Dutch electronics company NXP has announced development platforms to simplify and accelerate the creation of Matter devices for smart homes and buildings.

These Matter development platforms help designers leverage the breadth of NXP’s portfolio across processing, connectivity and security to create IoT devices ranging from battery-operated devices such as sensors and actuators to complex gateways with Thread border router and Matter controller capabilities.

With the recently announced Matter certification programme and ratified standard, the smart home is on the cusp of a rapid expansion. The Matter standard brings with it an era of interoperability across the IoT, reducing limitations on how devices communicate. This will give smart home and building end users the flexibility to select a mix of smart devices from different vendors and control them from multiple platforms or ecosystems, without concerns about compatibility.

“Matter is the first industry standard that enables multi-device, multi-vendor and multi-ecosystem interoperability for smart-home products from major consumer electronics manufacturers,” said Bill Curtis, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Matter removes barriers to deploying IoT at scale while creating new opportunities for product innovation. NXP’s secure, Matter-enabled development platforms let product teams create value-added features immediately without wasting time on undifferentiated platform software.”

NXP’s Matter-enabled development platforms, shipping now, leverage commercially available evaluation boards and tools to ease, speed and de-risk IoT development with downloadable software, getting started guides, application notes, schematics, training videos and the Connectivity Support community. These platforms are awaiting confirmation of Matter certification from the Connectivity Standards Alliance. NXP is also working with Apple, Amazon, Google and SmartThings and participating in Matter early-access programmes.

“Our vision of the intelligent smart home is one that more accurately anticipates and automates our daily routines and needs,” said Rafael Sotomayor, executive vice president at NXP Semiconductors. “The interoperability Matter provides is crucial to delivering on that promise. These platforms simplify and accelerate the development of a wide range of Matter devices by delivering a seamless combination of the foundational technologies developers need to bring the vision of the truly intelligent smart home one step closer to reality.”

The development platforms offer dedicated EdgeLock SE05x secure element and EdgeLock A5000 secure authenticator to provide full, turnkey Matter security. These plug-and-trust security components, which can be connected to any type of processor using a standard I²C interface, take care of provisioning Matter attestation keys and certificates to the device and provide hardware-accelerated execution of Matter authentication protocols.

With this, OEMs can simplify and accelerate manufacturing and compliance with Matter security specifications, in particular the generation and injection of attestation and commissioning credential, as well as security logistics associated with Matter ecosystem. In addition, OEMs can leverage EdgeLock secure element and secure authenticator, which are Common Criteria EAL6+ certified, to protect user data and user privacy, integrity of devices, and secure connections to multiple clouds, including software update servers.

NXP’s IW612 secure tri-radio device, which supports the Wifi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 and 802.15.4 protocols, enables Matter innovation across a range of MCUs and MPUs. In addition, NXP will be launching fully integrated multi-protocol and tri-radio MCUs optimised for Matter including Thread, Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy, starting in early 2023.