ARM Acquires Internet Of Things Startup Sensinode To Move Beyond Tablets And Phones

sensinode

As more reports of ARM-based Windows and Apple devices continue to fill the airwaves — the latest being reports of a Surface 2 and Nokia’s first Windows tablet, along with upcoming iPhone handsets — the Cambridge, UK-based semiconductor technology powerhouse is pressing ahead with its bigger ambition be at the heart of all connected devices: today the company announced that it is acquiring Sensinode Oy, a Finland-based startup that develops internet-of-things software.

This is a bolt-on purchase: ARM says that for now it will continue to sell Sensinode’s NanoStack and NanoService products to existing and new customers, alongside its ARM Cortex® family of processors and collaborative mbed project.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ARM’s move to develop for more than smartphones and tablets — the two areas where you are most likely to hear its name these days, specifically in connection with companies like Apple, which designs its own ARM-based chips for its devices — is not a new one.

When its longtime CEO Warren East stepped down last year to be replaced by insider and former engineer Simon Segars, ARM emphasized how it was taking a long-term view of how the company would grow. The implication at the time was that it would be beyond the devices we typically refer to as “mobile” today, to cover cars, ovens and other appliances, factory robots, and really anything that you might need or want to be connected up in your work or leisure life — as the illustration here, taken from Sensinode’s site, shows.

The list indeed is long: “IoT technology can be used in wireless sensors, smart connected appliances, home health applications, and wearable electronics. The technology is also applicable to M2M applications using cellular connections and the new OMA Lightweight M2M standard for device management,” ARM notes.

“We take a very long-term view about our business, and we believe that now is the right time to bring in new leadership, to execute on the next phase of growth and to plan even further into the future,” East said at the time of his resignation.

In that regard, today’s acquisition news is evidence of how this is playing out. ARM projects (via analysts IMS Research) that there will be 30 billion connected devices by 2020. Compare that to the 8.7 billion ARM-based devices that were shipped last year, and combine that with ARM’s existing repution, and you can see why ARM sees this as a clear opportunity for the taking.

“ARM is dedicated to enabling a standards-based Internet of Things where billions of devices of all types and capabilities are connected through interoperable Internet Protocols and Web Services,” said John Cornish, executive vice president and general manager, System Design Division, ARM, in a statement.

You can also see how it’s important for ARM to continue pushing in this development against competitors like Intel, which is also hungrily eyeing up the IoT space.

ARM describes Sensinode as one of the “pioneers in software for low cost low power internet connected devices and a key contributor to open standards for IoT.” Those standards include creating the 6LoWPAN and CoAP standards for low cost low power devices; and contributing to IETF, ZigBee IP, ETSI and OMA standardization efforts.

This is a win for Sensinode because it gives the startup a much bigger platform and audience of developers who might build chips and devices on its technology. “By making Sensinode expertise and technology accessible to the ARM Partnership and through the ARM mbed project we will enable rapid deployment of thousands of new and innovative IoT applications,” notes Cornish.

This looks like it’s only ARM’s second acquisition ever. The first was just as strategic: it was in 2011 of Prolific, which developed nanotechnology software tools.

ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips

Sure it’s British, but ARM’s mobile empire is being built through careful alliances rather than conquest. The chip designer’s latest deal with Globalfoundries, which mirrors a very similar agreement signed with rival foundry TSMC last month, is a case in point. It’s designed to promote the adoption of fast, energy-efficient 20nm processors by making it easy for chip makers (like Samsung, perhaps) to knock on Globalfoundries’ door for the grunt work of actually fabricating the silicon — since the foundry will now be prepped to produce precisely that type of chip. As far as the regular gadget buyer is concerned, all this politicking amounts to one thing: further reassurance that mobile processor shrinkage isn’t going to peter out after the new 32nm Exynos chips or the 28nm Snapdragon S4 — it’s going to push on past the 22nm benchmark that Ivy Bridge already established in the desktop sphere and hopefully deliver phones and tablets that do more with less juice.

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ARM and Globalfoundries hammer out deal to promote 20nm mobile chips originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM’s eight-core Mali GPUs promise ‘dramatic’ boost to mobile graphics

ARM answers call for even more powerful eightcore mobile graphics

The current flagship for ARM’s mobile graphics technology is undoubtedly the Galaxy S III, which contains a quad-core Mali 400 GPU and delivers some wild benchmark scores. By the end of this year though, we should see a whole new generation of Malis — not just a Mali 450 for mid-range handsets, but also the quad-core T604 and the eight-core T658, which are based on ARM’s Midgard architecture and are taking forever to come to market. Now, to whet our appetites even further, ARM has just added three more variants of the chip to its roster, which can almost be considered the next-next-generation: the quad-core T624, and the T628 and T678, which are both scalable up to eight cores.

The trio’s headline feature is that they promise to deliver at least 50 percent more performance with the same silicon area and power draw, with the explicit aim of delivering “console-class gaming,” 4K and even 8K video workloads, as well as buttery 60fps user interfaces in phones, tablets and smart TVs. The premium T678 is aimed at tablets specifically, and in addition to allowing up to eight cores also doubles the number of math-crunching ALUs per core, which means that its compute performance (measured in gigaflops) is actually quadrupled compared to the T624. However, there’s one other, subtler change which could turn out to be equally important — read on for more.

Continue reading ARM’s eight-core Mali GPUs promise ‘dramatic’ boost to mobile graphics

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ARM’s eight-core Mali GPUs promise ‘dramatic’ boost to mobile graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM and TSMC team up on 64-bit chips and FinFET transistors

ARM and TSMC team up

ARM and TSMC are renewing their vows and plan to continue collaborating well into the future, as they work to optimize the 64-bit v8 architecture for the Taiwanese company’s FinFET transistor tech. The two will push next-gen ARM chips to 20nm and beyond, and hopefully shorten the time to market for new designs. The FinFET process should also help boost frequencies, while keeping power consumption low — a key to the continued success of the RISC architecture. The FinFET architecture is similar to Intel’s own tri-gate transistor technology that was instrumental to nudging the Core architecture forward with Ivy Bridge. After those 64-bit ARM chips are up and running at 20nm and powering your next-gen smartphone, TSMC will begin to look at even smaller processes, with an eye on 15nm next. You’ll find the entire joint profession of their love for one another after the break.

Continue reading ARM and TSMC team up on 64-bit chips and FinFET transistors

ARM and TSMC team up on 64-bit chips and FinFET transistors originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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