Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly evolving. There is a need to understand challenges in obtaining horizontal and vertical application balance and the key fundamentals required to attain the expected 50 billion connected devices in 2020. The number of Internet-connected devices surpassed the number of human beings on the planet in 2011 and by 2020. Internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion. For every Internet-connected PC or handset there will be 5-10 other types of devices sold with native Internet connectivity. These will include all manner of consumer electronics, machine tools, industrial equipment, cars, appliances, and a number of devices likely not yet invented. The concept of the IoT will disrupt consumer and industrial product markets generating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues, serve as a meaningful growth driver for semiconductor, networking equipment, and service provider end markets globally, and will create new application and product end markets that could generate billions of dollars annually. This paper explores the history of the IoT, some early applications that are already disrupting existing markets, and some interesting applications that have the potential to go mainstream in the next several years. This paper also explain the value chain of companies that creates the IoT in various end markets and attempt to quantify its impact on specific semiconductor, software, device, and service provider end markets.

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT), RFIDs, Sensors, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications.