freescale.com / arm.com

White Paper

What the Internet ofThings (IoT) Needs to
Become a Reality

Table of Contents
2		 Introduction

Abstract
We’re entering a new era of computing technology that many are
calling the Internet of Things (IoT). Machine to machine, machine to
infrastructure, machine to environment, the Internet of Everything,
the Internet of Intelligent Things, intelligent systems—call it what you
want, but it’s happening, and its potential is huge.
We see the IoT as billions of smart, connected “things” (a sort of“universal global neural network” in the cloud) that will encompass
every aspect of our lives, and its foundation is the intelligence thatembedded processing provides. The IoT is comprised of smart
machines interacting and communicating with other machines,
objects, environments and infrastructures. As a result, hugevolumes of data are being generated, and that data is being
processed into useful actions that can “command and control”
things to make our lives much easier and safer—and to reduce
our impact on the environment.
The creativity of this new era is boundless, with amazing potential to
improve our lives. What does the IoT need to become a reality? In
this white paper, Freescale and ARM partner to answer that question.

3		 Making Things Smart
4		 Application Categories
5		 IoT Use Cases
8		 Building Blocks of
the IoT

15		 When Does the IoT
Become a Reality?

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Introduction
Depending on who you talk to, the Internet of Things (IoT) is defined in different ways, and it
encompasses many aspects of life—from connected homes and cities to connected cars androads (yes, roads) to devices that track an individual’s behavior and use the data collected for“push” services. Some mention one trillion Internet-connected devices by 2025 and define
mobile phones as the “eyes and ears” of the applications connecting all of those connected“things.” Depending on the context, others give examples that are less phone-centric, speakof a class of devices that do not exist today or point to Google’s augmented-reality smart
glasses as an indication of things to come.
Everyone, however, thinks of the IoT as billions of connections (a sort of “universal global
neural network” in the cloud) that will encompass every aspect of our lives. All of thispublic discussion suggests the IoT is finally becoming a hot topic within the mainstream
media. Many recent articles point to the IoT as the interaction and exchange of data (lotsof it) between machines and objects, and now there are product definitions reflecting thesame concept. Hence, from a technology perspective, the IoT is being defined as smart
machines interacting and communicating with other machines, objects, environments andinfrastructures, resulting in volumes of data generated and processing of that data into
useful actions that can “command and control” things and make life much easier for humanbeings … similar to the world envisioned in the 1970s cartoon The Jetsons, only better.
Estimates of the future market size of the IoT cover a broad range, but most pundits agree itwill dwarf any other market. In mature markets today, the ultimate, pervasive consumer device
is a mobile phone. Consider your own household, and count the number of mobile phones
you currently have. Then count the number of windows, doors, electrical outlets, lights,
appliances and heating and AC units you have. You’ll quickly see why the IoT market will
surpass the mobile phone market, at least in the western world.
A quick Internet search highlighted the following example use cases/applications underconsideration:• Machine-to-machine communication• Machine-to-infrastructure communication• Telehealth: remote or real-time pervasive monitoring of patients, diagnosis and drug delivery• Continuous monitoring of, and firmware upgrades for, vehicles• Asset tracking of goods on the move
• Automatic traffic management• Remote security and control• Environmental monitoring and control• Home and industrial building automation• “Smart” applications, including cities, water, agriculture, buildings, grid, meters, broadband,cars, appliances, tags, animal farming and the environment, to name a few

White Paper2

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

The IoT: Different Services, Technologies, Meanings for Everyone

SmartLighting

Smart
Grid
Remote Appliance
Avoidance

PedestrianNavigation

Smart
Homes

Smart
Cars

Smart
Energy• Miniaturization and advancesin packaging technologies

M2M

BLDG
Automation

Smart
Parking

Technology
Innovations

Auto
SafetyAir Quality
Control

Supply Chain
Automation• Advances in flash

Smart
Tags

• New class of powerful, but
low-cost and low-power MCUs
• Cloud-based services

plications
Smart
HealthoftwareSensing
Accelerometer
Magnetometer
Gyroscope
Pressure
Altimeter
Temperature etc.

Embedded
Processing
MCU
MPU
Hybrid MCU/MPU
Network Processor

Connectivity
NFC
GPS
6LoPAN BT/BTLE
Sub-Gig Wi-Fi®
ZigBee®
RFID
Cellular

Making Things Smart
Do an IoT-related web search, and you’ll quickly notice the overuse of the term “smart.”
So, what does it really mean when something is smart, and what makes an object smart?
For example, how would a refrigerator or a toaster oven that hasn’t been considered smart
become a smart appliance?
Today, we are seeing the electrification of the world around us. Almost any manufactured
good now includes an embedded processor (typically a microcontroller, or MCU), along withuser interfaces, that can add programmability and deterministic “command and control”
functionality. The electrification of the world and the pervasiveness of embedded processing
are the keys to making objects “smart.”
Your old toaster that mechanically controlled the color of your toast now has an MCU
in it, and the MCU controls the color of your toast. The toaster completes its task moreconsistently and reliably, and because it is now a smart toaster, it has the ability tocommunicate with you electronically using its touchpad or switches.
After a device becomes smart through the integration of embedded processing, the next
logical step is remote communication with the smart device to help make life easier. For
example, if I am running late at the office, can I turn on my house lights for security reasons
using my laptop or mobile phone?

White Paper3

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Communication capability and remote manual control lead to the next step … how do I
automate things and, based on my settings and with sophisticated cloud-based processing,make things happen without my intervention? That’s the ultimate goal of some IoT
applications. And, for those applications to connect with and leverage the Internet to achieve
this goal, they must first become “smart” (incorporate an MCU/embedded processor withan associated unique ID) then connected and, finally, controlled. Those capabilities can thenenable a new class of services that makes life easier for their users.
For the network, sophisticated cloud-based processing requires a new generation ofcommunications processors that can keep track of all of those connected devices,
communicate with them and translate their functionality into useful services … all with nonlinear improvement to their performance and efficiency. The challenge will be to build secure
networks that keep up with demand, while simultaneously reducing energy consumption andcost of equipment. This will require all kinds of innovations, well beyond the improvements
Moore’s law can deliver.

Application Categories
Let’s look at some categories for IoT-related applications. While there are literally hundreds ofapplications being considered and identified by different industries, they can be categorized ina simple, logical way.

Category One
Category one encompasses the idea of millions of heterogeneous “aware” and interconnected
devices with unique IDs interacting with other machines/objects, infrastructure, and thephysical environment. In this category, the IoT largely plays a remote track, command, control
and route (TCC&R) role. As with all aspects of the IoT, safety and security are paramount.
These applications are not about data mining of people’s behaviors (along the lines of “bigbrother watching”) but rather they extend the automation and machine-to-machine (M2M),
machine-to-infrastructure (M2I) and machine-to-nature (M2N) communications that can help
simplify people’s lives.

Category Two
The second category is all about leveraging the data that gets collected by the end nodes(smart devices with sensing and connectivity capability) and data mining for trends andbehaviors that can generate useful marketing information to create additional commerce.
Credit card companies and membership shopping clubs already track and use people’s
behavior, to an extent, to come up with offers that may promote incremental sales. Now, thequestion is how far will this data mining go? Use cases could include a store tracking which
aisles you visited, where you spent the most time within those aisles and even what type of
items you lifted and browsed. This scenario is easily possible using a mobile phone’s GPS
capability, RFID and smart tags in stores and wireless tags. The result could be as simple asproviding email offers or “push” services at the point of sale. Or, it could go further, with your car
insurance company tracking your driving habits and places traveled to assign risk factors that
help determine your monthly premium, for example. You can see how this category can becomea slippery slope and how the IoT can enable data collection in every aspect of one’s everyday
life and assign a “category” to a person … with pleasant or unpleasant consequences.

White Paper4

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

When others become aware of the context associated with an entity, a person or a group(hence, knowing identity, location, activity and time), to what extent can that data be used,
and to what extent should the entity, person or group have a say in how that data gets used?
This second category, especially, spurs discussions about privacy, security, governance andthe social responsibility that comes along with such a “self-aware,” connected world.
This paper is focused on category one—specifically, the technologies and devices required toenable the IoT for TCC&R purposes.

IoT Use Cases
When devices can sense and communicate via the Internet, they can go beyond local
embedded processing to access and take advantage of remote super-computing nodes.
This allows a device to run more sophisticated analyses, make complex decisions andrespond to local needs quickly, often with no human intervention required.
Let’s take a look at the most common use cases for the IoT.

Pervasive Remote Tracking/Monitoring and (if needed) Command,
Control and Routing (TCC&R)
This refers to remote tracking/monitoring and, if needed, command, control and routing
functions for tasks and processes today usually done manually, or, if done remotely, that
require additional infrastructure. For example, in most homes today, it’s a manual process
to turn on and off certain lights, set temperature zones and turn on and off a washingmachine. In the future, doors, windows, electrical outlets, appliances and many other typesof standalone equipment will become “smart” with a unique ID. Those smart devices canthen be connected via wired or wireless communication, allowing a user to monitor his or herhouse remotely, change settings on a refrigerator or washing machine and control householdtasks through a laptop or mobile phone. In fact, there are some services offered today by
security or Internet service providers to do exactly that, but on a much smaller scale and withfewer capabilities than we expect to see in the future.

Remote Patient Monitoring

White Paper5arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Asset Tracking
An extension of these kinds of services is asset tracking, which today is done via barcode and avariety of manual steps, but in the future will leverage smart tags, near-field communication (NFC)
and RFID to globally track all kinds of objects, interactively. The word geo-tagged is now being
used by some companies to refer to this class of applications. In a future scenario, a user would
be able to use Google Earth to track anything with an RFID tag. Alternatively, your refrigerator
could keep track of your smart-tagged groceries and tell your cell phone app you are low ona certain item. If your bag of frozen vegetables can have a smart tag, other objects such as
valuable cars, jewelry and handbags could too, and they could be tracked via the Internet andalso take advantage of a variety of available web-based applications.
Some telehealth-related services also belong in this category.

Process Control and Optimization
This is when various classes of sensors (with or without actuation capabilities) are used formonitoring and to provide data so a process can be controlled remotely. This could be as
simple as the use of cameras (the sensing nodes in this example) to position boxes ofvarious sizes on a conveyer belt so a label machine can properly apply labels to them. Thistask can be done in real time by sending the data to a remote computer, analyzing it andbringing a command back to the line so various control actions can be taken to improve
the process … without any human intervention.

Resource Allocation and Optimization
The smart energy market provides an ideal example of this use case. The term “smart energy”
has been used in many ways, but it basically refers to accessing information about energy
consumption and reacting to the information to optimize the allocation of resources (energyuse). In the case of a household, for example, once the residents know they’ve been using
their washing machine during peak hours when the grid is most constrained and the cost ofelectricity is at premium, they could adjust their behavior and wash their laundry during nonpeak hours, saving money and helping the utility company cope with the peak demand.

Context-aware Automation and Decision Optimization
This category is the most fascinating, as it refers to monitoring unknown factors(environmental, interaction between machines and infrastructures, etc.) and having machines
make decisions that are as “human-like” as possible … only better!
Here’s an example that can help illustrate this: “In a traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS),
when two airplanes approach each other on a collision path, the ‘machines’ in the two
airplanes take over. The system first sends an audible warning to the pilots about the danger
ahead, while at the same time communicating between the two planes and deciding howeach plane should move to avoid a collision. The assumption is that if the two pilots arewarned and are in control to make quick decisions, they can both decide to make turns thatwould still cause a crash.”White Paper

6

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

There are a whole host of new technologies available today and in development that could
allow vehicles to communicate with each other as well as with a central control unit. These
smart vehicles also could sense the road, traffic signs and lane markers and, using GPS anda communication link, avoid incoming traffic, avoid accidents around a curve or, in conjunction
with the central control unit, avoid going over a distressed bridge on the verge of collapse.
Remote patient monitoring is another example relevant to this use case. For instance, imagine
an implantable sensing node that tracks biometrics and sends a signal regarding an abnormal
readout for an elderly patient. If the patient doesn’t respond by taking a medication, thenode could place an emergency call to a contact from a list, and, if there’s no answer, call asecond contact, and finally, if no answer, contact a monitoring clinic or quickly provide otheremergency assistance. Another example is continuous monitoring of chronic diseases to help
doctors determine best treatments, with minimal human intervention.
Requirements common to all of the use cases above include:
1) Sensing and data collection capability (sensing nodes)
2) Layers of local embedded processing capability (local embedded processing nodes)
3) Wired and/or wireless communication capability (connectivity nodes)
4) Software to automate tasks and enable new classes of services5) Remote network/cloud-based embedded processing capability (remote embedded
processing nodes)
6) Full security across the signal path

Functional View of Internet of Things Technologies

White Paper

7

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

In the factory automation example (applying labels to boxes), a camera detects information
using a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor (sensing node), the collected data is thencommunicated to an embedded processor/controller (embedded processing node) using
wired or wireless communication technology (connectivity node), a decision is made by theremote server (remote embedded processing node) and communicated (connectivity node),which causes a mechanical action to take place that corrects the situation.
A context-aware automation and decision optimization example could be a smart car using
its active safety radar system (sensing node) in conjunction with image processing cameras(sensing nodes) that communicates with an embedded processor (embedded processingnode) in the center stack of the car to make an appropriate decision regarding danger
ahead. Or, the vehicle could leverage its built-in GPS and wide-area-network (WAN) wirelesscommunication capability (connectivity node) to pass along information to a central processing
server on the network/in the cloud (remote embedded processing node) that could then makethe car aware of the information it had just received from the sensors on a bridge (sensingnode) that was being pounded by flood waters and losing its structural integrity, guiding the
car to a different route to avoid danger.

Building Blocks of the IoT
Sensing Nodes
The types of sensing nodes needed for the IoT vary widely, depending on the applications
involved. Sensing nodes could include a camera system for image monitoring; water or gas
flow meters for smart energy; radar vision when active safety is needed; RFID readers sensing
the presence of an object or person; doors and locks with open/close circuits that indicate
a building intrusion; or a simple thermometer measuring temperature. The bottom line is that
there could be many different types of sensing nodes, depending on the applications. Who
could forget the heat-seeking mechanical bugs that kept track of the population of a buildingin the movie Minority Report? Those mechanical bugs represent potential sensing nodes ofthe future.
These nodes will all carry a unique ID and can be controlled separately via a remote commandand control topology. Use cases exist today in which a smartphone with RFID and/or NFC
and GPS functionality can approach individual RFID/NFC-enabled “things” in a building,communicate with them and register their physical locations on the network. Hence, RFID and
NFC will have a place in remote registration, and, ultimately, command and control of the IoT.

Layers of Local Embedded Processing Nodes
Embedded processing is at the heart of the IoT. Local processing capability is most often
provided by MCUs, hybrid microcontrollers/microprocessors (MCUs/MPUs) or integrated MCU
devices, which can provide the “real-time” embedded processing that is a key requirementof most IoT applications. Use cases vary significantly, and fully addressing the real-timeembedded processing function requires a scalable strategy (using a scalable family of
devices), as one size will not fit all.
In the home automation example, depending on the size or type of residence, requirements
could vary from a simple network to a more complex structure with hierarchical, nested subnetworks controlled at different levels. For example, in a single-family home, all windows,

White Paper

8

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

doors, electrical outlets and/or electrical equipment and thermostats could have simple
embedded controllers that communicate with a master MCU/MPU hybrid device for commandand control of the entire house. In turn, this master device can communicate via the Internetwith a variety of “clients,” from the security service provider and other service providers
to portals that can give the homeowner access to remotely control all of these connected“things.” In an apartment building, the same idea can be extended, with an even more complex,
layered network hierarchy that includes apartment-level command and control, as well as floorlevel and building-level command and control.
There are a few requirements that make an MCU ideal for use in the IoT.
• Energy efficiency: First and foremost, the MCU needs to be energy-efficient. In manycases, the sensing nodes are battery-operated satellite nodes, so a low-power spec isa basic requirement. For example, an MCU in a battery-operated thermostat that wakes
up once every few minutes to check the temperature and adjust the AC based on its
findings needs to consume as little power as possible to minimize battery replacement.
Integrated circuit (IC) designers have many ways to reduce power consumption, including
low-leakage process technologies, best-in-class low-power non-volatile memory/flash
memory technologies, architectural innovations and various clocking schemes. For batteryoperated nodes, all of those techniques are needed to achieve the lowest possible power
consumption.
• Embedded architecture with a rich software ecosystem: The wide variety of potential IoT
applications needs a software development environment that ties together the applications,the command, control and routing processing and the security of the node and system.
While the importance of software in MCU solutions has increased during the past few years,
for MCUs supporting the IoT, even more software, tools and enablement will be needed.
A broad ecosystem with easily accessible support is key to enabling the development ofembedded processing nodes and IoT applications.
• Portfolio breadth that enables software scalability: The ability to reuse software andleverage existing software investment is a key success factor for companies developing IoTapplications. Software reuse enables the rapid rollout of multi-layered architectures (in which
the embedded processor is tasked with different layers and levels of tracking, command,
control and routing functions).
• Portfolio breadth that cost-effectively enables different levels of performance and arobust mix of I/O interfaces: The diversity of things to be controlled in the IoT, along withthe different use cases, the number of things in a micro-network, different levels of service
required and different interfaces in a heterogeneous environment will lead to the need for
different tiers of devices, with diverse I/Os required for the various applications. A “one size
fits all” approach will not be cost- or performance-optimized enough to satisfy the needs ofthis market.
• Cost-effectiveness: As with any other market, mass adoption will not take place until acertain price point for the solutions is reached. Like all other systems, the overall cost is thesum of the parts of the system plus the cost of the services required for the system. The
overall system cost must be affordable for the paradigm shift to take hold in everyday life,
so product cost is a very relevant factor.

White Paper

9arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality• Quality and reliability: Unlike your mobile phone, laptop or other electronic device that you
may change every two years, product life cycles in the industrial market are at least 10-15
years. Even inside a home, certain devices, such as thermostats, aren’t changed that often.
When you add the automotive market to the mix, more stringent reliability requirements andharsh environmental conditions must be supported. Hence, quality, reliability and longevity
requirements for these markets are keys to the success of the IoT paradigm shift.
Although shifting the bulk of heavy-duty data processing and analysis to remote supercomputing nodes in the network cloud is available and allows the local nodes “live longer”(not become obsolete as fast), there is still a balance between how much local vs. remote
processing will be needed. This is especially important for time-critical applications that
prefer local processing.
• Security: For the local embedded processing node at the physical layer, there are a varietyof cryptographic engines and security accelerators to support data encryption (e.g. DES,
AES, etc.) and authentication (e.g. SHA, etc.). Additional layers of security software, as well
as best practices related to boot-up routines, are among the variety of security approaches
available.

Wired and Wireless Communication Capability
The role of the communication node is to transfer information gathered by the sensing nodes
and processed by local embedded processing nodes to the destinations identified by the local
embedded processing nodes. And, once the data is remotely processed and new commands
are generated, the communication node brings back the new commands to the local embedded
processing nodes to execute a task.
Sometimes this could be as simple as sensing a fridge door being left open based on energyuse, and after analyzing the data, automatically closing the door via a mechanical mechanism
or generating a warning for the homeowners’ “home automation app.” Or, it could be as
sophisticated as communication to an autonomous vehicle to avoid an accident.

Today’s Wireless LandscapeWhite Paper

10arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Use cases could vary drastically, but what is common to these command and control
communication links is that they typically only need to carry few kilobytes of data for any givennode, unless high-bandwidth image processing or video data is involved.
The IoT will encompass all aspects of one’s everyday life, hence there is no limit to the
distances for which command and control communication can/will be used. To get a better
understanding of the dynamics of this segment, let’s take a step back and look at the various
communication topologies that exist today, from wireless body area network (WBAN) to
wide area network (WAN), and all of the options in between. If you were to design wired andwireless technologies for the IoT from the ground up, you may or may not end up with thecommunications landscape as we know it today. However, many of the companies offering
wireless and wired solutions are positioning their products as “the communication engine of
choice” for the IoT market.
The IoT will also add the concept of wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs), which are
networks that contain sensing and embedded processing nodes that can control their environment.
As with any emerging market, a transition period before system optimization takes place andtechnologies become better-suited for the end IoT-related applications is likely.
Based on typical product life cycles and the role of software, it would be safe to say that if atechnology takes hold in an IoT segment now, that technology (or an optimized-to-purpose
version of it) will be in place for at least the next five to eight years. There are some battlelines already drawn that may be solidifying. For example, it seems as though Bluetooth® Low
Energy (BTLE) is being adopted by the health care industry for portable medical and lifestyledevices. On the other hand, the battle between ZigBee® and low-power Wi-Fi® technologies
for industrial control and automation has just begun. Operators are urgently looking for new
revenue streams, and machine-to-machine communication and location-based services seemto be good places to make a bet. Both can use existing infrastructure and are very much apart of the emerging IoT market.

Communication Technologies
NFC

RFID

Bluetooth®

Bluetooth®
LE

ANT

Proprietery(Sub-GHz& 2.4 GHz)

Wi-Fi®

ZigBee®

Z-waveKNX

Network

PAN

PAN

PAN

PAN

PAN

LAN

LAN

LAN

LAN

LAN

LAN

LAN

MAN

WAN

Topology

P2P

P2P

Star

Star

P2P,
Star,
Tree
Mesh

Star, MeshStar

Mesh, Star,
Tree

Mesh

Mesh,
Star, Tree

Mesh,
Star

Mesh, Star

Mesh

Mesh

Power

Very Low

Very
Low

Low

Very Low

Very
Low

Very Low to
Low

Low-High

Very Low

Very Low

Very Low

Very Low

Very Low

High

High

Speed

400 Kbs 400 Kbs 700 kbs

1 Mbs

1 Mbs

250 kbs

11-100Mbs

250 kbs

40 Kbs

1.2 Kbps

250 kbs

250 Kbs

11-100Mbs

1.8-7.2
Mbs

Range<10 cm5-10 m1-30 m

10-70 m4-20 m

10-300 m

30 m

800 m

200 m

800 m
(Sub-GHz)

50 km

Cellularnetwork

Healthandfitness

SportsPoint to point Internet,
andconnectivity multimedia
fitness

SensorSenor
networks,
Metro area Cellular
Residential
Industrial networks,
building
Building
broadband phones
lighting andsensing building andandautomation
Internet
andautomation
networks industrial
industrial
connectivity telemetry
automation
automation

Low

Low

MediumPay, getaccess,share,
Application initiate
service,
easy
setup
Cost
Adder

White Paper

Low

<3 m

<30 m

Network
Item
for data
tracking exchange,
headsetLow

Low

MediumMedium11

Low

MediumWireless
6LoWPAN WiMAX
HART

MediumMediumHigh

2.5–3.5GHigh

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Major volumes for the IoT market will likely not happen for another 10-12 years, and, atthat time, the communications technologies may be completely different from those being
considered today, or new revisions of existing standards may have emerged. Wi-Fi technologists
already are working on 802.11ah (Wi-Fi on ISM bands below 1 GHz) to tailor it for infrastructureindependent ad-hoc, mesh networking and longer-range control of sensor networks.
Alternatively, there could be brand-new technologies better suited for certain aspects of IoT
communication that displace the existing standards for the IoT. For example, operators may
decide their valuable spectrum is too precious to use for WAN-based command and control
services and they instead need to use a different technology. Or, a disruptive wireless network
technology like what Weightless (weightless.org/) is developing may take hold.
One thing about the connectivity needs of the future IoT market is clear—it is so diverse, large
and cost-conscious that a range of different technologies will be needed (possibly including
WAN, LAN, WPAN, WBAN, etc.), and one size will not fit all.
Requirements for communication functions are almost the same as for embedded processing nodes:• Cost-effectiveness• Low power• Quality and reliability• Security‘Box-level’ View of IoT Building Blocks
If we convert the building blocks of the IoT from simple nodes to a box/product-level view,
we end up with sensing/edge nodes that use PAN/BAN/LAN types of communications
topologies, connected to gateways with different levels of hierarchy.

‘Box-level’ View of IoT Building Blocks

These gateways, in turn, communicate to the cloud via WAN communication technology.
Once connected to the cloud through an access network, data will be routed through a server
for application/action, as well as big data analysis.

White Paper

12

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Software Service Fabric for Metering Application

Software to Automate Tasks
Getting all segments of the IoT to communicate and work together is key to the success of thetechnology rollout, and that means deploying a lot of software (and middleware) that will enablevarious heterogeneous devices to talk with each other and the infrastructure around them.
For example, in a smart meter application, an analog front end (AFE) reads the meter andthe MCU manages the meter to interpret and push the data through the communication
pipe, which will be communicating with the house on one end and the curbside on the otherend. While most developers have a clear view of the software architecture from a device,communication pipe and application profile perspective, the service-level fabric must also be
considered for a given application.
In this configuration, the sensing node (here the AFE) is using an embedded processing (MCU) node
to translate and transmit the data through the communication functions to the central embedded
processing node in the house, as well as one on the curbside. A lot of middleware software isneeded to enable this interaction to happen reliably, with the services delivered seamlessly.

Remote Embedded Processing Nodes (access to cloud computing)Since there are not yet industry-wide IoT best practices agreed upon and deployed, many
component providers are approaching the connection between devices and the cloud asa connection to their niche cloud, as opposed to the cloud. Some companies promotethat all devices will be “dumb nodes,” with all processing and decision-making done within“their cloud.” Alternatively, some believe only minimal access to the cloud for basic Internetrelated services will be required, with most of the “thinking” done locally. The architecture
and building blocks of the IoT as described in this paper allow for a number of different
approaches, which will likely be necessary due to the wide variety of use cases andconfigurations anticipated. That flexibility will be needed to optimize system-level performance.
So, why does software get such a big headline? Software enables the various services the IoT will
provide. Services are the means by which the IoT will address certain needs. Those needs could
exist today, or they may be things we don’t yet realize we need, but someday we’ll wonder why
White Paper

13

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

we never had them before. Many people forget that until 20 years ago, most of us lived without
mobile phones and didn’t see a need for them, but now they are the most personal gadget owned
by people in the western world. Along those lines, some IoT services will address needs easily
identifiable today (e.g. asset tracking, smart energy, etc.), but others are yet to be defined.

Full Security Across the Entire Signal Path
Some people bundle this topic within the software portion of the IoT, but it deserves theattention of a separate category. Without a solid security mechanism for all of the IoT building
blocks mentioned above, the IoT will not be as pervasive as it is anticipated to become.
When we say security, we really mean security of information—the information that gets
passed around by various parts of the system and is context- and service-dependent. For
example, knowing the location of a person could be considered a good thing if the person
was lost. However, if that person felt his or her privacy was being compromised, knowing thelocation information could be considered a bad thing.
Here’s what we mean by secure information:• Information needs to be available when needed: This is the most basic level of security.
If the information regarding an intruder in your house gets sent to the police station the nextday, that information loses its value. The assurance that the services and their underlying
infrastructure can process, store and deliver the data when and where it’s needed is the first
aspect of a secure system. In certain cases, redundant infrastructure needs is required toensure this will happen.
• Information needs to be confidential: Hence, the owner of the information decides whichauthorized people, groups or organizations can access it. Safeguarding the information
obtained by IoT services is critical, or those services will lose the users’ trust. Mechanisms
must be put in place to ensure confidentiality of the information exchanged. This is a toughbalancing act, as there are a whole host of IoT-related services designed to leverage data
mining and generate push services. The “opt out” mechanism for such services would be
subject to the governance of the IoT.
• The integrity of data needs to be assured: Assurance that the information is accurate,authentic, timely and complete is key. Unless the data can be trusted and relied upon, it
cannot be used for its intended purposes, and the entire service paradigm around that data
will break down.
The security of the system is as good as the last threat it was able to prevent, and, as soon
as it gets broken, one needs to implement new ways of making it secure again. If the recent
hacking of credit card and personal information from reputable outlets on the Internet is any
indication of the challenges facing IoT services, the Internet security infrastructure available
today is inadequate to manage IoT services.
During the summer of 2010, malware targeted electronic process control systems for the
first time instead of the traditional credit cards and personal information. The Stuxnet Trojan
horse worm that attacked Siemens process control systems at nuclear plants demonstrated
incredible levels of sophistication and showed the potential damage that could be done toundermine the security of the IoT.

White Paper

14

arm.com / freescale.com

What the Internet of Things Needs to Become a Reality

Device-level Security: There are different types (MCU, hybrid MCU/MPU, integrated MCUs, etc.)
and layers of embedded processing at various nodes of the IoT, and for any device to be consideredsmart so it can be connected to the Internet, it must incorporate an embedded processor.
Embedded processors are going to be pervasive in the IoT, and they’d better be very secure.
MCUs are vulnerable during their boot-up process, when software is executed fromprogrammable memory using the code stored in the read-only memory (ROM) or non-volatilememory (NVM)/flash memory. During this process, expert hackers can break the routine andhack the system in a variety of ways. Many new technologies are rolling out to address the
security issues related to passive attacks (e.g. glitching) and invasive attacks (e.g. UV attacks),
but more are likely necessary.
The intent of the IoT is to put smart devices on a sort of universal neural net, controlling themremotely. Hence, each of these identifiable objects (billions of them) can introduce a threat
to the overall system. With such potential for disaster, are there best practices engineers canlearn to enhance the security of MCUs in an IoT system?
By now it should be clear that networks of the future will connect more objects, machines
and infrastructure to a global neural network of cloud-based services than they will connect
people. A tsunami of data and services will affect the way we live, well beyond the changes
experienced when the Internet first arrived and changed the way people network andcommunicate with each other. At the heart of the IoT are layers of embedded processing,from the most remote satellite sensing node to the core of the network. The diversity ofservices being planned for the IoT means no one company can develop full solutions andsupporting IoT-based innovations. IoT-based innovations will require a broad, rich ecosystemof partner companies working together to bring IoT-based services to the market. An open
(non-proprietary) platform (ARM.com) that allows all partners working together to use thesame baseline technologies is key to making the IoT happen.

When Does the IoT Become a Reality?
The pervasiveness of embedded processing is already happening everywhere around us. At
home, appliances as mundane as your basic toaster now come with an embedded MCU that
not only sets the darkness of the piece of toast to your preference, but also adds functionalsafety to the device. Your refrigerator has started talking to you and keeping track of what
you put in it. There are energy-aware HVAC systems that can now generate a report on
the activity in your house and recommend ways to reduce your energy consumption. The
electrification of vehicles has already started happening, and in just a few years from now,each car will contain >50 percent more electronics than it did just five years ago. The cars of
the future will indeed be able to drive themselves. Similar changes are also happening in otheraspects of our lives … in factories, transportation, school systems, stadiums and other publicvenues. Embedded processing is everywhere.
Connecting those smart devices (nodes) to the web has also started happening, although
at a slower rate. The pieces of the technology puzzle are coming together to accommodate
the Internet of Things sooner than most people expect. Just as the Internet phenomenon
happened not so long ago and caught like a wildfire, the Internet of Things will touch every
aspect of our lives in less than a decade. Are you ready for it?

White Paper

15

arm.com / freescale.com

freescale.com / arm.com

Contributors
This white paper was developed in collaboration with Global Strategy andBusiness Development, Freescale and Emerging Technologies, ARM.

For more information about how Freescaleand ARM are helping make the IoT a reality,
visit freescale.com/IoT and arm.com.
Freescale, and the Freescale logo are trademarks of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.,
Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. ARM is the registered trademark of ARM Limited. All otherproduct or service names are the property of their respective owners.
© 2012–2014 Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. and ARM, Inc.
Document Number: INTOTHNGSWP REV 2
May 2014