Software Matters

Increasingly more products today are defined by software that runs them. With the advent of IOT this trend accelerates. Yet the hardware companies still don't get it. We're getting evidence of this old school thinking on a daily basis.

Take a light bulb. It used to be a very difficult hardware product. High quality glass required a huge glassworks factory. The tungsten wire required an ultimate hardware precision at a plant. And finally you had to produce vacuum in this sealed glass ball. There were only a handful lighting companies on the planet.

Today the light bulb hardware is usually a commodity. LEDs from one supplier, plastics from another supplier and a couple of electronic components inside. No rocket science, at least for a standard LED bulb. The manufacturers have established their supply chain relationships with silicon vendors.

It had all worked until they wanted to make the light bulb smart and connected. Which requires replacing an existing microchip with one that has a radio transceiver. That part they understand. But what most of them don't understand is the complexity of the software implementing the networking features. This is a completely new land for them and they even don't know how to state their requirements. They read all these stories about the miracles a connected mesh of lights is capable of doing and think all is required is a "chip". Probably with some sort of a "stack".

But what they don't realize is how complex this stack really is and how to state their requirements to a chip vendor. How much flash? How much RAM? What about other requirements? Are there any?

Don't. Please don't. Don't try to state your SoC requirements without having an idea what a stack may really need or care about. Don't try to bypass the stack vendor when talking to your silicon provider! Build a relationship with the stack guys and let them recommend you a chip. Because they simply know better what works for their software to fulfill your requirements. After all this is this stack software that defines your product. And the stack vendor will tell you what works.