Rise of IoT and How Espressif is Leading the Way

IoT refers to the interconnection of everyday devices through the internet, enabling them to send and receive data. The potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly expanding, transforming industries and enhancing everyday life. Today the number of connected devices has grown more than 17 billion. The number of connected IoT devices is expected to surge to reach 29 billion by 2027 globally [1]. From smart homes and wearable technology to industrial automation and smart cities, the applications of IoT are diverse and far-reaching.

Role of Wireless Microcontrollers

A pivotal component driving the proliferation of IoT is the role of wireless microcontrollers. These tiny, powerful devices are integral to the seamless connectivity and functionality of IoT systems. Wireless microcontrollers can facilitate secure communication between devices and cloud, enabling them to interact and share data efficiently. They act as the brain and arms of IoT devices, processing data and executing tasks based on the information received from sensors and other connected components. These wireless microcontrollers primarily use WLAN (Wi-Fi) and WPAN (Bluetooth, 802.15.4) technologies for connectivity contributing to more than 70% of the total IoT devices [2].

Wi-Fi offers robust and reliable connections for high-data transfer applications, making it ideal for smart home devices, industrial automation, and other scenarios requiring stable, high-speed internet connectivity. WPAN technologies like Bluetooth and 802.15.04 provide low-power, short-range communication solutions essential for IoT devices. Bluetooth is commonly used in wearable technology, health monitoring devices, and smart home gadgets. 802.15.04, with its low-power consumption and mesh networking capabilities, is widely used in home automation, lighting control, and environmental monitoring systems.

Espressif – The Leader in Wi-Fi MCU Market

Espressif Systems has emerged as a market leader in the Wi-Fi microcontroller market, with the highest market share for Wi-Fi microcontrollers for the past seven years [3]. Our innovative solutions have been instrumental in advancing IoT applications, providing versatile and cost-effective options for developers. Espressif crossed the key milestone of shipping 1 billion SoCs for IoT market in 2023. Even amongst all Wi-Fi SoC that include all different markets, Espressif stands 5th largest company in terms of shipments.

Espressif offers a broad portfolio of System-on-Chips (SoC) with not only Wi-Fi but also covering Bluetooth LE and 802.15.4 connectivity addressing the largest IoT market segment. These SoCs are offer rich feature set, high-performance, state-of-the-art security at affordable cost and enable IoT development for not just large companies but also for startups and hobbyists.

Espressif’s Innovations and Future in IoT

High Integration and Innovative System-on-Chip (SoC) Architecture

When connectivity reaches day-to-day devices, the performance and cost requirements change. Espressif has designed the SoCs ground-up keeping these requirements in mind. Espressif is the pioneer in integrating antennae switch, RF baluns, power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, filters and power management modules in CMOS technology creating SoCs with very high level of integration. Furthermore, the SoC CPU architecture is designed in a fashion where the same CPU and memory is shared between communication subsystem and applications providing optimised design. Multi-core CPU and cache design with symmetric multiprocessing environment have enabled building powerful applications on these SoCs. Even for security features, Espressif has implemented quite a few innovative components in the chip that have ensured “affordable security” for any of the application built using Espressif SoCs. Innovative AI instruction support in the CPU architecture provides ability to build high-performance AI-on-the-edge applications with Espressif SoCs.

Open SDKs and Information

IoT is a very wide term encompassing connectivity for so many different types of devices like appliances, lighting and electrical equipment, industrial sensors and actuators, toys and many others. Also, IoT is not just built by big companies but also by many small companies and individuals. Espressif democratised the development by creating openness in the information. The SDKs are mostly open source available on GitHub and well documented, SoC data-sheets and technical reference are openly available and development kits, modules and SoCs are easily available world-wide and are low-cost. With this, anyone can build and sell connected devices without any hurdles. This has resulted in a large community around Espressif SoCs. And the community has further bettered the products and improved the support.

Going Beyond Hardware

Connected devices and IoT products have quite deep technology stack associated and hardware is one important part of it. A successful IoT product has many aspects including device firmware, device management and cloud connectivity, phone apps. There are also many behind-the-scenes considerations such as certificate provisioning, secure manufacturing. Building a complete IoT product requires significant engineering, and this can greatly benefit from having parts of this technology stack readily available. In this regard, Espressif is not just a semiconductor company, but it is an AIoT solutions company. Espressif provides a comprehensive software solutions and services that complements Espressif’s powerful hardware significantly reducing the time and efforts needed to build IoT devices.

Looking Forward

Looking ahead, the MCU-embedded Wi-Fi market is forecasted to experience significant growth, driven by advancements in Wi-Fi technologies such as Wi-Fi 6 and dual-band Wi-Fi. Power optimised solutions have increasing footprint with BLE and Thread (802.15.4) protocols. IoT security has become a key requirement already and now more standards are getting established. New applications and newer standardisation protocols are evolving.

At Espressif, we are well positioned to take advantage of the momentum we have. We are working on newer SoCs that will support newer communication protocols and improvements, will have lower power consumption and support newer security requirements. Our software will continue to support new use-cases and protocols and continue to make it easy to build connected intelligent devices. We are confident to continue to lead the IoT segment through the best products, solutions and services that we build.

1. IoT connections market update - IoT Analytics May 2023

2. State of IoT – Spring 2023 - IoT Analytics

3. 2023 TSR Wireless Connectivity Market Report