A couple of weeks ago, we covered connectivity-focused news concerning Silicon Labs. (The company partnered with Kudelski IoT to accelerate the time to market for Matter-certified IoT devices; read the full story here.)
For today’s news, here’s a quick refresher on Silicon Labs, specifically:
Seen by many as an Internet of Things trailblazer, Silicon Labs’ integrated hardware and software platform, intuitive development tools and deep ecosystem support (e.g. for Google Home, Amazon Sidewalk, the Matter Development Journey etc.) enable it to be the picture-perfect long-term partner for building advanced commercial and industrial applications while leading the charge in high-performance, low-power solutions.
“Silicon Labs was founded on the belief that RF would change the world,” per the company. “We saw that potential and kept innovating. By building silicon, software and other pivotal solutions, we can transform industries and economies for a smarter, more connected world.”
A great mission statement, no two ways about it.
So, in additional news (i.e. that shows action taken by the company to further this mission), Silicon Labs recently shared details regarding its upcoming Series 3 platform.
Let’s take a look:
Silicon Labs is aiming for its Series 3 devices to “represent the next generation of IoT wireless product development.” The platform — its three main pillars being performance, scalability and extensibility — will reportedly be “the most scalable wireless platform available and will result in more efficient development and IoT application portability.”
“With the number of IoT devices projected to reach over 100 billion in the next decade,” explained Matt Johnson, Silicon Labs President and CEO, “our upcoming Series 3 platform’s unparalleled capabilities and productivity will unlock new applications and new capabilities across a vast range of industries, from manufacturing and retail to transportation, healthcare, energy distribution, fitness, and agriculture, helping transform each sector in remarkable ways.”
And on top of the industries that Johnson highlighted, Silicon Labs’ Series 3 devices will also address IoT challenges in smart cities and civil infrastructure, commercial buildings, smart homes, connected health and more (i.e. as the demand for increasingly portable, secure and compute-intensive solutions rises).
Here’s more:
- Connectivity: The full Series 3 portfolio will include “dozens of products covering all major protocols and frequency bands, to connect just about anything.” The first Series 3 device is designed to include a supremely flexible IoT modem, capable of “true concurrency on three wireless networks with micro-second channel switching.”
- Compute: Series 3 devices will be multicore, with Arm Cortex-M application processors and dedicated co-processors for the radio and security subsystems (as well as dedicated high performance machine learning subsystems for select devices). With a highly scalable memory architecture (combined with Cortex-M processors ranging from a Cortex-M33 at 133 MHz to dual Cortex-M55s running over 200 MHz), Series 3 devices will reportedly enable complex applications and embedded real-time operating systems.
- Security: All Series 3 devices will support Silicon Labs Secure Vault High, with additional features like Authenticated Execute in Place to allow trusted communication between the device and the cloud. Series 3 will also have a reliably secure memory interface, hardening one of the primary vectors of attack when intruders gain physical access and protecting the device maker's IP. Moreover, Series 3 will incorporate the National Institute of Standards and Technology's recently released post-Quantum encryption standards.
- Intelligence: Select Series 3 devices will feature Silicon Labs' second-generation Matrix Vector Processor, which offloads complex ML operations off of the main CPU onto a specialized accelerator designed to increase ML performance by up to 100x in wireless, battery-powered devices (i.e. drastically reducing power draw).
At the time of this article’s publication, the first Series 3 SoC is being tested by customers, and more information will be revealed by Silicon Labs in the first half of 2025.
Explore even more connectivity-centric solutions at our upcoming IoT Evolution Expo 2025, which will be taking place from February 11-13, 2025, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Part of the #TECHSUPERSHOW experience, this event combines educational conference programming with a robust exhibit hall, networking events and other activities, bringing together buyers and providers of business technology products and services that are huge for IoT.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
