The IoT-Ready Alliance, an alliance of leading lighting, building management, and Internet of Things (IoT) companies creating a common standard for IoT-enabled lighting fixtures, introduces its first specification, the IoT-Ready Interface Specification V1.0. The launch coincides with the alliance’s one-year anniversary.
is a trademark of the IoT-Ready Alliance, formed last year to address the U.S. market. The IoT-Ready Alliance by industry-leading organizations like Enlighted, Tridonic and DesignLights Consortium with the aim to establish a standard for “IoT-Ready” light fixtures that can easily be upgraded with sensors and connectivity modules after installation.
The IoT-Ready Alliance today is an industry organization working to make it easy for all LED lighting fixtures and the buildings they are installed to be made “smart’ by simply plugging in a compatible IoT sensor. This standard is suitable for all LED lighting and building control networks.
According to the , the Internet of Things Interface Specification defines a socket that allows any type of Internet of Things (IoT) sensor or control module to connect seamlessly to a luminaire or other building system. The standard is independent from network-protocol, which enables utilising both wired and wireless networking protocols by IoT-Ready-compliant products. What is more, it will ensure all new LED lighting fixtures can be shipped with a standard socket to easily add intelligent IoT sensors to the fixture after the fixture has been installed.
Enlighted CEO Joe Costello said: “The Interface Specification is a very important first step by the IoT-Ready Alliance to make the installation of IoT technology in luminaires easy today, and in the future. We are announcing our 5th generation sensor at Lightfair International and it will be IoT-Ready Interface Specification compliant. We are also committed to ensuring all future sensors meet IoT-Ready standards. We look forward to collaborating with the member companies to develop new technologies to speed the adoption of LED lighting and enable smarter buildings.”
Alliance co-founders Tridonic and Enlighted are announcing their first products based on the new Specification at Lightfair International in Chicago, Ill. from May 8-10, 2018. IoT-Ready Alliance member companies have access to specifications. They gain early insight into new channels and markets as well as collaborate openly with a range of forward-thinking smart lighting and IoT companies. The result is industry-leading technology standardization that enables the Internet of Things.
“We’re very pleased that our collaborative environment and focus on results has enabled us to converge on a robust Specification so quickly. The Specification achieves our design goals of broad industry support, extensibility, low-cost, and simplicity of implementation. In working with a range of companies from the lighting, lighting-control and IoT industries, I’ve seen what we can accomplish when we focus on results instead of defending industry turf. Now that our first Specification is published and products are on the market, we look forward to working together with other technical standards bodies in the lighting, building management, and IoT spaces to ensure a single set of coherent standards world-wide,” said Evan Petridis, Chair of the IoT-Ready Alliance Technical Committee.
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South Korean Samsung Electronics saw its operating profits surge in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous year. The company attributes the increase to its semiconductor division which manufactures bitcoin mining chips and says that it expects the trend to continue into the second quarter.
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Profits Surging
A world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, South Korean Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. recently announced its 1Q18 earnings results. Samsung Electronics is the flagship company of the Samsung Group with assembly plants and sales network in 80 countries.
In the first quarter of this year, the company recorded consolidated earnings of 60.56 trillion won (~US$56 billion). Its operating profits were 15.64 trillion won (~$14.5 billion), a 58% increase from 9.9 trillion won (~$9.2 billion) achieved during the same period last year. Meanwhile, its year-on-year sales grew approximately 20%.
The Seoul Newspaper elaborated that Samsung Electronics’ “semiconductor division…accounted for about three-quarters (73%) of total operating profits, leading the company to a record high.” Samsung explained:
Demand for the semiconductor division increased due to sales of [ASICs] for flagship smartphones and demand for virtual currency mining chips.
Samsung’s Mining Chips & Earnings Outlook
Samsung in January that it had begun manufacturing ASIC chips used for mining cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether. Without providing details, a company spokesperson told Techcrunch at the time that “Samsung’s foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips.”
Samsung Electronics offers design services which connect “mid-to small-sized companies with qualified ASIC design services and support.” In January, the Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem program was launched to ensure deep collaboration between the Samsung foundry, ecosystem partners, and customers.
Dragonmint T1 Miner.
Mining rig manufacturer Halong Mining has previously revealed that its flagship product, the Dragonmint T1 Miner, uses Samsung’s 10nm T1558 mining chips, calling them “the first-ever 10nm bitcoin mining chips.” Halong says their rig is “the world’s most efficient bitcoin miner, operating at 16TH with Asicboost technology inside for greater power efficiency.”
“Earnings growth should continue in 2Q18, driven by demand for HPC-based semiconductors and an increase in supply of new 10nm process products,” Samsung Electronics detailed, emphasizing that “In the foundry business, despite a decline in demand for mobile parts due to seasonal weakness in 1Q18, earnings increased on the back of high-performance computing (HPC) chip orders.” The company continued to share:
The foundry business is expected to secure the second place in the industry with more than $10 billion in sales.
Mining Chip Market
In the field of ASIC mining chip manufacturing, Samsung Electronics is competing with a few other chipset manufacturers. The largest is Taiwan’s TSMC, which supplies mining chips to mining hardware makers such as Bitmain and Canaan. Recently, news.bitcoin.com on TSMC hitting record sales during March due to demand for the hardware required for crypto mining.
According to a Trendforce study published in November of last year, TSMC held a 55.9% market share by revenue in the semiconductor foundry business, followed by Global Foundries with 9.4% market share, UMC with 8.5% and then Samsung with 7.7% market share.
Do you think Samsung will soon gain market share in the mining chip market? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Samsung, and TSMC.
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