The Global Certification Forum (GCF) has today announced that u-blox is the first company to certify a product under its new IoT chipset certification scheme (started in January this year). This latest GCF programme is designed for chipsets covering NB-IoT and LTE-M and facilitates the easy integration of embedded chipsets into modules and devices. The u-blox UBX-R5 Cat-M1 chipset is the first product to achieve certification under the new scheme.
GCF IoT chipset certification was added to the existing IoT platforms and IoT modules programme at the beginning of the year, to enable certification of chipsets based on GCF approved test platforms under defined quality requirements, including GCF approval of the chipset manufacturer’s design test facilities. This gives the IoT industry a new level of confidence when deploying and integrating a myriad of different devices across multiple communication technologies and is the first in a number of initiatives which will be launched by GCF in 2020 to enable the confidence and growth of the IoT market.
“We are delighted that GCF has recognized the quality of our UBX-R5 LTE-M/NB-IoT chipset. This certification, a first under GCF’s IoT chipset certification initiative, demonstrates that we are setting a new benchmark for IoT connectivity, while paving the way for robust secure communication from the chip all the way to the cloud,” said Andreas Thiel, Head of Product Centers, Co-founder at u‑blox.
With the rapid expansion of the IoT industry, the introduction of a programme that demonstrates industry-recognized compliance with 3GPP standards is critical to ensuring the sustained successful deployment of the IoT industry. This is particularly important for mission-critical or long life-cycle IoT applications that the UBX-R5 Cat-M1 is intended for, also helping to shorten time-to-market and significantly reduce costs. For more information about GCF IoT chipset certification, please visit http://www.globalcertificationforum.org.