FEATURE SMART TECH & IOT
FEELING THE G FORCE Cat IoT modems to suit a variety of
industrial applications
With 5G at the forefront of people’s attention-grabbing vocabulary, IoT specialist Siretta reminds us that 2G, 3G and 4G also still have a part to play in the wider network. Christian Lynn, editor of Electronics, sits down with Steve Sydes, chief executive at Siretta, to expand on this
Christian Lynn: Looking at the applications that Siretta deals in - 2G, 3G, even 4G - all have a part to play in their solving of IoT issues. Will Siretta be moving into 5G as it’s implemented on a larger scale?
Steve Sydes: If you look at the spectrum of Siretta’s products, in development for around seven years, you’ll see how they’ve followed the evolutionary path of cellular networks. This leads all the way up to 5G: one example is a low-power Cat M/NB IoT modem from Siretta that operates at this level. With this, we can prove that we’re heading in this direction. Looking at IoT, one can recognise its significance in the cellular market: around 40 per cent of networking is active via the Internet of Things, as opposed to smartphones, etc. The forecast currently suggests that anywhere up to 70 per cent could function under IoT, however. Our part to play in this is that as IoT develops, demanding stronger networks, perhaps even beyond 5G, Siretta needs to mobilise and push its technology forward, so that it runs parallel with these changes in cellular networks, perhaps even pushing it beyond the bandwidths and latency requirements of a mobile device.
CL: And without the added concerns that come with smartphone applications, Siretta can focus its attention on developing its modems for the impending build-up of IoT?
SS: To use an analogy, looking back and seeing how design engineers were moving from four bit to eight bit, right on to 16 and 32 bit microprocessors, users didn’t require the performance and bandwidth of, let’s say, a 16 bit microprocessor: four bit would do the job nicely. The same is true with
40 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2020 | ELECTRONICS
communicative technology, whereby the vast majority of applications operate with low data rates: latency isn’t so much of an issue. However, there are sectors where 3G, 4G and 5G are necessary: on the road, for example, as the automotive industry steps up the technological demands with vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication and increased network capability. And, somewhere in the middle sits the smart meter market, wherein the devices themselves operate at a low latency and bandwidth. But, as the network has strengthened and become more efficient, developers have unveiled new services and protocols that will enable them to utilise the bandwidth without tampering with anything beyond what’s required.
CL: With this in mind, are you finding the need to upgrade the solutions to expand on the bandwidth as it develops, for example?
SS: Indeed, this is a focal point for Siretta. With recent products, such as our recent NB LTE Cat M version of our industrial modems for IoT, we’ll be pushing to build on these with Cat 1 and Cat 4, effectively giving us 3G performance levels in HSPA and HSPA+. But these Cat M modems can easily fall back into 2G mode, a dominant network in much of Europe still for IoT, perhaps to the surprise of many. So, the highways to these different networks are seamlessly traversable, and Siretta offers solutions that enable that.
CL: Networking and digitisation always leads to a discussion on miniaturisation: is Siretta pushing this as well, to match the digital demands?
Steve Sydes, chief executive, Siretta
“There are sectors where 3G, 4G and 5G are necessary still: on the road, for example, as the automotive industry steps up the technological demands of vehicle-to- everything (V2X) communication...”
SS: On this, rather than miniaturisation, we prefer to look at our designs as space-saving for the sake of power: low power is becoming a major issue, and in order to accommodate the necessary battery, real estate on the PCB must be saved, leading to a sizing down of other components. Many of the IoT areas that we sell into today are for modems in remote locations, where solar power is used to back-up the battery, or, the battery is able to sleep for an extended period of time, only to wake when data needs recording or sending. The important point here is how power is the essential part, particularly within the realm of IoT. Consider Siretta’s NB LTE Cat M modems: they currently possess a sleep state, with a power consumption of 75μA for extended periods. These are being developed further, for temperature humidity sensing for example, as well as power management foci. The enclosures of the products will prove key to this movement forward for the company: ruggedised, metal encasing for industrial applications, designed to withstand the pressures of external environments.
Siretta
www.siretta.com / ELECTRONICS
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