STMicro embeds software of French start-up Sigfox in chips

PARIS (Reuters) - STMicroelectronics has built software from France's Sigfox into its widely used microcontrollers, giving a boost to the French start-up by enabling developers to build its network features into industrial and consumer chips.

Sigfox's technology connects objects and collects data, turning a range of simple electronics into internet devices.

The French firm is one of the early developers of so-called low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) technology, designed to connect billions of simple objects beyond computers or phones to the so-called Internet of Things (IoT).

Sigfox's technology competes with a rival industry standard known as LoRa, whose software is already used in the same ST software package.

The company, one of France's most well-financed start-ups, has raised 277 million euros ($341 million) from investors including Total and Salesforce.com, as well as the venture funding arms of Silicon Valley-based Intel, Japan's NTT DoCoMo and South Korea's SK Telecom.

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Eric Auchard and Edmund Blair)