I can't believe that the first day of ARM TechCon is already drawing to a close! IoT has been at the forefront of a lot of conversations here in Santa Clara, so there has naturally been a lot of exciting discussion about the need to build better and more secure systems. Here are some of my highlights from the day…
The day started with the keynotes and simonsegars (ARM CEO) was the first to take to the stage. Simon took the opportunity to talk about the growth we’ve seen over the last 12 months. Noting that ARM technology has moved into a lot of new markets (including everything from supercomputers right down to tiny IoT sensors). The keynote was a great opportunity to look at the last year and some of the key things that have happened, including the timely topic of SoftBank’s acquisition of ARM. Simon invited Masayoshi Son (SoftBank founder) onto the stage to talk about SoftBank’s commitment to the ARM ecosystem.
There have been a lot of questions about the changes ARM will go through as a result of the SoftBank acquisition and Masa wanted to take the opportunity to reassure the audience. In fact, one of Masayoshi's first lines was “Don’t worry, I’m going to make everyone happier”.
Masayoshi delivered a fantastic keynote looking at the evolution of ‘sensors’. He started by asking the audience if anyone knew which was the first living thing on Earth to have eyes. For those of you who are curious, it was the Trilobite! Masayoshi showed ARM TechCon attendees that the ability to see (and sense) was key to survival. He related the ability to sense to the IoT market. Observing that the key to the success and evolution of the IoT space, is the ability to sense. Successful IoT products will need to be able to replicate the human senses (see, hear, touch and taste) to recognise information, learn and then make changes on their environment.
Security is key to IoT and he suggested that it was more important than reducing chip cost or doubling clock speeds. He cited the example of the connected car and said that the majority of cars today had little or no security.
Masayoshi concluded his presentation by reiterating that the center of gravity had moved from mobile to IoT and that in the near future, we will have 1 trillion chips plus super intelligence and this will enable the singularity.
He also announced a $100B IoT fund he was putting in place to help accelerate and reach this goal. Pointing out that the Cambrian explosion of IoT is happening whether we like it or not, so it’s important to equip and secure ourselves for this new era in technology. “Technology will be a great companion for our happiness”.
mikemuller ARM CTO, took to the stage to talk about healthcare and the innovation happening in this space. He focussed in on the research taking place, which uses smell to detect various illnesses, including prostate and lung cancer. He also used more trivial examples, including some work carried out by Unilever, which used disposable sensors to test odours under the ARM and then dispensed extra deodorant if it was needed.
Mike pointed out that we are still in the early stages of IoT, equating the IoT space to the mobile phone market, remarking that we are still in the ‘feature phone’ era and we need to move to the smartphone era. He backed up Masa’s thoughts on security, stating that for the revolution to happen, we need to be able to trust the system and implement security throughout the products. He also touched on privacy and that both were needed for IoT to succeed. Consumers need to trust the technology and privacy is a key building block in this trust.
The most exciting part of Mike’s talk was the announcement of a whole new suite of products, which will revolutionise the production of IoT chips. The products include two new ARM® Cortex®-M processors (Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33), a new IoT subsystem SSE-200 with ARM CoreLink™ SIE-200 system IP, ARM Cordio® radio IP, ARM mbed™ Cloud and ARM Artisan® IoT POP™ IP.
Following the product announcement from Mike Muller, ARM’s mayanksharma (SIE-200 Product Manager) and Mike Eftimakis aka ftbug (SSE-200 Product Manager) delivered a technical session on their new products. The new products were hot off the press and many people showed up to learn more about the new System IP offerings from ARM. The session looked at the different security types (lifecycle, device and communication) and how it’s everybody’s responsibility to ensure security is integrated properly in a system. Mayank showed how SIE-200 extends security beyond the processor and brings TrustZone security to the rest of the system.
Mike showed how there are now loads of IoT building blocks on the market and how integrating these together takes considerable effort. In order to help our partners to configure the best IoT products, we’ve introduced the CoreLink SSE-200 subsystem (which assembles many pieces of ARM IP together).
During the talk, Mike reviewed some of the key benefits of using the new SSE-200 subsystem including: accelerating your time to market, reducing risk, minimising the effort required to get your system up and running, plus the ability to configure the product to your needs. He cited that “Time spent stitching things together is time lost” and that using the subsystem would enable partners focus their valuable resource on the key differentiating part of their design.
We’re looking forward to the second day of ARM TechCon tomorrow! If you'd like to see what we have in store, check out my blog post which covers the system IP schedule, see you there!