Wisol and Sequans collaborate on new family of LTE for IoT modules
LTE for IoT chipmaker Sequans Communications S.A. has announced that Wisol, a manufacturer of wireless connectivity modules, will use Sequans’ Monarch LTE Cat M1/NB1 chip, Calliope LTE Cat 1 chipset, and Colibri LTE Cat 4 chipset. Wisol is to design a new family of modules for M2M and IoT applications.
Wisol will design, market, and sell the new IoT-optimised modules, using Wisol’s technologies and components, to its customers worldwide, including in the USA, Japan, and Korea.
“Sequans’ LTE for IoT technology delivers state-of-the-art efficiency in power, size and cost,” said Jin Duk Kim, vice president, Wisol. “With the significant leadership position Sequans has attained, especially in the LTE-M market, both in terms of its first-to-market advantage and chip performance, it was an easy decision to partner with Sequans. We expect that our relationship will enable us to create highly differentiated solutions for the IoT industry.”
“We are excited to have established a partnership with Wisol, a technology leader with outstanding capabilities in small form-factor, cost-effective module design and manufacturing,” said Danny Kedar, VP of Sequans’ IoT business unit.
“Wisol has a strong track record in designing and building RF components and the combination of their and our technologies in these new LTE for IoT modules will enable optimisations in power, size and cost that we believe will accelerate growth in LTE for IoT worldwide.”
Wisol’s LTE-M module is based on Sequans’ Monarch LTE platform, the world’s first and most highly-optimised LTE-M (Cat M1) and NB-IoT (Cat NB1) chip, and a member of Sequans’ StreamliteLTE™ family of products for IoT devices.
Monarch is purpose-built for narrowband IoT applications, including sensors, wearables, and other low data, low power M2M and IoT devices. It includes unique RF filtering technology that enables, within a single hardware design and at no added cost, a true single, worldwide SKU with multi-band support for universal and flexible IoT implementation.
Configurable for either LTE-M or NB-IoT, Monarch provides maximum flexibility to operators, OEMs and consumers. Monarch complies with the ultra-low-power and reduced complexity feature requirements of the 3GPP release 13 LTE Advanced Pro standard.
It provides full support for power saving mode (PSM) and extended discontinuous reception (eDRX) to enable the long battery life needed by many IoT use cases, and it provides the enhanced coverage modes defined in the standard that extend coverage for deep-indoor and remote deployments.
Monarch comprises baseband, RF, power management, and RAM, all integrated into a single, tiny 6.5 x 8.5 mm package. In addition, Monarch supports advanced features such as dynamic power management technology, enabling battery life of 10+ years. Monarch is certified by Verizon Wireless; additional operator certifications are expected to follow.
Wisol is also building modules based on Sequans’ Calliope LTE Cat 1 and Colibri LTE Cat 4 platforms. The new Sequans-powered Wisol modules are expected to begin sampling in the middle of 2017.
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