Smart home & smart building

We live in an increasingly connected world, shaped by the IoT as it continues to network more and more "things". Smart homes and buildings are a case in point. A smart home is a house that is equipped with networked devices. These are controlled via a smartphone, computer, or smart speaker. Some devices are also able to act autonomously ins response to the surrounding triggers. For example, a smart home enables the lights and air conditioning in a room to be turned off automatically as soon as the occupants leave the room. Or users can tell a smart speaker to close the garage door or start the washing machine in the basement. 

Unleashing the power of IoT - with tiny but powerful microelectronics

 Demand for smart home devices is experiencing dynamic growth as more and more consumers are looking to increase comfort, energy efficiency, and security of their homes. The market is also evolving as new solutions, use cases and target markets emerge.

Our sensors, actuators, and control systems all work together seemlessly to enable appliances in a smart home or building to correctly collect, evaluate, and process real-time data before executing or initiating the appropriate action or reaction. At the same time, our security solutions safeguard these networked systems and all of the actions that they trigger against external cyber-attacks. And our reliable connectivity technologies build the basis of intelligent homes and buildings. 

Discover our solutions driving the development of innovative appliances for smart homes and buildings.

Standard/basic functionality such as stable and smooth start-up plus variable operating speeds and vibration suppression are considered essential must-haves. In addition, cooling systems in private homes must be quiet.

However, the increasing demand for energy-saving devices also requires that intelligent air conditioning systems only run when they are really needed, and only at the necessary intensity. In the EU, 50 percent of the energy consumed in buildings and industry is used for heating and cooling. So smart aircons must be able to analyze their environment and control their performance accordingly. This is made possible by sensors and controllers which identify the location and number of people in a room on an anonymous basis. Using this information, the smart air conditioning system then regulates performance on a need-driven basis, modifying fan speed as well as swing scope.

Other advantages of a smart air conditioner are that they can measure the temperature, CO2 concentration and air quality. They automatically and autonomously decide when it is necessary to provide fresh, cool air.
But they can do much more: thanks to machine learning, they adapt to the user's preferences, they provide data to the manufacturer about their condition and thus prevent expensive damage from occurring. All this is possible thanks to innovative semiconductor solutions.

We provide customers with the right technologies and innovations to address current and future security, functionality, connectivity, and performance demands for smart HVAC systems. 

FOr example our XENSIV™ family provides manufacturers with best-in-class MEMS sensors to increase design intelligence by enabling smart aircon systems to “see”, “hear”, “feel” and “understand” their environment. CIPOS™ IPMs integrate the latest power semiconductors and control IC technology to create highly integrated, compact power modules capable of driving motors across a wide range of applications. And our PSoC™ 6 microcontrollers provide a secure solution for IoT developments, supporting multiple, simultaneous environments without the need for external memories or system on chips (SoCs). Our experienced technical experts and partners support customers with the tools and know-how they need to easily design and implement future-proof smart aircon systems.

Consumers love the idea of a smart home but they expect it to be easy, compatible, and secure. The reality of a connected smart home has been very different due to the many different device ecosystems, products and protocols - until now. 

Matter solves this dilemma. This royalty-free standard created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has been developed for device makers to follow for smart home applications. Infineon Technologies, CSA, along with 280+ companies, like Google, Amazon and Apple, are pioneering the game-changing Matter standard to make ease-of-use, interoperability, security and sustainability a reality in the smart home.

Consumers and device makers will benefit from having one standard for smart home devices in many ways.

Infineon technologies is taking a pivotal role behind Matter by serving on the CSA board and participating in the security committees to ensure adoption of Matter and to ensure we remain at the cusp of the innovations in smart home that come from Matter.  

We also offer a range of Matter-enabled products and solutions. Building on our 20+ years of experience, these solutions are reliable, easy to implement and integrate, secure and support all connectivity protocols.

Our Matter solutions include: 

• The new PSoC® 62S2 Wi-Fi BT Pioneer Kit helps developers and engineers achieve reliable, ultra-low power Matter over Wi-Fi solutions and helps them get to market faster.
• The combination of PSoC™ 6x ULP MCU and AIROC™ CYW43xx Bluetooth/Wi-Fi SoCs supports a very reliable, low power implementation of Matter over Wi-Fi edge devices, while provisioning over Bluetooth Low Energy. 
• The high-performance, low-power AIROC™ CYW30739 multi-protocol SoC (Bluetooth Low Energy 5.3, IEEE 802.15.4 ) has completed Thread 1.3 certification as one of the first on this new networking standard required for Matter devices.
• Matter-compatible OPTIGA™ security solutions easily integrate into embedded systems to protect the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of information and devices. The solutions scale from basic authentication chips to sophisticated implementations.

All these solutions leverage the ModusToolBox™ development platform to shorten IoT developers' time-to-market. 

Learn more about our Matter portfolio here.

Home appliances, also referred to as domestic appliances, electric appliances or household appliances are part of smart home automation networks. Due to rising economies and evolving consumer lifestyles, the home appliances market is expected to register a CAGR of more than 4% during the forecast period. The increase in consumer disposable income, high standard of living and the need for convenience are driving many consumers to purchase smart home appliances. These devices offer advanced features, promise greater convenience, reduce labor and can even save energy. And the market will continue to grow, driven significantly by trends such as effectiveness, variety, sustainability, stylish design and smart functionality of home appliances.

Infineon's products, solutions and tools enable smart and connected home appliances to be securely detected, controlled and connected. For example Infineon’s Discrete IGBTs products designed for induction heating applications, in combination with PSoC microcontrollers for system control, AIROC™ Wi-Fi & Combos products, and XENSIV™ sensors enable highly compact, robust, and reliable systems that consume less power and offer a rich user interface.

The CIPOS™ family is the optimal solution for highly integrated compressor drives whilst discrete solutions are the best choice, whenever the layout flexibility and thermal performance optimization are the major factors. They can all be combined with Infineon’s iMOTION™ products for dedicated motor control. For the auxiliary power supply, the CoolSET™ rounds up the power portfolio by offering increased robustness and performance.

Time and again, malfunctions in HVAC and refrigeration systems interrupt operations and increase maintenance costs. Predictive maintenance, which is a data-based maintenance strategy for predicting system malfunctions before they happen, can be an effective way to avoid unplanned downtime. To illustrate the benefits of a sensor-based solution, Infineon has collaborated with Klika Tech and AWS to develop a sensor-based evaluation kit. It enables designers to easily evalauate the benefits of condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. Using a range of sensors, paired with microcontrollers, embedded security, and software, the kit allows operators to monitor various parameters of vital components such as compressors, motors, and fans in real time, so that any potential anomalies can be detected immediately. If an anomaly is detected, the responsible maintenance technicians can be informed in good time – before the system fail – to address the problem, e.g. by replacing a worn part or cleaning an air filter.

Our broad range of XENSIV™ sensors can be deployed to monitor everything from single components of production machinery to an entire smart building ecosystem. Typical use cases include HVAC equipment where XENSIV sensors monitor current, vibration, and airflow in motors, compressors, and fans. These sensors can be combined with FreeRTOS-certified XMC™ microcontrollers and OPTIGA™ Trust security solutions so the data collected can be securely processed and analyzed, thus paving the way for advanced IoT features such as predictive maintenance. Leveraging our differentiated portfolio of memory solutions including SEMPER^TM NOR Flash and EXCELON^TM F-RAM to reliably and safely store collected data for such analysis, our end-to-end offering enables overall system health and safety to be monitored.

According to ABI Research 27 million households were equipped with new smart home systems in the year 2021, bringing the worldwide number of households with intelligent devices to a total of 347 million (ABI Research: Smart Home Bi-Annual Update (March 2022); p. 7). According to Statista forecasts, revenue in the smart home market in 2022 will reach 115.7 billion US dollars (Statista: Smart Home – Worldwide (July 2022)).

Smart home and building technologies can help us master the societal challenges of our time. In the long term a new class of IoT-based applications will radically change the business world; new products, systems, services and business models will emerge, opening the door to new growth opportunities.