Accelerate Smart Home Wireless Product Development With The Matter-powered Silicon Labs Mgm240 Wireless Modules

The smart home is one of the fastest-growing consumer markets with new products introduced daily. Device makers want to win customers with more useful gadgets. However, while the innovation race intensifies, device makers struggle with complicated RF design, which increases development costs and slows time-to-market. In this blog, we’ll explore how development costs and time can be radically reduced with the MGM240 Matter over Thread module.

The Wireless Challenge

The primary challenge for smart home device makers is how to increase product innovation while developing faster, launching earlier, and reducing costs to keep the product’s business case profitable. For wireless multiprotocol devices sold in many geographic regions, time-to-market is particularly challenging because of the complicated and time-consuming RF design process.

RF Design Process

The RF design process of a typical smart home wireless product can be divided into four stages:

1. The antenna and RF design stage include a bill of materials, schematics, layout, and simulation. This stage can generally take about a month to complete.
   

2. Based on RF design, the antenna is developed through multiple iterations and samples including optimization, tweaking, testing, and validation. As a result, the development stage can take up to four months, depending on the design complexity.
   

3. Golden sample – producing the final golden sample and characterization can take up to a month.
   

4. Certification – wireless devices must be certified for worldwide RF regulations. Most geographic regions have their own standards and certification processes, increasing overall effort. This stage includes separate lab testing and official paperwork for each wireless protocol (for example, Thread and Bluetooth Low Energy), and region, and can take up to three months or more. 

   
   

All told, the RF design process -- including development and RF certification -- can consume up to nine months or longer, delaying product launch, cash flow, and financial break-even of the product program. 

RF design also requires a team with a mix of advanced specialist skills including RF and antenna design, hardware and software development, testing, and in-depth knowledge of global RF regulations and certifications. Talent costs can reach up to $300,000 considering one full-time employee (FTE) for the duration of the RF design process ($120 per hour). Additionally, RF design requires a million-dollar investment in expensive testing instruments, an anechoic chamber, simulation equipment, and facilities thus increasing product development costs, delaying time to break even, and reducing the return on investment (ROI) for the product.

The MGM240 Module Can Help

SILICON LABS MGM240 wireless modules provide smart home device makers with a low-power, high-performance wireless solution for Matter over Thread with Bluetooth LE on the same chip enabling easy commissioning for the user. In addition to the MG24 SoCs, the MGM240 module integrates 15 additional components such as capacitors, inductors, and dc-dc coil, simplifying the bill of materials for the device maker. Furthermore, it incorporates EMC shielding and a highly optimized antenna built-in. The MGM240 module is RF certified for CE (Europe), UKCA (United Kingdom), FCC (North America, ISED (Canada), TELEC (Japan), and MIC (Japan) standards, making your product ready for the worldwide markets.

Benefits for Device Makers

The MGM240 wireless module is a cost-efficient fast track to the global smart home markets for device makers. Thanks to its optimized, built-in antenna, and worldwide certifications, it can reduce costs by up to $300,000, accelerating your time to break even and increasing the product’s profitability and ROI. Additionly, the MGM240 module reduces development time by up to nine months, accelerating time to revenue, increasing ROI, and enabling you to gain the first-mover advantage. 

The MGM240 module simplifies your BoM from up to 15 components to one, reducing sourcing costs and preventing risks due to supply shortages and delays. The optimized RF design also means you can avoid a significant technology investment due to many types of instruments, equipment, and facilities. With the MGM240 module, you can build a wireless smart home product without any RF engineers on the payroll.

The new Silicon Labs MGM240x module product family offers IoT device makers an optimized multiprotocol solution for developing several types of smart home applications..