Part 1: Platform approach pays off for product and system engineers

By Ray Upton, VP & GM, Connected MCU, and Zoran Mladenovic, GM, Software Development, Texas Instruments

Year after year, the pace of innovation is accelerating. New products, new features, new capabilities, and new technologies enter the marketplace daily in rapid succession. For example, the internet of things (IoT) was unheard of a few years ago, and now, Gartner predicts that by 2020, some 20.4 billion IoT devices are expected to be in place.

Rapid innovation like this exerts constant pressure on product and system engineers to quicken the rate of new product introductions or be left behind. Suppliers of enabling technologies have to step up and make sure that their customers are in position to take advantage of each window of opportunity available to them. To do this, we need to make innovation easier and faster.

Semiconductor companies like ours can’t fixate on hardware to the exclusion of software. In today’s fast-moving markets, software makes a difference for companies trying to be agile, nimble, and opportunistic. That is why Texas Instruments has taken a platform approach that is inclusive of both hardware and software and which leads to rapid system innovation.

Software rising

Over the last decade, software is top-of-mind for system developers. Software lets product and system engineers be more flexible and responsive to the needs of the marketplace. Features for current products can be upgraded or changed quickly through software updates. Or new products can be developed by taking the hardware design of a current product and changing its software so that a different product can be quickly introduced into a niche segment.

This shift toward software is reflected in the makeup of most technology companies. A recent survey of embedded product manufacturers  found that they devote 61% of their development resources to software. Investors are often overwhelmed by the uncertainty that the ever-evolving software requirements and resourcing bring to a given product. This is often true as a sizeable development time is spent on integration of basic system components versus the application, which often drives product differentiation in the market.

We have worked closely with system developers in many different industries and learned that we can offer the greatest value by providing a cohesive platform approach that stretches across to hardware and software and includes many code-compatible devices and technologies. With this sort of platform, compatible software and hardware can be combined to accelerate system innovations that leverage prior development for maximum return on investment (ROI).

A solid foundation

Often, the fastest way to market will involve a software implementation of at least portions of the new product’s functionality using general-purpose programmable microcontrollers (MCUs). These types of devices offer the greatest flexibility and can be easily updated throughout the early prototyping phase.

When new features or enhancements are needed, system updates are much easier if the device that was used in the original design was part of a platform that includes a range of code-compatible MCUs and other compatible components. When this is so, the initial code from the original design can be efficiently migrated to other MCUs within the platform when the need for greater compute cycles or more memory dictates.

Fig. 1: Example of a single software platform for a range of microcontrollers.

Over time, a new device in the platform may integrate additional hardware capabilities that further reduce system cost and power consumption while increasing performance so that a system will be more competitive in the marketplace. As long as the platform maintains appropriate compatibility, such updates can be made efficiently while maximizing ROI.

The platform’s application programming interfaces should be well-documented and leverage industry standards wherever possible to ease the interfacing of external components such as sensors, actuators, various communication technologies, and compatible software plug-ins that easily extend system functionality to speed up system development even further. By leveraging industry standards in the platform, a greater number of developers can quickly deploy technology solutions, increasing the speed of market adoption yet again.

Part 2 – Platform approach: MCUs are key to ROI –  Hardware and software platforms drive long-term product strategies

Part 3: A platform approach to design speeds up product development of connected things – Designers can accelerate the development and enhance their portfolio of connected things by using the same MCU platform