Renesas Announces Its First Wi-Fi Development Kit with Support for New Matter Protocol

RENESAS Electronics Corporation, a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced its first development kit that includes support for the new Matter protocol. Renesas also announced that it will offer Matter support on all future Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® Low-Energy (LE), and IEEE 802.15.4 (Thread) products, including products from recently acquired Dialog Semiconductor and Celeno Communications.

The Matter protocol promises to solve the problem of interoperability for smart home devices. It securely and robustly connects various smart devices with each other across ecosystems, regardless of the manufacturer. The matter is an application layer protocol that abstracts the underlying connectivity technologies such as Wi-Fi, Thread, and Bluetooth LE. By using a common software stack, device manufacturers who build with Matter will support various smart home ecosystems and voice services. Smart home users will be able to buy any Matter-certified device regardless of their platform of choice.

Renesas is a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (the Alliance), the global organization that creates IoT standards and certification. Chris LaPre, Head of Technology at the Alliance, said, “We’re delighted to see an IoT leader such as Renesas commit to supporting the Matter standard. It’s another indication of the positive momentum the standard is generating across both device and equipment makers.”

“As the embedded processing leader, connectivity is a critical part of our IoT solutions,” said Sean McGrath, Vice President of the Connectivity and Audio Business Division in Renesas’ IoT, Industrial, and Infrastructure Business Unit. “With our broad range of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi solutions, and Thread products in development, we’re well positioned to take advantage of the Matter standard in a variety of applications working with customers worldwide.”

Renesas has more than a decade of experience in Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi. With more than 600 million wireless devices shipped, Renesas offers a broad range of connectivity SoCs used in IoT, wearable products, and home networking. Renesas’ easy-to-use development tools supporting Matter will result in faster time-to-market for IoT device makers looking to integrate their products into the Matter ecosystem.

Availability

The first Renesas product to support the Matter protocol is the DA16200 Ultra-Low Power Wi-Fi Modules Development Kit. The DA16200 system-on-chip (SoC) is the world's first Wi-Fi SoC to deliver year-plus battery life for always-connected Wi-Fi IoT devices. DA16200 also supports Renesas Quick Connect IoT through the Ultra Low Power Wi-Fi Pmod™ Board. It is fully integrated into Renesas’ e² studio for easy system development using Renesas MCU, connectivity, and other devices. Renesas is sampling the DA16200 Development Kit with Matter support to lead customers now and expects to release it broadly by the end of this quarter.