When Broadcom sold it’s Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business to Cypress, many were left scratching their heads: Why, in the midst of such optimistic market projections for the IoT, would it unload such a promising portion of their business?

The answer lies with Avago’s earlier purchase of Broadcom. Avago had been targeting captive customers in captive markets. Broadcom’s Wireless IoT business, along with its Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED) portfolio, a skunkworks program started by Broadcom in 2010, didn’t fit with that model, so up went the “For Sale” sign.

That turned out to be a great opportunity for Cypress, as WICED paired with Cypress’s programmable processor lines and provided an economic Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) product that paired with the existing Cypress offerings. As a result of the acquisition, the company is now equipped with a good/better/best BLE portfolio, and is now seeing WICED technologies being introduced in industrial, healthcare, and appliances, in addition to its traditional home automation deployments.

Today, Cypress announced the latest version of its IoT development platform, WICED Studio 4 wireless software development kit (SDK), which integrates support for multiple wireless technologies from Cypress, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and combo solutions in a single Integrated Development Environment (IDE). There’s also now an automated installer, improved documentation, and support for multi-radio co-existence, allowing users to access Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networking stacks simultaneously on devices such as the Cypress’s CYW 43438 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth system on chip (SoC) and low-power CYW 20719 Bluetooth and BLE combo chip.

Additionally, software engines are accessible through the SDK that allow for antenna reclassification, which helps with signal integrity, power consumption, and the like in a multi-radio environment.

The WICED Studio 4 connectivity suite is microcontroller (MCU)-agnostic, and provides support for a variety of third-party MCUs to address the needs of complex IoT applications. The platform also integrates MCU functionality into the connectivity device. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth protocol stacks can run transparently on a host MCU or in embedded mode, allowing for flexible platform architectures with common firmware.

The WICED Studio 4 SDK also integrates with cloud services such as Amazon Web Services, IBM Bluemix, Alibaba Cloud, and Microsoft Azure for plug ‘n play IoT prototyping.

Cypress and WICED continue to work toward a unified development environment that provides consistent support across all product families. Next, maybe they’ll integrate WICED with the PSoC Creator Toolset.

If you happen to be at electronica this week, you can check out Cypress’s WICED Studio 4 demo, located in hall A5, booth 318 on November 8-11.