Qualcomm Inc. announced Tuesday at the ongoing COMPUTEX 2016 show that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, is extending its QCA401x connectivity solutions with a new product. The new QCA4012 chip brings dual band Wi-Fi, enhanced security, low power, and a small size at a price point that best supports the development of connected devices.
Qualcomm Technologies also announced the expansion of the QCA401x software ecosystem to include support for HomeKit, Google Weave and AllJoyn, as well as new cloud providers.
The launch of the QCA4012 brings dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity to complement the existing QCA4010 single-band solution, making the new chip ideal for applications in interference-sensitive environments. It also offers increased computing performance, memory and advanced features while minimizing size, cost and power consumption. The QCA4012 integrates low-power Wi-Fi and a fully featured micro-control unit (MCU) in a single-chip solution that combines design flexibility and development capabilities with a comprehensive set of hardware interfaces.
Its features include Dual Band capable of supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz for Wi-Fi connections, with antenna diversity for extended range coverage; complete MCU capability with 1.5MB on-chip RAM for future upgradability of features and bug fixes, which is critical for applications with long life cycles; enhanced security with secure boot, over-the-air (OTA) secure software update, anti-rollback, one-time-programmable (OTP) memory and on-chip crypto engine for application-level security, with interfaces including UART, HS-UART, I2C, I2S, up to 42 GPIOs, PWMs, ADCs, SPI/SDIO to directly interconnect to sensors, actuators, display, lighting and audio components.
The QCA401x solutions now also feature pre-integrated software support for Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Weave in addition to the AllSeen Alliance’s AllJoyn software framework. This is designed to help address fragmentation in the IoT, by allowing products to connect across different brands and communication platforms. QCA401x helps achieve interoperability between products in the home, making them easier and more secure to use, key benefits to driving wide adoption of smart devices.
In addition, Qualcomm Technologies is providing developers with technical tools and community enablement to help them develop new and innovative solutions for the IoT and accelerate commercialization. Based on the QCA401x software development kit, cloud service providers such as Ayla, Exosite and IOTA Labs have developed solutions that include cloud agents, API interfaces and other tools to support integration with IoT clouds.
Furthermore, Silex and various other ODMs are working on hardware platforms based on QCA4012. Silex, Lite-on, WNC and WISOL also continue to work with the single-band QCA4010 introduced last year.
