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John Donovan

The Internet of Things (IoT) is projected to be the Next Big Thing (NBT), with as many as 50 billion connected devices online by 2025. Only one problem: the Internet of People (IoP?) has already gobbled up most of the available IP address spaces.

The current 32-bit IPv4 makes available 232 or approximately 4.3 billion IP addresses, not nearly enough to enable the massive machine-to-machine (M2M) communication that’s being predicted. OTOH the 128-bit IPv6 makes possible 2128 addresses. As one wag pointed out that’s enough to provide 40,000 IP addresses for every atom on the face of the earth. That should do for a while.

IPv6 has some major advantages over IPv4:

  • A huge address space;
  • Multicasting capability;
  • Automatic configuration when connected to a network;
  • Faster packet processing;
  • Much better Internet security (IPsec);
  • Much better privacy, since every address is directly reachable from every other address, avoiding the need for Network Address Translation (NAT) routers.

IPv6 has been around since the mid-90s but even 20 years later it’s seen little adoption because it’s incompatible with IPv4, which is still the basis of 96% of all Internet traffic. But that promises to change in a big way, and quickly. The IoT is the killer application for IPv6.

Any embedded developer contemplating an application that involves M2M connectivity needs to consider IPv6 capability. Fortunately Renesas and Micrium have just made it easier by including Micrium’s TCP/IP IPv6 stack in its “Power of Two” program for RX and RL78 MCUs.  All existing Micrium application layer modules are already compatible with IPv4 and IPv6 (HTTP server, DNS Client, DHCP Client, FTP Client and Server, Telnet, and SMTP Client).

Of particular interest to embedded developers: in March 2012 the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) ratified the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL), formerly RFC 6550. Low-Power and Lossy Network (LLN) routers typically operate with constraints on processing power, memory, and energy (battery power); their interconnects are characterized by high loss rates, low data rates, and instability. This specification details how low-power wireless sensor nodes, for example, can operate on high-speed IPv6 networks in even far from optimal circumstances.

IPv6 is the key enabler for the IoT, and the IoT is the killer application for IPv6. Join the Power of Two program, download Micrium’s IPv6 stack, and stay tuned for more exciting developments. Better yet, be part of them.