CEVA, a licensor of wireless connectivity and smart sensing technologies and integrated IP solutions, announced that more than 100 million CEVA-powered cellular IoT chips have been shipped by CEVA licensees since the beginning of 2020.
This significant milestone comes on the back of the rapid adoption of cellular connectivity in wearables, smart meters, asset trackers and industrial devices based on the LTE Cat-1, LTE-M and NB-IoT standards, all of which CEVA addresses with its family of cellular IoT DSPs and platforms, including the CEVA-Dragonfly NB2 NB-IoT solution.
The recent Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that cellular IoT connections will grow from 2.4 billion in 2022 to reach 5.5 billion in 2027, a CAGR of 18%. Moreover, after a slow start, Massive IoT connections (LTE-M, NB-IoT) are expected to grow at a CAGR of 37% during the same period, comprising more than half of all cellular IoT connections.
CEVA has a large and diverse global cellular IoT customer base, with more than a dozen licensees today developing cellular IoT chips for modules, consumer, industrial and smart grid use cases. As 5G networks continue to be rolled out around the world and upcoming releases of the standard set to address 5G IoT use cases, CEVA’s cellular IoT DSPs and platforms lower the entry barriers for semiconductor companies and OEMs to develop their own cellular IoT SoCs and address this burgeoning market.
Tal Shalev, Vice President and General Manager of the Wireless IoT Business Unit at CEVA, commented: “We’re proud to have reached this important milestone of helping our customers ship more than 100 million cellular IoT chips powered by CEVA IP. Connectivity is a key technology driving the rapid digitisation of everything and CEVA together with our licensees, play a fundamental role in the growing use of cellular networks to connect IoT devices. We are excited to watch this market growth and look forward to seeing what innovations the next 100 million CEVA-powered cellular IoT chips bring to the smart and connected world.”
The CEVA-Dragonfly NB2 platform is a pre-certified, complete NB-IoT IP solution that can serve a wide range of applications. It integrates a CEVA-BX1 processor, an optimised RF transceiver, baseband, and a protocol stack, offering a Release 15 Cat-NB2 compliant modem solution that reduces time-to-market and lowers entry barriers.
The CEVA-Dragonfly NB2 is a fully software-configurable solution designed for ultra-low power and low-cost devices that can be extended with multi-constellation GNSS and sensor fusion functionality. For other massive IoT and broadband IoT use cases, the CEVA-BX1 and CEVA-BX2 multipurpose IoT processors combine DSP and control processing in a single instruction set architecture, eliminating the need for a separate CPU core for upper layer stacks and system control. These processors are ideal for cellular IoT baseband processing and complementary workloads including voice, connectivity, positioning and sensor fusion.
