IEEE 802.15.4 IC Vendor Matrix

The IEEE 802.15.4 IC (integrated circuit) market continues to grow strongly, driven by networking and application standards and specifications that make use of 802.15.4 ICs at the physical layer including ZigBee, WirelessHART, 6loWPAN, and, soon, ISA100.11a. The 802.15.4 IC vendor landscape has shifted somewhat over the past few years, with the exit of some vendors including OKI, Integration Associates, and ZMD from the 802.15.4 IC market. The remaining vendors form a mix of large, publicly-traded integrated semiconductor manufacturers, such as TI (Texas Instruments Inc), as well as smaller, closely-held fabless semiconductor vendors, such as Jennic. At the same time, the state of the art of 802.15.4 IC design continues to progress, with advancements in power consumption, Rx (Receive) sensitivity, and SoC (System-on-Chip) form factor availability, among other improvements.


This 4Q 2009 edition of the 802.15.4 IC Vendor Matrix evaluates these vendors on the basis of “Innovation” and “Implementation” as a means of providing an impartial assessment of the vendor landscape from the standpoint of technological prowess and business execution. In this edition of the Vendor Matrix, TI ranked first overall (as seen in the table below), by scoring second place in both the Innovation and Implementation categories. Jennic led in the Innovation category overall, while Freescale Semiconductor led in the Implementation category.

 

Description of Evaluation Criteria

Criteria used to develop this vendor matrix are related to product and company characteristics that serve as proxies for vendor performance in the two areas of Innovation and Implementation. Numerical scores are aggregated, weighted, and analyzed to provide overall rankings, which are assigned to each vendor on the Innovation and Implementation axes.

 

Innovation


  • Product Feature Set (40% Weight)

  • Device power consumption

  • Rx sensitivity

  • Memory sizes offered, if any

  • MCUs (Microcontroller Unit) offered, if any 


Form Factor Integration and Variety (30% Weight)


  • SoC availability

  • Variety of form factors/SKUs offered

  • Modules offered, if any 


Protocol Stack Availability (30% Weight)


  • Number and scope of protocol stacks offered

  • Vendor-developed proprietary protocol stack availability

  • Additional consideration given to technology differentiators, such as support for energy harvesting 


Implementation

The three Implementation scoring criteria and their associated weighting are as follow:

 

Overall Market Position (50% Weight)


  • Perceived market share and position in the market relative to competitors

  • Vendor size (by revenue or number of employees) and financial strength, health, and backing

  • Length of time in IEEE 802.15.4 IC market 


Vertical Market Focus (20% Weight)


  • Number/breadth of vertical markets and applications served or targeted

  • Level of vendor specialization in specific vertical markets and applications


Customer Support (30% Weight)


  • Training and customer support events offered

  • Documentation provided

  • Tools/development platforms offered

  • Discussion/community forums offered


Scoring

Vendors receive a “rating score” for each ABI Research-defined criterion under Implementation and Innovation. These scores range from 0-100 and are based on available information as well as ABI Research assumptions. Points are awarded in 1.0 point increments. For example, a score of 89.0 is possible within a given criterion.

 

Each criterion (and its score) is weighted based on ABI Research’s opinion of each criterion’s level of influence on and importance to the overall assessment of Innovation and Implementation. The number of criteria for Innovation and Implementation may vary; however, this does not impact vendor ranking. Vendors receiving higher scores in higher weighted criteria will benefit in terms of a better overall position via higher Innovation and Implementation scores. Lower scores in higher weighted categories will result in a weaker overall placement due to the impact of the weighting.

 

The rating scores assigned to each criterion are added to determine a “raw total score” for Implementation and Innovation. A mathematical formula is then applied to adjust for the 0-100 rating system and the number of criteria so that vendors can be positioned along the x- and y-axes (with a maximum score of 100 for Implementation and Innovation). The mathematical formula does not impact vendor ranking.

 

It is ABI Research’s policy not to publicly disclose vendors’ individual scores for each criterion. However, ABI Research will accept requests to discuss a vendor's individual scores with that same vendor.

 

Rankings

After individual scores are established for Innovation and Implementation, using the above criteria, an overall vendor score is established, using the RMS (Root Mean Square) method:

 

The resulting overall scores are then ranked and used for percentile comparisons.

 

The RMS method, in comparison with a straight summation or average of individual Innovation and Implementation values, rewards companies for standout performance. For example, using this method, a company with an Innovation score of 9 and an Implementation score of 1 would score considerably higher than a company with a score of 5 in both areas, despite the mean score being the same. ABI Research believes this is appropriate as the goal of these matrices is to highlight those companies that stand out from the others.

Rankings



After individual scores are established for Innovation and Implementation using the above criteria, an overall company score is established using the Root Mean Square (RMS) method:




The resulting overall scores are then ranked and used for percentile comparisons.

The RMS method, in comparison with a straight summation or average of individual innovation and implementation values, rewards companies for standout performance.

For example, using this method a company with an innovation score of 9 and an implementation score of 1 would score considerably higher than a company with a score of 5 in both areas, despite the mean score being the same. ABI Research believes this is appropriate as the goal of these matrices is to highlight those companies that stand out from the others.