May 21, 2015, Imagination Summit, Santa Clara, CA—Tony King-Smith of Imagination moderated a panel looking at various aspects of IoT platforms for future developments. Panelists included Curt Moore from TI, Omid Tahemia from Ikanos, and Eren Eshed from Altair.
Segments and applicable platforms?
Moore noted that developers need rules and should only change real functions.
Tahemia added that engineering tinkering is bad and mostly delays project completion. The hardware people need something more like the software world with many layers of abstraction.
Eshed stated that increasing integration helps sales, and can decrease design time with the use of IP. The separate pieces still need to be differentiated to be of any value. Ecosystems for hardware and software all matter.
Security?
Moore acknowledged that hacking of airplanes has already been done, and the same can be said for cars. Increasing the connectivity of cars will increase the chances for malware.
Tahemia agreed that security is an absolute need for anything associated with IoT.
Eshed commented that the enterprise and industrial sectors are very big targets for any hackers, and the addition of new end points provides many new avenues for potential attacks.
Interoperability?
Eshed responded that only a few industries, like cellular, are built on an interoperable basis. Most products are built to be within a silo as an effort to totally capture the customer.
Moore assumed that costs are an issue. The automotive industry wants to integrate mobility and still have relative currency through out an automobile's life
Tahemia mentioned that interoperability is a key issue and will impact consumer choice. Even if only 2 percent of devices don't work within systems of systems, these few devices will make it harder for the entire industry to grow, as buyers will go away from the whole industry.
Who should initiate talks on interoperability? How do small companies break in?
Tahemia suggested activities like attending industry events, participate in standards groups, and provide your inputs whenever and wherever possible.
Eshed offered finding the pain points within an ecosystem and supply a fix that everyone can adopt.
Moore expanded that statement with solving specific problems.
Opportunity for semiconductor vendors to add value?
Eshed surmised that the semiconductor companies are the largest sector, but the fabless sector is gaining traction.
Security gaps?
Tahemia declared that security is an umbrella function. IoT needs data and communications security to become trusted and also needs to include reliability for the devices and for the data transfers. Developers should consider user privacy in all cases as the default. All sectors touching users need comprehensive security.
Moore considered that the industries should consider learning from the mobile industry about relative security. Cars are at the introductory stages, so it is hard to connect to cars now. When cars become fully connected security will become a big challenge.
Eshed called for multi-layer security. Currently the communications layers can be made secure, but the other layers are vulnerable.
