Modular Embedded Design to Accelerate IoT Proliferation

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Modular Embedded Design to Accelerate IoT
Proliferation

Published by
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• Modular kitchens are widely popular in households
  nowadays. It leverages the concept of modularity
  to add convenience, customization and optimize
  cost. In simple terms, modularity means that a
  system can be built by assembling many small
  units.

CHAIRMAN
Modularity is used extensively in many industries
such as transport logistics, packaging,
software and many more. The benefits are enormous
in terms of reduction of system development time
cost and addition of scalability, convenience,
and customization. In this article, we will
explore how adopting modular approach in embedded
development of IoT devices can accelerate the
proliferation of IoT. Before we move ahead, lets
start with some basics. First coined by Kevin
Ashton back in 1999, the phrase has evolved a lot
over time. In simple terms, the phrase can mean
Pervasive Connectivity. IoT promises an era, in
which discrete things or objects are connected
through internet or other connectivity mediums,
and these objects individually or collectively
achieve some meaningful result.
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• Few fields that are showing promising IoT
  applications are Smart Homes, Smart Cities,
  Security Assistance, Connected Vehicles,
  Industrial Automation, Healthcare, Wearables, and
  many more. With the advent of pervasive
  connectivity, cognizance has entered into the
  non-living realm. Things or objects can now take
  autonomous decisions based on some events,
  without human intervention.
• Although the IoT ecosystem is colossal, at the
  ground level, it is supported by embedded devices
  that has some processing power, memory, and some
  real world connectivity interfaces (I/Os) such as
  UART, Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. Embedded
  devices such as sensors and gateways play an
  important role in driving IoT. Sensors are
  compact, power-efficient, application-specific
  devices that monitor the ambient environment and
  pass on the information, using internet or other
  connectivity medium, to a gateway that processes
  the data and take some actions. As gateways may
  receive data from multiple sensors, they
  therefore need some processing power, memory and
  a set of connectivity interfaces. An industrial
  plant monitoring system can be easily made with
  few sensors and a gateway.

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• The sensors can monitor variety of parameters
  such as plant temperature, vibration, humidity,
  etc. and pass on the information to a gateway.
  The gateway receives the data and checks for any
  faults. In case of any abnormal condition like
  high humidity, it can send a message to the
  smart-phone of the plant technician. In case,
  everything is normal, then the gateway can upload
  the data to a cloud-server for analytics and
  maintenance records.
• Now, lets take a look at the embedded
  development of sensors and gateways. Usually,
  sensors are simple, application-specific
  standardized, micro-controller based devices. The
  gateways need to be versatile in terms of
  computing, storage and connectivity requirements,
  thus the embedded development of these devices
  becomes a bit challenging. There are many
  standardized gateways available in the market
  however, there may be scenarios where these
  gateways shall not fulfill your price,
  performance, power, or connectivity requirements.
  In the remaining article, we will explore
  constraints in various embedded platforms that
  are currently employed for development of
  embedded devices such as gateways and then make
  an attempt to showcase how concept of modularity
  can be leveraged to reduce time-to-market and
  development cost of IoT devices.

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• Product Development from Scratch or Chip Based
  Development
• Usually, OEMs prefer to develop the hardware and
  software from scratch as it offers them total
  control over the project and they can customize
  the platform based on their requirements. The
  hardware components such as SoC, memory, power
  supplies, multimedia connectivity interfaces,
  peripherals, display, etc. are integrated over a
  printed circuit board (PCB). The software stack
  including device drivers, board support packages,
  UI, application, etc. are developed either
  in-house or some parts are outsourced by the
  OEMs.
• Constraints
• Boost NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) cost High
  investment in engineering development, design and
  test as the product is developed from scratch.
  Further, product development time is long that
  leads to inflated engineering cost.
• High input cost Usually, sales volume of
  embedded products is low. So, OEMs cannot
  leverage economics of scale in low volume
  procurement of critical components such as SoC,
  Flash, RAM, and thus pay higher price.

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• Long time-to-market As the development happens
  from scratch, the development time increases, and
  thus long time-to-market.
• High development risk With scratch development
  of hardware and software, there is a high
  probability that things may go wrong at any
  level. This adds significant risk to the project
  compromising time-to-market and development cost.
• Questionable scalability With Moores Law in
  action, the silicon components such as SoC, are
  getting matured in terms of performance,
  power-efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.
  However, it is impossible to scale up an embedded
  platform developed from scratch, as the CPU,
  memory, and I/Os are integrated on a single PCB.
  It needs a redesign that is time-consuming and
  expensive.
• Product Risk There is a substantial risk
  associated with the supply chain of the
  end-product in case any silicon components (SoC,
  RAM, Flash memory) reach End of Life.

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• Single Board Computer (SBC)
• SBCs offer a ready-to-use embedded platform on a
  single PCB for developing any end-product. The
  OEMs select single board computers that are best
  suited for their requirements and then develop
  the end-application. Although, SBCs are
  application-ready, they suffer from few
  loopholes.
• Constraints
• Not scalable It is not possible to scale up or
  adapt your application developed on a SBC, as the
  CPU is closely coupled with the I/O section on a
  single PCB.
• No customization Customizing a SBC, based on the
  OEMs requirements, is not possible as the I/Os
  are already fixed on the PCB.
• Fixed size Space constrained applications may
  struggle to use SBC as the size and I/O
  configuration may not be ideal.

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• Currently, low-cost SBCs such as Raspberry Pi and
  BeagleBone are really popular in the embedded
  market. These open-source and community-backed
  platforms can also be used to develop IoT
  products. These SBCs are ideal for DIY and
  academic projects. However, these SBCs are not
  appropriate for commercial development of
  embedded products.
• Not industrial hardware (temperature range,
  vibration).
• No committed or dedicated support in terms of
  software and hardware.
• Product lifecycle is not guaranteed.
• No product change notification policy.

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• Introducing modularity in embedded design
• An embedded platform can be represented as below

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The Application Agnostic part consists of
essential design commodities, including the
processing memory requirements. This part may
not differ much whether the end-product is a
medical device or a home-automation product,
assuming the processing and memory requirements
are somewhat similar. This Application
Specific part constitutes both the hardware and
software, depending on the application and OEMs
requirements. OEMs can differentiate their
products from those of their competitors by
adding value to this part, as the end-user
interact and experience this part. A Computer
on Module (COM) or System on Module (SOM) is a
cost-effective, reliable and ready-to-use
computing solution that consists of the
application-agnostic hardware and software.
System developers can focus on the
application-specific part by using an
off-the-shelf COM, and thus accelerate
time-to-market without compromising on product
development cost and risk
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Figure 1 Details of Computer on Module
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• The revamped architecture after using COM is
  shown below.

CHAIRMAN
The combination of an application-agnostic COM
and application-specific carrier board, which
houses the I/Os on a PCB, along with display and
peripherals, offers a complete platform for
developing any end-products. The COM can be
inserted into the carrier board through some
standard connector such as SODIMM connector in
the image below. Many COM suppliers also offer
off-the-shelf compatible carrier boards.
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CHAIRMAN
Figure 2 An illustration of Viola - A small
form-factor (74 mm x 74mm), ultra-low cost
Carrier Board from Toradex
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• Usually, off-the-shelf carrier boards may not
  fulfill packaging, I/O configuration, functional,
  cost, and size requirements for a specific
  application, so OEMs prefer to develop and design
  their own carrier board. Development of custom
  carrier boards can be really made easy in case
  the layout and schematics files of compatible
  carrier boards are shared by the COM suppliers.

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• The Build vs Buy Dilemma
• Usually, OEMs prefer chip-based development
  however, as mentioned above, there are many
  constraints in this approach. A COM addresses
  these constraints effectively.
• Reduce development cost COM vendors procure
  silicon components such as SoC, Memory, etc. in
  high volume, thus pay less than OEMs for their
  low volume procurement. By using an off-the-shelf
  COM, OEMs can leverage economies of scale to
  bring down input cost. Further, OEMs can only
  focus on developing the application-specific part
  of their product, and thus reduce NRE cost.
• Accelerate time-to-market As the COM offers an
  application-ready platform, OEMs can accelerate
  the time-to-market for their products.
• Reduce development risk COMs are extensively
  tested by the suppliers and other customers, so
  OEMs can significantly reduce their product
  development risk by using COMs in embedded
  development.
• Platform scalability Some COM suppliers such as
  Toradex offer pin-compatible Computer on Modules
  with a variety of performance, price, and I/Os.
  OEMs can easily scale up their platforms to
  accommodate future market demands and latest
  technologies.

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Figure 3 Pin-compatible COMs from Toradex
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• Toradex is a Switzerland based company that
  designs and develops ARM based COMs powered by
  Freescale i.MX 6 Vybrid, NVIDIA Tegra, and
  Marvell XScale PXA SoCs. Apart from offering an
  extensive range of pin-compatible COMs, Toradex
  stands out in the embedded computing market with
  its product reliability longevity, free premium
  support and transparent pricing. Toradex also
  offers schematics and layout files of compatible
  carrier boards, so customers can easily develop
  custom carrier boards suiting their
  end-application.
• Access to latest technology Usually, market
  leaders of silicon components such as SoC, Flash
  memory, do not engage with low volume customers,
  so OEMs may struggle to get access to latest
  technological advances. COMs vendors ensure the
  adoption of such technologies in the embedded
  devices by engaging in large volume business with
  market leaders of silicon components.

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• COM/ SOM for IoT products
• It can be summed up that COM/ SOM offers an ideal
  platform for developing embedded devices
  including IoT products. IoT is still in nascent
  stage and many discussions around IoT create more
  questions than answers. Growth of IoT is
  restricted by many issues such as lack of uniform
  communication standard, ambiguous revenue model,
  questionable utility, security threat, etc. We
  can expect the IoT products will evolve gradually
  to alleviate these issues. So, the embedded
  platform, which is the foundation of IoT, should
  be scalable and flexible to adapt as per future
  needs. With advances in semiconductor technology,
  we can expect advanced security features that
  will make the silicon components more ideal for
  IoT. Migration to the latest semiconductor
  technology is easily possible in an embedded
  platform using COM, as the processing memory
  section is isolated from the I/O section.
• Toradex is ideally placed to meet the demands of
  IoT market. It offers ARM based COMs at variety
  of price, performance, and power to match the
  diverse needs of IoT market.

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• Further, the availability of connectivity
  interfaces such as Gbit Ethernet, PCIe, SATA,
  CAN, and many more industrial interfaces, makes
  these COMs suitable for wide range of IoT
  applications. The COMs are pin-compatible, thus
  upgrading the platform, based on future needs and
  technology, is feasible without any re-design
  effort. It also offers standardized carrier
  boards that are compatible with the COMs. Custom
  carrier board development is also easy as the
  carrier boards schematic and layout files are
  freely downloadable. Customers can easily use
  these files as reference for designing their
  custom carrier boards.
• IoT will have a tremendous impact on enhancing
  our lives in future. We will see exponential
  growth of compelling IoT applications however,
  the cost of adoption will also determine user
  acceptance and market penetration. Therefore, the
  foundation of this IoT pillar should be flexible
  and cost-effective to drive the IoT
  proliferation. COM/ SOM offers an ideal platform
  or foundation for making this possible.

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Thank you!