I have just returned from Mobile World Congress (MWC), the most anticipated mobile industry event of the year with 109,000 visitors from 198 countries, and I’m in awe of the pace of innovation in the Internet of Things (IoT) market, as well as the speed at which technologies are rapidly evolving to market-ready solutions. This observation could not be more true for Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology).

The SDVoE Alliance™ is a non-profit technology consortium for professional AV. The mission of the SDVoE Alliance is to promote and accelerate the pro AV industry’s transition to using Ethernet as the primary infrastructure for delivering audio and video signals and replace the venerable matrix switch with software-defined video over Ethernet (SDVoE™). Today the SDVoE Alliance boasts a membership of 41 companies and is continuously growing.

With the support of a vast and rapidly growing ecosystem, more and more companies are developing Internet of Things (IoT) solutions based on Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology). There are hundreds of LoRa-based products and services currently available in Semtech’s Catalog in the LoRa Community™. Additionally, several members of the LoRaWAN-based ecosystem offer online catalogs full of LoRa-based solutions. Find a list of catalogs within the #ShopLoRaWAN blog.

The dual-density version of the Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable (QFSP) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) module standard looks set to be the rule for new line-cards, following a raft of demonstrations and alpha module tests in 2018. The hidden message of the QSFP-DD craze is not the physical characteristics of the module itself, but what it says about the turn to advanced signaling methods. Half a decade ago, QSFP28’s arrival heralded the coming dominance of 25Gbps electrical channels using NRZ signaling. Now, QSFP-DD, and its larger cousin, the octal SFP or OSFP, use PAM4 signaling. This most often uses 50Gbps channels, but QSFP-DD is flexible enough to use eight-channel interfaces in a variety of implementations: 25G x 8 for 200Gbit Ethernet, 50G x 8 for 400Gbit Ethernet, and perhaps some early 100G x 8 for a pre-standard 800Gbit Ethernet.

Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE™) powered by Semtech’s BlueRiver™ technology captivated the 80,000 plus attendees at Integrated Systems Europe (ISE). The technology consists of BlueRiver NT1000 and NT2000 AV-over-IP chipsets and a comprehensive software Application Programming Interface (API). BlueRiver is at the heart of SDVoE-based network architectures that are rapidly displacing matrix switches in professional AV switched systems.

Earlier this month in Amsterdam, The Things Network hosted The Things Conference, a gathering of thousands of developers from all around the globe who develop Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology). I have participated in many developer conferences over the years, and I must say the energy at last week’s event reminded me of the days of mobile and embedded device conferences, where you could tell it was really a show for developers by developers. The sheer range of LoRa-based solutions available on the market today on display at the conference demonstrated a sharp contrast to last year’s event which focused more on the promise of LoRa Technology for the IoT. While there were many compelling market trajectory stories and business presentations that demonstrated the LoRaWAN™ protocol is truly here to stay, if there was one single theme from the show it was this: LoRa Technology is a developer’s platform and its time is here… now.

Slow but steady advances were made in 2018 in on-board optical links for chip-to-chip and chip-to-module interfaces. The integrated-optics revolution, anticipated three years ago when the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO), of which Semtech is an associate member, was launched, has been replaced by a realization that only slow migration from traditional pluggable modules will serve the data center, whether within a single line card or server blade, or between cards and racks. Even as recent as a year ago, COBO members began rethinking and changing their tune to stress coexistence of pluggable MSA modules and the embedded on-board modules chosen by COBO as a de facto standard.

On January 30th in London, Digital Catapult opened its new Future Innovations Lab. Digital Catapult is the United Kingdom’s leading advanced digital technology innovation center, with a primary goal to push the adoption of new technologies, in order to enable UK businesses to become more competitive. The new Future Networks Lab is co-sponsored by Semtech, and is expected to be key for driving the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and low power wide area networks (LPWANs) throughout the UK. Semtech’s sponsorship adds significant expertise in the deployment of LPWANs based on its LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) and the open LoRaWAN™ protocol enabling secure sensor-to-Cloud data communication.

Xīn nián kuài lè, and Happy Chinese New Year! China is believed to be the world’s largest Internet of Things (IoT) market, responsible for an astounding 22% of the global IoT market share. With support from the Chinese government, IoT initiatives have exploded in popularity throughout the last decade. Among these technologies, Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) has rapidly emerged as a leading choice for low power wide area network (LPWAN) connectivity in China, enabling successful solutions across numerous vertical markets. LoRa Technology is increasingly being leveraged in China to create efficiencies, from IoT enabled bike-share solutions, to smart metering for municipal utilities. As the Year of the Pig approaches, we’ve featured some LoRa-based highlights from China to celebrate a successful Year of the Dog.

Next week, thousands of Internet of Things (IoT) developers from around the globe will head to Amsterdam for The Things Conference, organized by The Things Network. The event promises to provide attendees with the content and knowledge to tackle LoRaWAN™-based development head on, and bring more solutions based on Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology ( LoRa Technology) to market. Steven Hegenderfer, Senior Director of the Developer Ecosystem, Semtech Wireless & Sensing Products Group, shares his excitement for The Things Conference and advice for LoRa-based developers in the Q&A below.