From Ideation to Realization with Qorvo's IoT Dev Kit Pro
Getting new IoT products to market quickly and cost-effectively is critical as consumer demand for connected devices grows exponentially. The key to meeting this challenge is starting the design process with the competitive advantage offered by a Qorvo IoT Dev Kit Pro (DK).
What Makes the Qorvo DK Different?
Qorvo's DKs place every bit of the necessary hardware (HW), software (SW), integrated interfaces and related documents directly in the designer's hands, making it easy to build with Qorvo silicon devices. We deliver a full-featured DK with the capabilities that SW and HW developers need to successfully build a product. Designers now have direct access to the tools that make their IoT design successful.
Instead of generic design options, which leave the customer trying to figure out the best SW and HW direction for their design application, Qorvo DKs are built to certain use cases - reducing development time and saving money. Developers do not have to figure out how to combine certain SW blocks or how to design the HW for their specific application. Instead, they can turn to a Qorvo reference solution to kickstart product development. If a customer wants to deviate from these reference solutions, the tools in the kit offer the flexibility to use the software building blocks to build unique applications.
Product developers want to be assured they are building standards-compliant solutions that will be interoperable with other products. Qorvo's involvement in a broad set of standardization bodies, such as the Wi-Fi alliance, CSA (Zigbee and Matter), Bluetooth® SIG, FiRa (UWB technology) and many others, ensures that Qorvo DKs deliver a solid baseline for standards-compliant and certifiable products.
Equally important is that Qorvo DKs help to create products that deliver the highest levels of authentication security and trust.
What is Contained in the Qorvo Dev Kit?
A Qorvo DK contains everything needed to easily integrate Qorvo's IC into a product. It provides development boards designed to develop and prototype applications. These boards combine typical peripherals (i.e., LEDs and buttons) and debug/program interfaces that make it possible to evaluate Qorvo's SW features and HW performance and start the journey of developing innovative products.
The DK also contains all needed software, split into core building blocks such as hardware drivers for IC functionality, communication stacks (Bluetooth Low Energy, RF4CE, Zigbee, Matter, Thread), operating system and applications.
Design solutions are split into turnkey reference applications as well as simpler examples that show how to use an application programming interface (API). Turnkey reference applications combine the software building blocks in a typical use case, such as a light bulb or switch, and can be used by customers with minimal development effort and only slight customization to design and deploy a new product.
A Qorvo DK also contains the tools to help a customer develop and test their product. This includes programmers to support mass production programming, factory test mode software to help verify quality during production, smart phone applications for testing software and reference designs that show customers how to design the HW for a given use case (i.e., a light bulb reference design that shows how to integrate the Qorvo silicon device into the fitting of a light bulb).
Investing in an expensive development setup is challenging when you just want to evaluate new protocols and technologies, or when you are at the start of your product development journey. Qorvo DKs (such as the QPG6100 and QPG6105) provide free-to-use licenses for SEGGER Embedded Studio, giving customers a user-friendly and fully paid development environment for editing programming and debugging. These kits also support J-Link OB for a fast and intuitive-to-use debugging experience.
In addition, the Qorvo DK includes all documentation required to get started right out of the box, written from the developer's point of view. There is no need to spend valuable time calling support lines or performing tedious online searches for how-to help. It's at your fingertips.
How Does a Qorvo DK Help Differentiate Your End Product?
A Qorvo DK maximizes Qorvo's technology differentiators and shows how they can be applied to real-world applications.
One of these differentiators is the company's unique ConcurrentConnect™ technology, which enables smart home devices to seamlessly communicate over a home network, even if the sensors use multiple different standards or languages. ConcurrentConnect™ supports all home network protocols, allowing devices to continuously receive communication without interruption during the listening phase.
Most IoT chipsets today support some sort of multi-standard technology (aka dynamic multi-protocol support), which uses time division multiplexing to communicate with network devices using multiple standards like Bluetooth or Matter. Qorvo's ConcurrentConnect™ technology takes communications to the next level by adding true concurrency for all protocol use cases, including those that require combining an always-on receive mode for Bluetooth and Matter/Thread/Zigbee.
This results in faster communications, increases home network capacity and scalability, and allows manufacturers to future-proof connected devices such as lighting and smart home sensors through simultaneous operation of multiple smart devices – regardless of which major wireless standard is used.
For example, ConcurrentConnect™ makes it possible for the reference applications in the Qorvo QPG7015M Gateway DK to seamlessly combine Zigbee and Matter/Thread hub functionality with a Bluetooth LE central / scanner application use case (used, for instance, during Matter commissioning).
Summary: Qorvo DKs Offer Unparalleled Benefits:
- A superior user experience with powerful design features in a single, all-inclusive environment
- Innovative RF technology, including ConcurrentConnect™and antenna diversity
- A standards-compliant platform to build powerful and interoperable products
- Reliable security from a trusted industry partner
Learn More About Qorvo DKs
Here are some links to more detailed information about Qorvo DKs and how you can quickly and easily start designing with them: