ARM Aims To Accelerate IoT Deployments, And Make Them More Secure

ARM rolled out a suite of products Monday aimed at accelerating large-scale business Internet of Things deployments, allowing the chip design licensing company to get a stronger and more secure foothold in IoT applications such as wearables and smart cities.

ARM's existing mbed IoT Device Platform touts products that will shorten the time it takes to design IoT hardware, and includes Device Connector, a free service for businesses to use to connect and securely manage IoT devices, as well as a new 32-bit architecture to bring better IoT security for its Cortex-M processors.

"ARM mbed partners now have access to fundamental building blocks to develop and securely deploy IoT devices at any scale. … Since the launch of the mbed IoT Device Platform last year, we have focused our efforts on providing the mbed partnership with the tools to scale deployments from a single cloud-connected sensor to a host of more intricate devices that enterprise-grade IoT solutions demand," said Krisztian Flautner, general manager of ARM's IoT business, in a release.

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The mbed Device Connector is at the heart of ARM's new IoT deployment platform version. This tool allows developers to connect up to 100 devices handling up to 10,000 events per hour within prototype deployments, quickly build secure Web applications, and easily integrate them with cloud solutions.

ARM, which was on CRN's 2015 Internet of Things 50 list in November, also took the wraps off its 32-bit ARMv8-M architecture, which brings the company's security technology, TrustZone, to IoT devices from the data center to embedded devices.

"ARM has extended their TrustZone security up from just the endpoint and device level into the server space," said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, a tech analyst firm based in Austin, Texas. "This is really important because now ARM can talk about having a secure end-to-end Internet of Things play, which was a big advantage that Intel had over them before."

Meanwhile, the platform's mbed Technology Preview OS version for ARM Cortex-M based microcontrollers facilitates scalable Internet of Things functions for native OS support for thread and device manageability.

ARM also detailed two new reference platforms to help developers shorten the timetable from prototype to final device design using open-source resources, including designs for wearables and smart cities.

The Cambridge, U.K.-based company first launched its mbed IoT Device platform in 2014 and since then has built up its partner support for the platform to more than 55 partners. ARM has funneled more investment into the Internet of Things, and in February the company bought IoT security company Offspark to bolster its mbed platform with more security features.

More chip companies are eyeing the Internet of Things, which is proving to be a lucrative space. According to market research firm IDC the global IoT market will grow from $655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020.

PUBLISHED NOV. 10, 2015