Sequans unveils Monarch SX to accelerate development of IoT devices

Sequans at MWC 2017Chipset maker Sequans Communications has unveiled Monarch SX to streamline the development of IoT devices.

Sequans aims to accelerate new LTE-M and NB-IoT device development with the launch of Monarch SX.

Sequans’ Monarch SX has included IoT optimized Monarch LTE-M/NB-IoT platform with ARM Cortex-M4 processor, sensor hub, graphics display controller, and media processing engine in one package of less than 90 square millimeters.

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“We’ve taken our Monarch LTE-M/NB-IoT chip platform and integrated it in single piece of silicon—with the processing power needed for some of the most popular IoT applications of today,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO.

The semiconductor said Monarch SX eliminates the need for adding external processors to run IoT applications supporting voice, music, graphics display, sensor or location data collection.

Sequans said the chipset company has optimized Monarch SX’s components for power efficiency, enabling LTE-M or NB-IoT applications to run for many years on small batteries and deliver better price/performance capability.

“Monarch SX from Sequans incorporates a low-power-consumption applications processor suitable for IoT and integrates the RF transceiver and baseband processor into one SoC; that’s at least three radio and processor chips integrated into one,” said Chris Taylor, director of RF and Wireless Components at Strategy Analytics.

Chris Taylor said this integration helps M2M module and cellular IoT device makers by simplifying design and production, reducing costs and time to market. This is exactly what LTE-M and NB-IoT need to capture share in the growing cellular IoT and LPWAN markets.