HOW TO KEEP COSTS IN CHECK WHEN

DESIGNING CONNECTED END POINT/

IOT DEVICES

MENTOR EMBEDDED SOFT WARE AND CLARINOX TECHNOLOGIES

W H I T E P A P E R

E M B E D D E D S O F T W A R E

w w w . m e n t o r . c o m
How to Keep Costs in Check when Designing Connected End Point / IoT Devices

As the use of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are becoming more common, the need to create cost effective
devices is critical. The challenge is how to enable new features and functionality while lowering your costs. Not to
mention keeping up with the latest connectivity standards like BLE and Wi-Fi. One of the factors in the costs of a
products is the relationship between the hardware and software. In this paper we will talk more about this
relationship. Specifically, around the use of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in the use of End Point / IoT devices.

HARDWARE CONSIDERATIONS
Selecting parts for a wirelessly enabled products requires a lot of comparison between the enormous range of
wireless modules and chipsets that are on the market today.

One of most critical factors for developers to consider when selecting wireless hardware for the design of an IoT
product is cost.

Contrary to belief about wireless modules and pre-programmed development kits being cheap, cheaper
alternatives such as SoC or chipset-based design can further reduce production cost of a wirelessly enabled
product.

The higher cost associated with purchasing wireless modules mostly comes down to the work already done to
integrate an antenna into the module, which more often than not comes with RF certification. One alternative to
using expensive wireless modules is to design your own embedded system with host MCU and wireless chipset.
This does require upfront costs such as FCC and other region certification but can save you large in the long-term
as sourcing parts will be cheaper than the former.

Figure 1 shows the price comparisons for the available options when adding wireless connectivity to a product. For
large-scale production (production units > 50K), it is plain that a more cost-effective approach is to select a SoC or
chipset + MCU design - even with associated PCB, antenna design and RF certification costs.

Another consideration to make when choosing between a wireless module or chipset hardware approach is size.
Using a module will mean that that the internal footprint or PCB size of your product will be fixed to the size
determined by the vendor you choose. This has the potential to increase the overall size of your product and can
impact on other design parameters such as aesthetics. Choosing a SoC or wireless chipset + MCU approach means
more flexibility and less restrictions on the overall size of your wireless enabled product, which may be critical for
some products.

Figure 1: Comparison of embedded wireless modules vs. SoC vs. MCU + chipset design BOM.¹

SOFTWARE CONSIDERATIONS
Choosing an OS for an embedded system is challenging, and IoT applications have additional constraints and some
very specific requirements. Broadly the need is to provide a real-time, multi-threading program execution
environment, that includes the middleware (drivers, protocols etc.) for a variety of peripherals (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE
etc.), whilst demanding a modest amount of target system resources (CPU power and memory).

1. Pricing assumption based upon published pricing on Digikey and/or Mouser up to 1k volume then a discount of 10% for 25k pricing;
20% for 50k pricing and 30% for 100k pricing and is for illustrative purpose only.

w w w. m e nto r. co m
2 [ 5]
How to Keep Costs in Check when Designing Connected End Point / IoT Devices

An obvious option to consider is Linux. It is very well known among developers and offers an enormous selection
of drivers etc. However, Linux could be problematic in this context because it is not intrinsically real time and
applies a very high load on system resources; it needs plenty of CPU power, a large amount of memory (multiple
MB) and a memory management unit. For an IoT application, this heavy demand for resources is unlikely to be
acceptable.

The clear alternative is a real-time operating system (RTOS). Such an OS tends to be very efficient, resulting in less
CPU power being needed. Memory footprint is much reduced – commonly a fully-featured OS configuration may
only demand 50KB of memory; scalability means that only required OS features are included in the executable
image. Wide ranges of drivers and other protocol support tend to be available, meaning that application
development can proceed rapidly.

FLEXIBILITY
While pre-programmed modules provide the opportunity for simple development, they prevent the developer
from having complete control and understanding of the underlying technology that is in their product. This
understanding can be critical in providing support to customers when problems arise as well as shifting
developer’s reliance on third parties to implement software changes, if indeed such changes can or will be made.

Developers unfamiliar with embedded wireless Bluetooth & Wi-Fi technology will often look search for user-friendly
and intuitive API to do the work for them. Embedded development environments are often only able to provide
developers with very low-level debugging information such as memory mapping, register status and call stacks,
which can be helpful for debugging MCU peripherals, but when it comes to debugging MAC-layer and the radio-
layer communication between a microcontroller and RF transceiver, few embedded development environments
will provide the contextual information to debug wireless communication between several connected devices.

TABLE 1 - SOFTWARE SOLUTION OFFERINGS.

Customized wireless solution based upon
Pre-programmed modules
Nucleus RTOS & Clarinox software
Performance Generally not possible Real-time memory usage analysis, throughput
Tuning analysis and tuning is possible via scripting
interface to the target system
Debugging Little real-time debugging capabilities Bluetooth & Wi-Fi packet sniffing and protocol
analysis, customized debug views to visualize
relevant information
Hardware Limited hardware options supported by software Freedom of choice - selection of a variety of
Flexibility packages MCU’s and RF IC’s.
Cloud Locked to a vendor-specific cloud service Flexibility of cloud service provider
Solutions
Cloud vendor ceasing to support can be an issue
Vendor Modules are sometimes based upon wireless Flexibility in software support is available from
Support chipsets that no longer have support from the software vendors throughout development and
silicon vendor into production
Forced upgrade may be required if any firmware Control over choice of chipset ensures that a
issue is found newer chipset can be chosen at the start of the
project

w w w. m e nto r. co m
3 [ 5]
How to Keep Costs in Check when Designing Connected End Point / IoT Devices

EXAMPLE SYSTEM
An example of a wireless solution where SoC or chipset + MCU design is suitable is the implementation of wireless
barcode scanner devices. Given the small-form factor and ergonomic requirements of such devices requires
embedded designs that are not constrained by the size of wireless modules. Furthermore, the reliance on barcode
scanners to continuously operate reliably for hours stresses the need of transparent wirelessly debugging and
performance tuning – which, more often than not, is not provided by vendors supplying pre-programmed
wireless modules.

Together with partner Mentor Graphics, Clarinox has the ideal solution for providing Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
functionality for our client’s barcode scanner products, where robustness and reliability were key priorities.
ClarinoxBlue and ClarinoxWiFi protocol stacks, running on Nucleus RTOS, provide a winning combination. The small
memory footprint and light resource intensive RTOS provided by Nucleus, along with Clarinox wireless stacks,
provide flexibility to our clients to choose a broader range of chipset & MCU whilst also ensuring low-power
operation of their battery powered scanners.

CONCLUSION
To summarize with a few key points:

■ The relationship between hardware and software is critical in reducing costs

■ Many times, wireless modules and pre-programmed development kits are not cheaper then alternatives such
as SoC or chipset-based design.
■ Choosing a highly scalable RTOS will enable a smaller memory footprint, require less CPU power, and support
wide ranges of drivers and other protocols. All lowering your total hardware costs.
■ Flexibility gives the developer complete control of all aspects of the device.

w w w. m e nto r. co m
4 [ 5]
Obtain the Required Connectivty for Endpoint/IoT Devices While Keeping the Total Cost in Check

PRICING REFERENCES:
[1] https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/CC2564MODACMOG/296-44311-ND/5823386
[2] https://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/CC2640F128RHBT?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuuc7S3exxspmp
XprSvcasKtiuSqVUXUEJ6%2FAukw9k53g%3D%3D
[3] https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/texas-instruments/CC2560BRVMR/296-51001-1-ND/9745365
[4] https://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/TMS320F280220PTT?qs=sGAEpiMZZMthpPthBmvj74
qX3QSsF9CFZ2xUKnKamJ0%3D
[5] https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/ATSAMW25H18-MR210PB1952/
ATSAMW25H18-MR210PB1952-ND/7164755
[6] https://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microchip-Technology-Atmel/ATWINC1510B-MU-Y?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuRe
UCzg6bfTIqhbwH3IyPicIK0lWrq6O3NirkWBWftKA%3D%3D
[7] https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/
ATWILC1000B-UU-T/1611-ATWILC1000B-UU-TCT-ND/6833317
[8] https://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microchip-Technology-Atmel/ATSAM4LC2AA-AU?qs=sGAEpiMZZMuoKK
Ecg8mMKLwusC6%252BB1YVL7r9li%252BJysA%3D
[9] https://au.mouser.com/ProductDetail/STMicroelectronics/SPBTLE-1S?qs=sGAEpiMZZMu3sxpa5v1qroZc48vGw
ABcHZt9ybmeirI%3D
[10] https://www.digikey.com.au/product-detail/en/stmicroelectronics/BLUENRG-132/497-16695-1-ND/6192775

For the latest product information, call us or visit: w w w . m e n t o r . c o m

©2018 Mentor Graphics Corporation, all rights reserved. This document contains information that is proprietary to Mentor Graphics Corporation and may
be duplicated in whole or in part by the original recipient for internal business purposes only, provided that this entire notice appears in all copies.
In accepting this document, the recipient agrees to make every reasonable effort to prevent unauthorized use of this information. All trademarks
mentioned in this document are the trademarks of their respective owners.

MGC 02-20 TECH18620-w