ByDavid MannersPosted on 15th July 2015 | Modified on 19th June 2025
Si Labs launches Thread
Today, Silicon Labs introduces its Threadnetworking technology for connecting devices such as thermostats, wireless sensor networks, smoke/carbon monoxide detectors, connected lighting devices, control panels, wireless access points and gateways.
Silicon Labs Thread
Thread provides a standards-based, low-power mesh networking solution based on Internet Protocol (IP), enabling reliable, secure and scalable Internet connectivity for battery-powered devices in the connected home.
Silicon Labs is working with manufacturers of Thread-enabled connected home products, and the company’s Thread stack is powering customers’ mesh networks.
Silicon Labs offers a common development platform for both ZigBee and Thread solutions. The combination of Silicon Labs’ Thread stack, EM35xx wireless SoC platform, and hardware and software tools provides developers with a migration path from ZigBee to Thread via over-the-air (OTA) upgrades. Silicon Labs’ hardware and software roadmap will enable multi-protocol, multi-band 2.4 GHz and sub-GHz wireless connectivity.
Thread aims to deliver a simple, secure and scalable way to wirelessly interconnect hundreds of connected home devices and to seamlessly bridge those devices to the Internet.
Thread software provides a self-healing, IPv6-based mesh network capable of scaling to 250+ nodes with no single point of failure. The protocol provides support for “sleepy” end nodes to enable years of low-energy operation using a single battery as well as simplified commissioning.
Users can add nodes to a network using a smartphone or browser. Silicon Labs’ Thread stack uses banking-class, end-to-end security to join nodes to the network and AES-128 cryptography to secure all networking transactions.
Silicon Labs’ Thread software stack and sample application are available at no charge to customers with registered EM35x-DEV development kits.
“We have a deep understanding of not only mesh networking technology, but also the certification process,” said Skip Ashton, vp of software engineering at Silicon Labs and vp of technology for the Thread Group. “In cooperation with our customers and ecosystem partners, we have successfully certified thousands of mesh networking products and software implementations using our industry-leadingEM35xx wireless SoCs.”
David Manners has more than forty-years experience writing about the electronics industry, its major trends and leading players. As well as writing business, components and research news, he is the author of the site's most popular blog, Mannerisms. This features series of posts such as Fables, Markets, Shenanigans, and Memory Lanes, across a wide range of topics.
Tagged with:SensorSilicon LabsZigbee
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