Nordic Semiconductor joins Connectivity Standards Alliance in China to drive smart home interoperability
Membership will see Nordic cooperate with other members to promote the industry-unifying standard Matter
Nordic Semiconductor today announces that it has joined the Connectivity Standards Alliance Member Group China (CMGC). The CMGC is a branch of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) designed to promote and achieve smart home device interoperability in China by harmonizing technology standards and ecosystems. Nordic is joining CMGC to bring the promotion of ‘Matter’ (previously Project CHIP) to the next level having taken a leading role in its development from the early days of Project CHIP.
Matter to make smart homes smarter
Backed by more than 180 companies worldwide, Matter is a unified and secure IP-based connectivity protocol for the smart home the CSA believes will ensure seamless connectivity among Matter-certified devices and home hubs from various ecosystem suppliers, for example Apple, Google, and Amazon. Matter aims to create a universal application protocol on top of the mature Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP)—ideal for delivering seamless, end-to-end security and privacy connectivity, and Cloud connectivity between a wireless device and another device, app, or service—that can ensure interoperability between devices, platforms, and ecosystems. The CMGC will be driving the initiative in China, in which Nordic Semiconductor will take a leading role to help fulfill this vision.
The company has been developing wireless connectivity solutions for the Chinese market for more than 20 years, and in addition to its leadership in Bluetooth® Low Energy (Bluetooth LE), Nordic has recently expanded its offering to include other low power short range wireless connectivity options including Thread and Zigbee, as well as low power cellular IoT via the LTE-M and NB-IoT standards.
“Chip manufacturers have always been active participants and major contributors to various activities of the CMGC, and they play a vital role in sharing expertise and experience with alliance members and industry practitioners,” says Laura Shang, China Representative, CSA. “Nordic Semiconductor has been involved in low power wireless technology for many years, and has deeply participated in the alliance’s technology development process. We are very happy that Nordic is joining the China group as a council member at this time, and we look forward to working together to promote the alliance’s open standards in the Chinese market, making connections more convenient and secure.”
“As an influential company in the global IoT industry, Nordic Semiconductor will undoubtedly have a positive effect on the promotion of the existing Zigbee standards and the future Matter standard,” says Wilma Su, Chair of CMGC, and Head of Standard & Regulation APAC at Signify.
Open connectivity standards
“As a strong believer in open connectivity standards, Nordic maintains a conviction that Matter will ignite significant growth in the smart home market, and sees this as the ideal time to join forces with the other members of the CMGC to promote Matter and other connectivity standards in China,” says Ken Lam, Technical Marketing Manager – APAC, Nordic Semiconductor. “In so doing, we believe Nordic can provide both expertise and experience in concurrent multiprotocol wireless connectivity to a wider audience, and help achieve the alliance’s goals of creating more connections between more ‘things’ while simplifying development for manufacturers and compatibility for consumers.”
Nordic Semiconductor is now ready to support customers on Matter, and has developed a working example based on its nRF Connect Software Development Kit (SDK). The open source repository is available here.