ARM rolls out IoT portfolio, aims to secure, manage devices in field
ARM is rolling out a family of Internet of things components ranging from chips to secure zones and cloud management tools for devices in the field.
The effort, aimed at smart cities and large scale IoT deployments, is timely given the recent distributed denial of service attack that reportedly used connected devices to bring many popular sites down last week. See: After massive cyberattack, shoddy smart device security comes back to haunt | Amid major internet outages, downed websites have lessons to learn | Dyn, a managed DNS service, hit with attack, popular sites see performance issues |
In a nutshell, ARM is building out its complete IoT portfolio from security to design. "This IoT stack is adding device security for constrained devices to protect assets, code and data across vendors," said Nandan Nayampally, ARM vice president of marketing for the CPU group.
At TechCon 2016, ARM's developer and ecosystem conference, the company is rolling out the following:
- The Cortex-M23 and M33: These two processors are small, sip energy, include embedded security software and zones and can be used in a wide range of IoT devices. The M23 is the smallest footprint processor and can be used in smart locks, smart bandages, medical nanorobots and assets for tracking. The M33 can be used in everything from smart watches to light bulbs to TVs and street lighting.
- ARM's TrustZone security platform will be rolled out to all of its components with a simplified development structure. Technology called CryptoCell-312 will handle key management and secure storage. The general idea is that CryptoCell-312 will allow design teams to build in security so they can focus on differentiated products.
- Cordio radio technology that will embed various standards such as Bluetooth and ZigBee into ARM processors.
- mbed Cloud, a secure device management service, that can connect to multiple clouds, manage any device and secure all transactions efficiently. ARM's mbed Cloud is its first software as a service effort and will be available to partners.
In the long run, ARM's mbed Cloud may have the most impact. Device management in IoT deployments has been tricky. In addition, ARM could diversify into a more predictable revenue model.