Quectel Works With HED To Develop Enhanced Development Board of NB-IoT To Boost Security of IoT

Quectel, along with HED, announced that it officially released the enhanced development board of BC35-G NB-IoT using HED's industrial SE security chip CIU98 series, adopting HED's industrial SE security chips and meeting reliability requirements of smart cities, smart homes and other applications. From now on, customers will elect to use this development board to come up with security solutions, so as to meet the ever-growing needs of data transmission security in the large-scale deployment of LPWAN.  

As NB-IoT gradually becomes an important part of 5G mass connectivity (mMTC), NB-IoT is expected to register exponential growth. According to GSMA Intelligence, there will be 3.5 billion cellulars IoT connections by 2025, including 1.9 billion authorized LPWAN connections. This massive wave of online connected devices does come with IoT data security risks, which should not be overlooked. The development board with enhanced security performance can effectively meet the prototype design requirements on network connection security and reliability in the smart city, smart home, and other applications.

This enhanced development board, based on Quectel’s BC35-G full-band NB-IoT module design, has rich functions, displays all important functions of BC35-G, integrates SIM card slots and USB interfaces, and is characterized by small size and convenient operation. So, it is suitable for LPWAN IoT application development.

HED's industrial CIU98 series security controller integrated by this development board complies with internationally recognized industrial standards, and has passed CC EAL4+ certification and obtained Class-2 qualification of commercial cryptographic chip security. Further, its hardware-based encryption and decryption coprocessor can support international algorithms and Chinese commercial cryptographic algorithms, including SM1/SM2/SM3/SM4/SM9/DES/AES/ECC/RSA/SHA, etc., and also support multiple security mechanisms to improve security by using secure firmware. Meanwhile, the chip CIU98 series supports ultra-low power consumption mode and meets the stringent requirements on security, reliability, and low power consumption in the smart city, utilities, smart metering, enterprise asset networking intelligent management, and other applications based on NB-IoT networks. The operating temperature of the chip CIU98 series ranges from -40°C to 85°C, and its service life can reach ten years.

Quectel BC35-G NB-IoT enhanced development board using HED's industrial SE security chip CIU98 series

"As 5G is commercially available, the LPWAN represented by NB-IoT will grow rapidly," said Zhang Dong, Chief Operating Officer of Quectel, "we, as a professional wireless communication module supplier, are very pleased to receive strong support from HED so as to enable our customers to quickly and easily develop and verify NB-IoT security transmission solutions. By continuing to invest in the IoT security field, Quectel will not only be able to support the further development of NB-IoT and other technologies but also can meet the security requirements of wireless communication modules such as 5G new infrastructure."

"IoT industry with access to 5G shows rapid growth, but the information security cannot be ignored. IoT security solutions based on hardware security chips have gradually been accepted by the industry. As a leading supplier of China security chips, HED will do its best to deploy the business in the IoT field, indicating our confidence and determination. Specifically, the smart home, smart metering, smart security, IoV, and other fields have been equipped with our security chips. We are looking forward to establishing more strategic cooperation relationships with the forward-thinking wireless communication module suppliers like Quectel in order to safeguard the security of the IoT and lay a solid foundation for new infrastructure," according to Chang Feng, General Manager of HED.”