Market forecasts predict an optimistic future for the Internet of Things (IoT) market; Forbes predicts that it will double to $520B in 2021, and other sources estimate the market will be as high as $6.5 Trillion by 2024. By 2020, there will be 8 billion connected objects in the world, and IoT devices are transforming the way we live whilst creating tremendous opportunities for everyone from established hi-tech juggernauts to start-up entrepreneurs.
The explosive growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) is leading virtually every industry incorporating connected technologies to ensure it’s ready to move toward an automated society. Everything is becoming connected and interactive, and more data about us is transmitted across networks and saved in the cloud, as our daily lives continue to evolve alongside technology including homes, cars, wearables, healthcare devices, cities, and utilities.
IoT is arguably the strongest semiconductor industry driver since the emergence of the smartphone in 2007, with annual growth of the number of “things” increasing by 25% every year since 2013. Network requirements of the IoT demand communication technologies that offer long-range connectivity, low power consumption, and affordable expansion; and, in that, distinct trends have begun to emerge in IoT device design.
Early IoT products were built using multiple chips to solve for computing, memory, and transmission functions, and now we see the emergence of System on Chips (SoCs) employed by companies like Nordic, MediaTek, Dialog, STMicroelectronics, Qualcomm, etc. Combining multiple systems on a single chip gives the manufacturers a greater ability to control component interactions and allows IoT products to become smaller and more efficient.
TechInsights has been publishing technology analysis for over 30 years, enabling our customers to advance their intellectual property and product strategies.TechInsights completes a wide variety of in-depth teardowns on IoT devices each year, including smart speakers, drones, security cameras, thermostats, lighting etc. We provide insight into design wins, bill of materials, block diagrams, and IC analysis that spans detailed die-level structural, process, and circuit information.
If you are a technology professional interested in IoT teardowns and/or IC analysis, you may want to learn more about: Teardown IoT Home and IoT Connectivity SoC subscriptions.
If you are an IP Professional, you may be interested to learn more about a subscription to TechInsights Library. A successful IP strategy in this field requires an awareness of disruptive events in IoT of economic significance, knowledge of key and upcoming market players, and the correct application of reverse engineering techniques to identify the changes from generation to generation of the latest IoT technology.
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USPTO’s New API Expected to Shake-Up the Patent Tools Market
Posted: June 21, 2016 Contributing Authors: Mike Spence and Martin Bijman It feels like the intellectual property (IP) industry is being inundated with new patent tools. These tools generally sit on top of the same corpus of data – patent and21Jun
LinkedIn's patent portfolio; looking for hidden gems
Posted: June 16, 2016 Contributing Authors: John Sullivan The acquisition “Revitalizing Microsoft,” “connecting Office directly to LinkedIn,” “embedding Lynda’s training videos inside of Microsoft software,” “giving Cortana digital assistant access16Jun
Apple iPhone SE Teardown
Posted: June 6, 2016 Contributing Authors: Jim Morrison, Ray Fontaine, Dick James, Daniel Yang, and Mandi Gingerich The long-rumored, cost-friendly iPhone SE was finally announced on March 21st of this year. Said to be the iPhone 6s squeezed into the06Jun
IAM IP in the Auto Industry (Europe)
May 16th, 2019 TechInsights is a gold sponsor at the upcoming IAM IP in the Auto Industry event in Munich, Germany. Jim Hines, Director, Automotive Products, will be a speaker on the “The future car: part two”.16May
Broadcom’s Wireless IoT Business IP
Posted: May 10, 2016 Contributing Authors: Ray Angers Just three months after the formation of Broadcom Limited, the first large organizational change came recently with the announcement that the newly formed entity was selling its wireless Internet10May
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Teardown
Posted: April 24, 2016 Contributing Authors: Jim Morrison, Ray Fontaine, Dick James and Daniel Yang The following teardown blog contains some of our initial findings. For more in depth information on these topics and more, download the full Galaxy S724Apr
Samsung tops an updated TechInsights analysis of the IP of IoT
Posted: April 14, 2016 Contributing Authors: Martin Bijman In the spring of 2015, Chipworks published in IAM magazine an article about the IP of IoT , listing IBM, Microsoft, and Samsung as the top IoT patent holders. TechInsights has continued to14Apr
Fitbit Alta Teardown
Posted: March 20, 2016 Contributing Authors: Mandi Gingerich, Julia Elvidge and Jim Morrison Fitbit Alta The new, more-stylish Alta fitness tracker If you look through our recent blog history, you will quickly see evidence of TechInsights’ interest20Mar
Microsoft Band II Teardown
Posted: February 29, 2016 Microsoft Band II Teardown We tore down the Microsoft Band II back in November, but we think it deserves a second look. It has a lot of great silicon inside. The Band II website gave us a beautifully animated exploded view29Feb
Apple Pencil Teardown
Posted: December 23, 2015 A lot of semiconductor content in something so small! Last month we purchased an iPad Pro and an Apple pencil to understand what devices were being used by Apple in this new tablet and stylus solution. This story is not23Dec
Microsemi or Skyworks Who’s the best suitor for PMC-Sierra
Posted: October 23, 2015 Contributing Authors: Ray Angers Microsemi Corp. (Aliso Viejo, California) trumped Skyworks’ (Woburn, Massachusetts) $2 billion bid for PMC-Sierra this week with their offer of $11.50 per share, or about $2.2 billion.23Oct
Apple iPhone 6s Teardown
Posted: September 25, 2015 Contributing Authors: Dick James, Daniel Yang, Stacy Wegner, Chad Davis & Albert Cowsky It’s now a yearly ritual - go line up and get the new iPhone! This year Apple did multi-country launches, and allowed pre-orders to be25Sep
OnePlus 2 Teardown
Posted: August 21, 2015 Well, that happened. We found ourself doing not ONE, but two, quick turn teardowns on the same day - the OnePlus 2 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 5. We couldn’t have done it without the full support of our teams, both here in the21Aug
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Teardown
Posted: August 21, 2015 A Galaxy More Like the S6 than the Note 4 In this galaxy not that long ago, Samsung released what could arguably be the first device to put ‘phablet’ in all of our vocabularies, the Galaxy Note. Fast forward to their recent21Aug
IPBC Global
June 16th – 18th, 2019 TechInsights is proud to be a gold sponsor of the 11 th annual IPBC Global 2019 conference June 16 – 18, 2019 in Boston, MA. TechInsights’ Ian MacLean will participate in a breakout session entitled: Five years on from Alice.16Jun
Apple Watch Teardown
Posted: April 24, 2015 Contributing Authors: Jim Morrison. Daniel Yang and Chad Davis Apple Delivers a Wearable in Total Apple Fashion A few days ago, Apple sent us our tracking number indicating that our shipment would arrive today, Friday, April24Apr
Samsung Galaxy S6 Teardown
Posted: April 2, 2015 Contributing Authors: Dick James and Daniel Yang Samsung Galaxy S6 Teardown The much anticipated Samsung Galaxy S6 has made an early appearance in our teardown labs this morning – thanks to the diligent skills of our trusted02Apr
Intel Bolsters IoT Position
Posted: February 9, 2015 Contributing Authors: Martin Bijman On Feb 2, Intel announced it will purchase “Internet of Things” (IoT) chip company Lantiq. According to Intel, this will enhance connection experiences in the home, by extending its home09Feb
Nortel Patents Make News Again – Rockstar Patents Sold to RPX
Posted: December 24, 2014 Contributing Authors: Martin Bijman On December 23, 2014, RPX purchased the remaining assets of Rockstar for $900M.[1] RPX describes in their release that of the 6,000 assets in the initial Rockstar $4.5B purchase of Nortel24Dec
Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Teardown
Posted: September 9, 2014 Contributing Authors: C. Young, D. Yang, R. Fontaine, J. Morrison, D. James, Chad Davis and Albert Cowsky Inside the Apple iPhone 6 The iPhone 6 may be the most anticipated Apple handset since the original iPhone, and with09Sep
Amazon Fire Phone Teardown
Posted: July 25, 2014 Amazon Fire Phone Teardown Preliminary Teardown analysis suggests that Amazon’s $649.00 USD (Amazon.com) phone costs $209.00 USD to build. Qualcomm is the primary providers of many of the key integrated circuits and both25Jul
Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Teardown
Posted: July 1, 2014 Galaxy S5 Mini Processor Package-on-Package Samsung Brings Shannon into the Galaxy S5 Mini Samsung brings their Shannon solution into the Galaxy S5 Mini, and by our observations this model already has FCC approval. The SM-G800F01Jul
SanDisk Broadens SSD IP with Fusion-io
Posted: June 24, 2014 Contributing Authors: Ray Angers The US$1.1B takeover bid announced last week by storage solutions heavyweight SanDisk (SNDK.O) for Utah-based Fusion-io (FIO.N) has many suggesting this signals SanDisk’s ambitions to dominate24Jun
IISW - Int'l Image Sensor Workshop
June 23rd – 27th, 2019 TechInsights is pleased to be a part of the 2019 International Image Sensor Workshop in Snowbird, Utah. TechInsights’ Ray Fontaine, Senior Technology Analyst, will host a presentation entitled: “The State-of-the-Art of23Jun
Taking the Lid Off Microsoft’s Secret Android-killer Patents
Posted: June 20, 2014 Contributing Authors: Martin Bijman The Chinese government recently revealed Microsoft’s secret list of about 310 Android-killer US patents . TechInsights has taken an initial look at these patents. We found there were actually20Jun
Apple TV vs Amazon Fire TV Teardown
Posted: April 20, 2014 Apple TV vs Amazon Fire TV Teardown The Apple TV (3rd generation) model A1427, was released in March 2012 and torn down and a Bill of Materials was generated in June 2012. At the time, the BOM was estimated by TechInsights™20Apr
Samsung Galaxy S5 Teardown
Posted: April 11, 2014 Contributing Authors: M. Alarcon, R. Fontaine, D. James, R. Krishnamurthy, J. Morrison, D. Yang and C. Young Samsung Galaxy S5 Samsung unveiled their Galaxy S5 in Barcelona during this year’s Mobile World Congress. Although11Apr
Xbox One Kinect Teardown
Posted: November 28, 2013 Contributing Authors: Dick James Xbox One Kinect As we said in our Xbox One article, the new Kinect is quite a complex piece of equipment, so we thought that we'd dedicate a whole article to it. The first major difference we28Nov
PlayStation 4 vs. Xbox One Teardown Comparison
Posted: November 25, 2013 Contributing Authors: Al Cowsky and Dr. John Scott-Thomas Microsoft comes out punching with a significant upgrade to Xbox franchise console and true competitor to Sony’s PS4 while still delivers per unit profits.25Nov
Xbox One Teardown
Posted: November 22, 2013 Xbox One It's clear we're in the run-up to the gift-giving season, with multiple launches of tablets and gaming systems. Last week was the turn of the Microsoft Xbox One, and it's hard to believe it's been twelve years since22Nov
Sony PlayStation 4 Teardown
Posted: November 15, 2013 Sony PlayStation 4 Sony’s PlayStation 4 makes its debut today and TechInsights’ Teardown team has hands on analysis of the components that promise to set a new benchmark in the gaming industry. While we’ll be tearing down15Nov
Apple iPad Air Teardown
Posted: November 1, 2013 Inside On October 23, 2013, Apple announced the newest iPad, the iPad Air. Since the announcement, we at TechInsights have been anxiously waiting for the opportunity to get our hands on the device. Well that moment has01Nov
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Teardown
Posted: October 4, 2013 Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Teardown In 2011 Samsung defined a new category with its 5.3” diagonal Galaxy Note phone. The original Note was so large it was considered by many as a phone that aspired to be a tablet; hence the term04Oct
Apple iPhone 5c Teardown
Posted: September 20, 2013 Contributing Authors: Jim Morrison and Chad Davis Apple iPhone 5c On September 10, 2013, Apple announced two new iPhones, the 5s and 5c. Since the announcement, we at TechInsights have been anxiously waiting for the20Sep
Apple iPhone 5s Teardown
Posted: September 20, 2013 Contributing Authors: Jim Morrison, Ray Fontaine, Dick James and Chad Davis Inside On September 10, 2013, Apple announced two new iPhones, the 5s and 5c. Since the announcement, we at TechInsights have been anxiously20Sep
BlackBerry Patents – Part 3
Posted: September 18, 2013 Contributing Authors: Miranda Lim In Parts 1 and 2, we reviewed the breakdown of BlackBerry’s patent portfolio. We also took a closer look at how the portfolio breaks down from a technology perspective into three main areas18Sep
BlackBerry Patents – Part 2
Posted: September 11, 2013 Contributing Authors: Miranda Lim Last week we took a high level look at BlackBerry’s patent portfolio – total number of US patents and applications and other jurisdictions they are filing in. We also broke the portfolio11Sep
BlackBerry Patents – Another Hi-Tech Treasure Trove?
Posted: September 5, 2013 Contributing Authors: Miranda Lim Eyes have been on BlackBerry for the past several weeks, as the company announced the formation of a special committee to explore strategic business alternatives, including a possible sale05Sep
Samsung Galaxy S4 Teardown
Posted: April 24, 2013 Inside the Samsung Galaxy S4 Smartphone – Cementing a legacy If there is one thing I have learned in my years on this planet, it would be that it is human nature to staunchly choose sides. Whether it is Republican or Democrat,24Apr
HTC One Teardown
Posted: March 28, 2013 HTC One Before entering the teardown lab we take 20-30 minutes with each phone. We aren't talking about running benchmarks in Passmark or Antutu, but simply getting our impressions. While we took some time with it at the Mobile28Mar
Google Glass Teardown
Posted: February 21, 2013 Inside Originally the Google Glass was only available to “Explorers” better known as developers. Finally Google offered a one day sale on April 15, 2014 allowing the general public to purchase the Glass for a whopping $1500.21Feb
Blackberry Z10 Teardown
Posted: February 5, 2013 Building off the momentum of an international product launch in New York that featured not only a corporate rebranding and the naming of a Grammy-award winning artist as their new global creative director, one had to wade05Feb
Nintendo Wii U Teardown
Posted: February 4, 2013 Nintendo Wii U Looking at the Wii U Graphics Processor Yes, even reverse engineering the latest technology has its up and down days. At the start of the reverse engineering process, we generally have a simple electronics04Feb
GoPro Hero3 Wearable Sports Camera Teardown
Posted: January 22, 2013 GoPro Hero3 GoPro Hero3 The Hero3 fills a profitable niche in a crowded imaging market where other devices, such as digital still cameras and video cameras, are losing market share. I think we would be safe to assume that the22Jan
Nikon D5200 DSLR Teardown
Posted: January 8, 2013 Nikon D5200 DSLR At CES 2013 Nikon announced the US availability of a new premium-level consumer DSLR camera, the D5200. When compared to the high level of integration on a single board that one finds in a typical smart phone08Jan
Systems Analysis of the Apple Lightning to USB Cable
Posted: December 5, 2012 Systems analysis identifies how devices are used together – and may include testing of signals and software inside or between chips using sniffers, probing, data capture, or literature. Systems analysis, including software05Dec
Apple iPad Mini Teardown
Posted: November 1, 2012 Apple iPad Mini Teardown Since its introduction of the iPad nearly two and a half years ago, Apple has held onto the lion’s share of the tablet market. Particularly, Apple has managed to hold off all competitors that dared to01Nov
Apple Lightning to 30 Pin Adapter Teardown
Posted: October 18, 2012 Apple Lightning to 30 Pin Adapter Reverse engineering is not forward engineering done backwards and so you never know what you will learn or when you will learn it. Enter the Apple Lightning Adapter plug. Deserving of some18Oct
Apple Lightning Cable Teardown
Posted: October 15, 2012 We couldn’t help but notice that there is a lot of speculation and discussion (and frankly, a few wild guesses) concerning the functions of the Apple’s new lightning connectors. We don’t normally give (a total of five blogs!)15Oct
Apple iPhone 5 Teardown
Posted: September 21, 2012 Apple is considered by many to be the leader of the smartphone market. Within 5 years, Apple has generated over $150 billion in revenue from the iPhone family of handsets and accessories (according to research firm Strategy21Sep
Apple iPhone 4s Teardown
Posted: October 14, 2011 Apple iPhone 4s Since the June 24th release of the iPhone 4, Apple’s dedicated fans have eagerly anticipated the next iteration of the immensely popular iPhone series of handsets. As rumors, leaked images of parts, and14Oct
Apple iPhone 4 Teardown
Posted: June 24, 2010 On June 23rd, we were one of the lucky ones to actually have our iPhone delivered to us before the actual release date of June 24th. We went to work quickly dissecting the latest handset from Apple, and what we found was both24Jun
Job Vacancy: Corporate Controller
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Job Vacancy: Semiconductor Analyst
The Semiconductor Analyst will participate in major campaigns and projects initiated client-facing team, and related to analysis of devices manufactured with advanced semiconductor process technology.03May
Job Vacancy: Sales Executive - EMEA
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Job Vacancy: Scrum Master
TechInsights is growing its Development team and it has created a new position for an experienced Scrum Master. Reporting to the Director of Research and Development, you are a self-starter who will be called on to evaluate our Scrum environment and17Apr
Job Vacancy: Senior Technology Analyst - Logic Processors
In this role, you will drive the technical analysis product roadmap for TechInsights, based on a deep understanding of customer interests and industry direction.17Apr
Job Vacancy: Lab R&D Specialist
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Job Vacancy: Full Stack Developer
TechInsights is expanding its Agile development teams to support the implementation and extension of a scalable portfolio of proprietary intellectual content creation applications.06Apr
Job Vacancy: QA Automation Software Tester
We are seeking passionate, quality-focused software QA specialists who can help further our QA discipline in both automated and manual testing. In this role, you’ll work within the dev team, to design and run right-sized software QA processes to help04Apr
Job Vacancy: Agile Scrum Software Development open roles
TechInsights is growing its Agile development organization to move our apps forward faster. We are seeking experienced people to join some newly formed cross functional Scrum teams. Our Scrum teams design, build and maintain a wide variety of06Feb