Imagination bundles cores to make 'Connected Processor' series

Peter Clarke

EE Times (11/24/2009 12:09 PM ET)

LONDON — Imagination Technologies Group plc (Kings Langley, England) has announced a forthcoming series of embedded processors under the name "Meta Connected Processor" intended to support Internet-connectivity in low-cost consumer products.

The family of cores will combine versions of Imagination's 32-bit Meta multithreaded processor and Ensigma programmable communications technologies. The combination is already used in consumer broadcast applications, thereby combining the Internet and Internet radio with DAB radio.

The Meta Connected Processors will allow the same benefits to be extended to products such as digital photo-frames, media players, printers, toys and connected cameras, Imagination said. The combination IP allows multi-standard connectivity, alongside a Linux- or RTOS-based applications environment as well as DSP-intensive algorithm execution.

The META Connected Processor IP core family will enable consumer products to be connected not only to the internet but also to each other.

Imagination said that within five years, more than 70 percent of all mainstream consumer electronics products, including TVs, radios, cameras, printers and more will be connected to the internet.

"The world is getting so connected that soon creating any chip incorporating a processor without connectivity will seem as alien as designing a chip today without memory or peripherals," said Imagination CEO Hossein Yassaie, in a statement. "In the future everything from the smallest, cheapest electronic device upwards will have an IP address and be connected to the world via the internet. The most innovative new products being released now and in the next few years are now all connected, and recognizing this we are developing new low power, connected processor IP cores based on our innovative 32-bit processor and communications architectures to enable an era of ubiquitous internet connectivity."

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