Internet of Things (IoT) Market
Joy Weiss,
President, Dust Networks Product Group, Linear Technology Corp.
Linear Technology purchase Dust Networks a little over two years ago, and become a major player in IoT.
Dust Networks is defining the way to connect smart devices. Dust Networks delivers reliable, resilient and scalable wireless embedded products with advanced network management and comprehensive security features. Dust Networks products are built on breakthrough Eterna™ 802.15.4 SoC technology, delivering ultra low power consumption for wire-free operation on batteries or energy harvesting. Working with Dust Networks, wireless sensing applications can be deployed anywhere data can be gleaned.
What are your opinions regarding the major trends for this market (slowing, growing, booming…)?
One of the most significant trends in embedded electronics is the Internet of Things (IoT), wherein intelligent, communicating sensors are widely deployed and tied into business analytics to enable new insights into the physical world. In particular, the Industrial applications of IoT are enabling safer, more efficient and more productive operations of plants and factories around the world.
What are the key strategies adopted by your company in the short/medium period to address (or to better address) the needs of the market?
Linear Technology is a leading provider of enabling technologies for the Industrial Internet. Linear Technology’s consistent focus on high performance, high reliability in harsh environments and best-in-class power management is tailored to the needs of the Industrial Internet market. Examples include
- SmartMesh® low power wireless mesh networking technology, which allows battery or energy harvesting powered sensors to communicate reliably
- Energy harvesting solutions that enable power to be harvested from a range of energy sources, including solar, vibration, thermal and other sources.
- Advanced power management, which allows designers to optimize power consumption based on the available power source
- Data converters that translate real world signals such as temperature, pressure, or voice into the digital realm and back again
- Many other best-in-class products for networking, signal conditioning, timing and other critical enablers of the Industrial Internet.
What are you doing in order to implement your strategies (partnership/agreements, new acquisitions, investments in activities like R&D, people….)?
Linear Technology has always had a strong focus on industrial applications of electronics. The Industrial Internet is enabled, in part, by advances in technology pioneered by Linear Technology and our focus on analog excellence and innovation will not waver. In 2012, Linear Technology acquired Dust Networks, the leading provider of SmartMesh wireless mesh networking technology for industrial applications, to enhance its portfolio of Industrial Internet offerings. Dust Network’s wireless sensor networking solutions are the lowest power solutions in the industry, based on the ultra low power Eterna 802.15.4 SOC. Linear Technology offers complete solutions and reference designs for building wireless sensor networks, including the sensor interface electronics, power management, wireless transceiver and network software
What are the most important applications?
IoT applications are growing at a tremendous rate, across a wide variety of vertical markets. The ability to put a sensor anywhere it is needed–even in harsh, remote locations where power is not available–and to glean much needed information about the condition of things is resulting in major production efficiencies, safer workplaces and infrastructure, and brand new services that are based on newly found information about the environment. The industry is alive with applications where little bits of data about ‘things’ are creating a wealth of useful data and valuable applications, including:
- Monitoring the structural integrity of deep underground mineshafts
- Creating a high canopied citywide infrastructure of streetlight mounted sensors and access points
- Remotely checking the snowpack depth in critical mountainous watersheds
- Optimizing the flow of cool air in temperature sensitive data centers to minimize energy use
Which are the key factors that set your company apart from the competition?
Linear Technology’s’ products provide an essential bridge between our analog world and the digital electronics in communications, networking, industrial, automotive, computer, medical, instrumentation, consumer, and military and aerospace systems. Linear Technology produces power management, data conversion, signal conditioning, RF and interface ICs, µModule subsystems, and wireless sensor network products. Linear’s strategy is to develop innovative high performance products that can be used across a range of demanding application areas, Our relentless focus on quality, reliability and innovation sets the high bar in the industry. For IoT applications to achieve pervasive deployment, ultra-low power electronics will need to be coupled to the widest range of sensors, and they will need to be deployed in places and environments where electronics never have been before. Linear Technology is uniquely capable of leading the industry to ensure that there are no insurmountable technical barriers to Industrial IoT deployments.
And in the middle/long term (if you have a crystal ball!)?
To date, many IoT applications have employed wireless technologies to extend and enhance wired sensor networking applications. For example, in the industrial process world, the WirelessHART standard provides a wireless extension to the long-standing wired HART standard that connects more than 30M industrial process sensors. This allows industrial process customers to put sensors in places where wires simply could not go, while reducing the deployment cost of sensors to less than 10% of the wired cost. We are now seeing more new applications that are not simply wireless extensions of wired applications, but entirely new applications that are fundamentally enabled by the IoT technologies now available. The Internet of Things presents a profound opportunity for positive changes in how we work and live. The enormous possibilities are only just beginning to present themselves as innovators around the world harness the emerging technologies and apply them in new and impactful products and services. Our role at Linear Technology is to unleash this creativity through forward looking deployment of the key underpinning technologies.
