ARM buys Mistbase and NextG-Com to extend its reach in IoT

From PC World: Chip designer ARM has a new strategy for the internet of things: to offer complete solutions "from application software to antenna."

ARM has typically left it to licensees of its microprocessor designs to add their own wide-area radio modems and other circuitry essential for the chips at the heart of smartphones and other connected devices. That's the case with Qualcomm, for example, which packages ARM's processor core with its own LTE modems to deliver the chips at the heart of Apple's iPhones.

But now ARM wants to deliver the whole stack itself, at least for low-power, low-bandwidth devices, ARM wireless business general manager Paul Williamson said in a blog post Tuesday.

To further that goal, the company is investing in its own radio designs, and has acquired two companies with expertise in the NarrowBand-IoT (NB-IoT) low-power wireless standard: a Swedish one, Mistbase, and a British one, NextG-Com. Mistbase designs chips, while NextG-Com writes networking software.

Processors built to ARM's designs require little power, at least compared to the power-hungry chips found in desktop and laptop PCs. That's what made them attractive to smartphone manufacturers.

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