NXP Key Partnerships for IoT

NXP Key Partnerships for IoT

On May 5, 2015 NXP made two important announcements. NXP is partnering with Xiaomi to make smart home products.  In a separate announcement, Qualcomm will use NXP’s NFC and embedded secure element technology across the Snapdragon processor family.

Xiaomi is a fast growing Chinese consumer electronics firm. It is offering the Xiaomi Smart Home Suite which includes four wireless products: a motion sensor, door and window sensors, a wireless switching device for controlling appliances, and a multifunctional gateway that wirelessly links all the components together using ZigBee Wi-Fi interconnectivity.

Qualcomm and NXP are looking to expand NFC into new markets outside of smartphones, such as consumer electronics, automotive, home automation, smart appliances, personal computing and wearables.

Semico Spin

NXP has been deeply involved with the Internet of Things (IoT) since it first emerged. Partnering with Xiaomi will help develop the more effective Smart Home IoT.  Semico has forecasted that by 2020 there will be 36 billion connected devices worldwide. About half of these will be in smart home applications and the largest market will be in China. NXP is positioning itself for this trend.

Qualcomm has been touting the importance of hardware based security. Coincidently, the next day, May 6, 2015, Qualcomm held a webinar “The future of security: cognitive technologies to the rescue.” The company presented its offerings which emphasized its hardware based approach, citing the SecureMSM technology in its Snapdragon family. Clearly, NXP’s NFC and secure element technology hold great value for Qualcomm in achieving its vision for improving security and privacy.

On March 1, 2015 it was announced that NXP and Freescale will merge. This is expected to be completed by the end of 2015. Semico Research views this merger very positively. In Semico’s Spin article at the time it was noted that this is the case of two companies looking to build on each other’s strength. Their product portfolios and marketing visions are complementary.

Both companies have broad portfolios of ARM-based MCUs which target a wide spectrum of applications, including IoT. Freescale has MEMS while NXP does not. NXP has a broad range of wireless solutions. Both companies have security IP for MCUs. In addition NXP is a key player in smart cards.  Security will become a more important element in IoT. 

The recent announcements show NXP’s focus for IoT in smart home and consumer. Both Freescale and NXP have been actively targeting IoT. They will need to coordinate their marketing efforts. It will be interesting to see how NXP blends these efforts with Freescale.