MIPS CPU for licensed for use in next-generation sensor hubs

Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) has announced that South Korea based MEMS sensor development company Standing Egg has licensed Imagination's MIPS Warrior M-class CPU for use in its next-generation sensor hubs targeting an expanding range of products including mobile devices, IoT, wearables, and automotive. Standing Egg develops MEMS sensor products including accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure sensors, and others. With its planned MIPS-based sensor hub chips, modules and boards, Standing Egg will provide a means to integrate and process data from these different sensors. In its selection of an MCU-class CPU for its next-generation products, Standing Egg compared MIPS CPUs to other competing CPU IP cores. Performance, power and area were key decision criteria, and according to Standing Egg, the MIPS M5100 surpassed other CPUs on these metrics. Standing Egg also determined that the MIPS M5100 CPU can process sensor signals faster and with lower power - an important design consideration for the company. The security features in the MIPS CPU, including anti-tamper technology, also played a key role in the decision, says the company. Jongsung Lee, CEO, Standing Egg, said: "Standing Egg's sensors are designed and built by us so we control every element from concept to packaging. When it came to selecting a CPU, we chose MIPS for its outstanding performance efficiency and features. Its ability to handle sophisticated algorithms as well as its signal processing capability make the MIPS M5100 ideal for our next-generation sensor hubs, and we already have interest in these products from several customers. Imagination's full line of IP, including connectivity IP and cloud services, is quite appealing for sensor hub applications." Says Jim Nicholas, vice president, MIPS business operations, Imagination Technologies, added: "Standing Egg is innovating in MEMS sensor development across design, manufacturing, testing and packaging, and we are delighted that they have chosen MIPS for their next design. This is one example of the increasing traction that we are seeing for MIPS across Asia and around the globe. IoT and wearables are particularly hot areas for MIPS Warrior CPUs, as companies look for leading-edge CPUs with features like hardware virtualization, enhanced security and hardware multi-threading that will give them an edge in designing their next-generation devices." Standing Egg plans to release sensor hub products based on MIPS M5100 CPU in the second half of 2015, with an FPGA version available in advance.