chairman of the company’s Board of Directors.
“Wind River is leveraging the power of IoT, intelligent devices, and edge computing to fundamentally transform critical infrastructure sectors,” said Raj. “This acquisition provides the company with the additional resources and focus needed to further differentiate itself as a market-leading provider of software for Industrial IoT. We look forward to working closely with management to identify and execute on opportunities to invest in organic and inorganic growth.”
“This is an exciting day for Wind River. Through this partnership with TPG, we will have new opportunities to innovate and evolve our industry-leading software portfolio, creating additional value for our customers and partner ecosystem,” said Douglas. “This acquisition is a clear endorsement of the unique value our software provides for accelerating digital transformation across critical infrastructure sectors, and we are thrilled to work with TPG in this next phase of our growth trajectory.”
TPG has a history of partnering with dynamic companies that are changing and enhancing different markets through innovative technology. Across platforms, select investments include C3 IoT, CCC Information Services, IQVIA (formerly QuintilesIMS), Intergraph, McAfee, Mediware Information Systems, Noodle.ai, and Zscaler.
PRESS RELEASE:
Leti Demos Waveform for 5G Low-Power Wide-Area IoT Networks
Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, has announced that field trials of its new Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technology, a waveform tailored for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, showed significant performance gains in coverage, data-rate flexibility and power consumption compared to leading LPWA technologies.
Leti’s LPWA approach includes its patented Turbo-FSK waveform, a flexible approach to the physical layer. It also relies on channel bonding, the ability to aggregate non-contiguous communication channels to increase coverage and data rates. The field trials confirmed the benefits of Leti’s LPWA approach in comparison to LoRaTM and NB-IoT, two leading LPWA technologies that enable wide-area communications at low cost and long battery life.
The results indicate the new technology is especially suitable for long-range massive machine-type communication (mMTC) systems. These systems, in which tens of billions of machine-type terminals communicate wirelessly, are expected to proliferate after 5G networks are deployed, beginning in 2020. Cellular systems designed for humans do not adequately transmit the very short data packets that define mMTC systems.
Designed to demonstrate the performance and flexibility of the new waveform, the field-trial results stem primarily from the system’s flexible approach of the physical layer. The flexibility allows data-rate scaling from 3Mbit/s down to 4kbit/s, when transmission conditions are not particularly favorable and/or a long transmission range is required.
Under favorable transmission conditions, e.g. a shorter range and line of sight, the Leti system can select high data rates using widely deployed single-carrier frequency-division multiplexing (SC-FDM) physical layers to take advantage of the low power consumption of the transmission mode. Under more severe transmission conditions, the system switches to more resilient high-performance orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). When both very long-range transmission and power efficiency are required, the system selects Turbo-FSK, which combines an orthogonal modulation with a parallel concatenation of convolutional codes and makes the waveform suitable to turbo processing. The selection is made automatically via a medium access control (MAC) approach optimized for IoT applications.
“Leti’s Turbo-FSK receiver performs close to the Shannon limit, which is the maximum rate that data can be transmitted over a given noisy channel without error, and is geared for low spectral efficiency,” said Vincent Berg, head of Leti’s Smart Object Communication Laboratory. “Moreover, the waveform exhibits a constant envelope, i.e. it has a peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR) equal to 0dB, which is especially beneficial for power consumption. Turbo-FSK is therefore well adapted to future LPWA systems, especially in 5G cellular systems.”
In the new system, the MAC layer exploits the advantages of the different waveforms and is designed to self-adapt to context, i.e. the usage scenario and application. It optimally selects the most appropriate configuration according to the application requirements, such as device mobility, high data rate, energy efficiency or when the network becomes crowded, and is coupled with a decision module that adapts the communication depending on the radio environment. The optimization of the application transmission requirements is realized by the dynamic adaptation of the MAC protocol, and the decision module controls link quality.