Feature Story

Imagination Technologies Innovates with Ultra-Low-Power Connectivity Architecture for IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine communications (M2M) bring many new possible applications for connectivity to the market. Specific use cases, however, call for devices characterized by very low power consumption, size, and cost.

Imagination Technologies, a company that has been developing digital radio processing technology for nearly 15 years, has updated its Ensigma radio processing units (RPUs) with a new architecture that is purpose-built to address the challenges of IoT and M2M.

"Many devices claiming to address IoT today are in fact repurposed from other markets such as mobile or embedded, but don't fully address the extreme low power and cost requirements that this market will demand," explains Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination. "With our existing Ensigma RPUs, customers are already building a range of life-style devices. With new Ensigma 'Whisper' RPUs, customers can create a whole new generation of life-enhancing and efficiency-focused devices targeting markets as diverse as eHealth, energy, agriculture, security and many other areas. Imagination is delivering the ultra-low power CPUs, GPUs and RPUs that provide a foundation for building these devices, supported by optimized hardware IP platforms and our FlowCloud technology for true device-to-cloud connectivity."

Since the IoT market is still deciding which access technologies will predominate in each market segment, Ensigma Whisper RPUs are configurable to many different connectivity standards (Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi), as well as emerging standards.

Richard Edgar, director of communications technology marketing, told Pipeline that, with the Whisper architecture, Imagination has "produced an IP solution that is scalable, designed for the IoT market, and offers companies who are developing IoT solutions a communications solution that will integrate and fit correctly into their products."

By reducing die size and power consumption, Imagination says the new architecture will actually reduce the cost of a system on a chip (SoC). Further, Edgar told Pipeline that "power consumption will be as good or better than anything else on the market."

Chakra Parvathaneni, senior director of business development, Ensigma, said the Ensigma Whisper RPUs with Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE connectivity will be available this summer, and other forms of connectivity will available by the end of the year.

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