everything RF recently interviewed Dima Feldman who is the Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Altair Semiconductor, a Sony Group Company. Dima is responsible for product management, marketing, and solution architecture. He works closely with development teams, customers, and partners to build innovative IoT solutions.
Q. Can you give us a brief history of Sony Semiconductor (Altair)? How was the company formed and what was the aim?
Dima Feldman: Altair Semiconductor was founded in 2005, with a vision to provide very low-power cellular access. At the time, we believed that WiMAX technology was the correct path forward. However, we quickly realized that LTE was taking over the space providing broadband wireless access, and quickly shifted to that technology.
Since day one as an organization, we have been known for our chipsets very low power consumption. We have multiple technologies and patents developed to further our development in this area. In 2016, we were acquired by Sony. They valued the technology we were building, and had a similar way of thinking about low-power solutions and silicon.
Prior to the acquisition, our business focused on broadband devices. However, since becoming part of the Sony family, we have worked exclusively on cellular IoT.
Q. Please tell us more about your product portfolio.
Dima Feldman: Our current portfolio includes three generations of low-power IoT chipsets. We have the CAT-1 solution and two generations of CAT-M solutions – the ALT1250 and ALT1350. In addition, we developed the ALT1255, a derivative of the ALT1250, to address the needs of the NB-IoT market. At the time of their launch, each of these solutions led the market in terms of power consumption for their category.
As our products have matured, we have continued to add more value on top of the cellular solution. In the ALT1250, we added a microcontroller (MCU), to enable customers to write their own applications. The ALT1250 was also the first to market with an integrated SIM (iSIM), and we added GNSS functions, which is part of our synergy with Sony.
Last year we launched the ALT1350, which successfully reduced power consumption by a factor of 5-8, depending on the KPI. We also added additional radio technology to enable device-to-device communication and Wi-Fi based location technology.
One important innovation we implemented into the ALT1350 was the addition of low-power sensor technology. We added a dedicated, very lower power MPU that can collect data from multiple cell sensors without waking up the main MCU, to further reduce power consumption. One use case for this technology is the ability of pharmaceutical companies to record the temperature of a shipment traveling from point A to point B. The sensors can record temperatures every minute but only transmit the data once a day to preserve the battery.
In general, our view is to integrate different silicon-based components in the device into a single chip.
Q. What market segments do you cater to? Which segment is the largest for you?
Dima Feldman: The largest segment of cellular IoT today is the utility market, which includes electricity meters, water meters, and gas meters. We are the leader in this market, and our devices are currently deployed in Japan, Australia, North America, Europe, Korea, and Taiwan.
We are also seeing strong growth potential from the asset tracking market. This ranges from parcel to container level tracking. I believe cellular IoT is the ideal connectivity solution for connecting anything that is outdoors.
Q. You have products for both NB-IoT and LTE-Cat-M. What are the main differences between these two technologies? How do you suggest users pick one form the other when looking to add IoT functionality to their product?
Dima Feldman: NB-IoT and CAT-M started in parallel, as part of the 3GPP release 13. The majority of carriers in the Western world support both technologies, and our recommendation for device manufacturers would be to use CAT-M.
CAT-M is a better technology for applications that require mobility and roaming. It’s more power-efficient, making it a most suitable solution for any IoT Device with small to medium data payloads. Furthermore, CAT-M networks have a far great capacity in terms of the number of devices or data that can be sent.
We do see some pockets in Europe where NB-IoT is preferred. This is generally in areas that are extremely cost-sensitive, and NB-IoT is less expensive. Additionally, in countries like China, Russia, and India, NB-IoT is the only option, so developers in those markets don’t have another option.
Q. In terms of compatibility with Networks and ISPs. Are your products developed and certified for global deployment, or do you have to develop and certify for specific regions and networks?
Dima Feldman: Our products are all able to be deployed globally. We developed a technology called OneSKU to help with the radio design, and it’s also used in the way we design the software. We anticipate that our devices will be certified globally and work everywhere on the globe.
Technologies like CAT-1 would be very expensive to certify globally, because different countries work in different frequency ranges and require different SAW filters. However, with CAT-M and NB-IoT technology, manufacturers can build devices built for global deployment in a way that makes sense. This is another advantage of the CAT-M and NB-IoT technology.
Q. How do you distinguish your products from other IoT chip manufacturers?
Dima Feldman: Developing very low power devices is part of our DNA, and if you compare our chipsets to those of others, this is the key differentiator. We also developed our chipsets for IoT from the ground up, rather than taking a solution initially designed for smartphones and trying to shrink it down.
Our chipsets are highly innovative. We continue to build more functionality into our chipsets, such as the iSIM, additional radio technology, and short-range radios. In the ALT1350, we added more application processing. We also build security directly into the hardware, so that they are protected against cybersecurity threats.
Finally, our chipsets are field-proven, having been deployed in tens of millions of devices. The quality and maturity are significantly higher than that of a startup or new player in the market. In the world of IoT, particularly in the utility market, it makes a big difference.
Q. Who are your customers and where are they located? What is rough % wise geographic distribution?
Dima Feldman: Our direct customers are global module makers with operations on every inhabited continent. While they are headquarted in North America, Europe, and Asia - each one of their operations is truly global.
Q. What is your product roadmap for the next few years?
Dima Feldman: I can’t discuss our product roadmap, but I can tell you our goals. Our solutions use the lowest power consumption, have a range of processing capabilities, location and security functions, and multiple radios. The ALT1250 is a high-quality chipset shipping today. The ALT1255 is an NB solution, and the ALT1350 is a next-generation CAT-M and NB-IoT solution. Our plan is to take these solutions to become the largest chipset vendor in the market.
Q. What do you see as the future of Cellular IoT, and what trends do you anticipate in the coming years?
Dima Feldman: Cellular IoT has a bright future. Over the past year, we have seen more adoption, especially on the service side. People recognize that for commercial IoT deployment, cellular IoT is the best technology, and they have stopped relying on their private or in-house network, because when you deploy a cellular IoT device the solution is connected quite easily.
To me, everything outdoors is definitely going to be connected to a cellular network. I am also seeing more devices inside the premises that are connected to cellular networks, because the connectivity is very simple, from a logistic point of view, which will lead to prices of devices being reduced.
With the introduction of short-range radio in the ALT1350 and its ability to have a device-to-device connection, we will also see devices with hybrid connectivity, where a device can connect through another device to the network, or have more than one connectivity option.
We are seeing more and more cybersecurity regulation coming into the IoT space, and we have built hardware-based security built into the chipset. So not only are we going to be connected, but that connectivity will be done in a very secure manner.
This is the future. Everything is going to be connected. Everything.
About Sony Semiconductor Israel
Sony Semiconductor Israel is a leading provider of cellular IoT chipsets. The company’s cellular IoT chipsets are the smallest and most highly integrated LTE CAT-M and NB-IoT chipsets on the market, featuring ultra-low power consumption, hardware-based security, and a carrier-grade integrated SIM (iSIM), all 5G ready.
Sony Semiconductor Israel partners with leading global vendors, including ARM, G+D (Giesecke+Devrient), HERE Technologies, Murata, and Sierra Wireless, to provide low-power and cost-efficient modules for a range of industrial and consumer IoT applications such as trackers, smart meters, smart labels, wearables, and vehicle telematics.
Click here to vist Sony Semiconductor Israel Profile on everything RF.
