LoRa-owner Semtech has announced a new reference design for its LPWAN technology, claiming ultra-low power consumption, smaller form factors and longer range wireless connectivity – which could help LoRa proponents enable new use cases for the technology. Semtech claims that LPWAN is going through a major shift, from trials to large scale deployments in smart cities, buildings, healthcare, logistics, and agriculture – more mature and advanced chipsets will be required to serve these large volume orders. On that note, Semtech has recently said that it has doubled LoRa revenue to $50m, and expects to exceed $100m in 2018. The new LoRa radio extends the technology’s link budget by 20%, with a 50% reduction in receiver current (to 4.5mA) – meaning…