Renesas Electronics Corporation 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.  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 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. 

 

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’ E2Studio 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.