Sintegration Corp. has been focusing on the integration of Wi-Fi, BLE, LoRa, and other wireless technologies for many years. The company is versed at creating diversified products according to customers' needs and providing solutions for vertical IoT application. This year, Sintegration joined the IoT Service Hub and became a member of the "Domestic IC Expert Group" to assist domestic manufacturers and startup teams in leveraging domestic ICs and to promote its application in a great variety of flexible modules.
Expert in Wireless Technologies as Solution Provider
"We are familiar with the communication protocols, so as long as the customer informs us of the desired design concept, we can estimate the distance of the devices and implement wireless deployment," said Sintegration Project Manager Mr. Chuang. He also related that wireless technology can transcend physical barriers and realize many interdisciplinary applications. Thus, an increasing number of customers are now choosing wireless solutions as the answer to field-specific issues. For example, Sintegration once cooperated with Gemtek Technology to assist a well-known farm in Taiwan to realize smart agriculture by collecting big data via wireless technology and long-distance transmission applications.
In addition, in remote reservoir catchment areas, the 4G signal of mobile phones is not stable enough. The undesirable reception can thus lead to communication breakdown at times. In response, Sintegration tapped into its long-distance wireless transmission technology to design a type of electronic fence and a location tracker for all working personnel. Once an accident occurs to the staff member, the transmitter can send the incident location immediately to the management center, so that the center can send help in the shortest time possible.
Assisting Startup to Optimize Car Tracker Device
During the counseling process, Mr. Chuang has identified several common issues from his clients. He pointed out that many clients are not so familiar with hardware specifications, or have ignored external factors in the environment and the overall climate. Hence, they can only rely on very limited parameters to complete the R&D, oftentimes to no avail. Fortunately, with the intervention of Sintegration's professional wireless technology, product development was still able to be achieved in the end.
Take the most recent case of startup counseling for example. The startup once designed a set of NB-IoT/GPS car tracker with a battery attached to the device. The designer team hoped that the battery could be energy-saving with low power consumption, so as to keep the size of the solar panel at the minimum. However, the team was not familiar with the application of NB-IoT. When the prototype was launched, the power consumption was much higher than expected. Later, with the matchmaking service of the IoT Service Hub, Sintegration pitched in and conducted a professional diagnosis with domestic IC module and found that the device can still become more power-saving. "Since we have been working with Lite-On's NB-IoT modules for a long time, we know NB-IoT modules and the application architecture quite well. After some computation, we knew that the power consumption of the device could be further improved," said Mr. Chuang. To achieve this, Sintegration used its own EVB and NB-IoT technology to communicate with the GPS chip, so that the device can cut off power supply to the GPS when idle to save power, thereby reducing the size of the solar panel. Such a design better matches market demands, and the team is already conducting product validation at the moment.
Original IC Manufacturer's Technical Support to Back You Up!
"In addition to not knowing hardware specs, sometimes our clients don't know which hardware is the one they really need, either." Mr. Chuang pointed out that startup teams often run into the bottleneck during R&D because they cannot find an ideal supplier, and this can be a very troublesome problem. Since Taiwan's electronics industry is very alive, manufacturers have a very fine division of labor, both horizontally and vertically. As a result, it is difficult for one manufacturer to supply all materials needed. Sometimes, there can also be too many options and this can make the designer team caught in a dilemma. If the team needs to spend time for trial and error, the process will invisibly increase the cost of development. "At this point of time, designer teams need a platform like the IoT Service Hub more than ever, where domestic IC experts can be referred via the matchmaking service, and they'll be able to find the right materials, components, or solution providers so that the product can enter validation phase at an earlier time."
In view of the current trend of government tenders specifying the use of domestic ICs, Mr. Chuang said that although domestic ICs still have room for improvement in terms of advanced technologies as compared to those made by international manufacturers, the wireless technology of domestic ICs has developed into a quite mature stage. What is more, the reasonable price and easier channel of communication are also incentives for choosing domestic ICs. With AcSiP Technology Corp. as its parent company, Sintegration can communicate with major manufacturers in Taiwan with zero difficulty. Take MediaTek and Realtek, the major Taiwanese designers/manufacturers of communication ICs, for example. At present, Sintegration is using ICs made by both companies, and there is also business cooperation between AcSiP (Sintegration's parent company) and the two manufacturers. With such networking advantage, Sintegration is able to get comprehensive tech support at all times, an ideal setting which its clients can also benefit from.
"Original manufacturer's tech support is a key factor and also our competitive edge. If the development team can receive sufficient tech support from the Domestic IC Expert Group, it will then encourage many more Taiwanese startup teams to choose domestic ICs," Mr. Chuang pointed out.
Mr. Chuang added that Sintegration's EVB powered by the "MTK MT2625" NB-IoT chip can meet the needs of most customers. With rich collaboration experiences, Sintegration can provide customers with practical answers and assistance, with a wide array of validated modules available for reference, which can greatly reduce the time of trial and error. The creativity of startup teams is boundless. As a "Smart Manufacturing Service Group" and "Domestic IC Expert Group" member on the IoT Service Hub, Sintegration will continue to assist startups to accomplish technological breakthroughs with professional diagnosis after carefully surveying the team's pain points during R&D. Such intervention will not only shorten the development schedule and reduce costs, but also help the creative minds materialize their concepts. In this way, the end product can enter the production line and be mass-produced in a more efficient manner, and the team will be able to get ahead of the game and start their business.
