Imagination collaborates with Cascoda to bring innovative low-power wireless connectivity to the Creator Ci40 IoT development board

Cascoda’s 802.15.4 radio technology keeps power consumption low while significantly increasing network range

London, UK – 18^th April, 2016 – Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) announces it has collaborated with Cascoda, a fabless supplier of low-power semiconductor radio devices, to bring Cascoda’s low-power, enhanced-range radio technology for IEEE 802.15.4 communications to Imagination’s Creator Ci40 microcomputer – the board at the heart of the Creator Ci40 IoT-in-a-Box development kit. With Cascoda’s 802.15.4 transceiver modem in the Creator Ci40, users can develop applications with 6LoWPAN, which enables small, power-constrained devices to transmit information wirelessly via an internet protocol.

Cascoda’s patented radio architecture significantly increases the range of wireless personal area networks (WPANs) without compromising on power consumption. Based on this unique architecture, the CA-8210 transceiver for 802.15.4 communications in the 2.4GHz band can achieve whole house coverage without external amplifier components. For many IoT applications, this can decrease equipment, installation, and maintenance costs.

Says Bruno Johnson, CEO, Cascoda: “We are very pleased to bring our innovative radio technology to Imagination’s Ci40 – the most complete IoT development kit in the market. Cascoda’s technology helps overcome a key challenge of IoT systems by providing enhanced-range low-power connectivity. This is extremely important for devices that may need to run on battery power for weeks or months at a time. We believe that the Ci40 and the impressive ecosystem around it will help to overcome other challenges associated with developing world-class IoT platforms for prototyping and volume production alike.”

Says Paul Evans, director of business operations, Imagination: “We are delighted to work with an innovative young semiconductor company like Cascoda who offers a highly competitive solution with world-class technical support. The Creator Ci40 kit is the easiest way to build consumer and industrial IoT applications for health monitoring, home automation, agriculture, smart cities, security, safety-critical connected sensors, and just about anything else you can imagine. The microcomputer at the heart of the kit is a showcase for Imagination’s IP technologies including MIPS CPUs and Ensigma radio processors (RPUs). We’re delighted to roll out this powerful kit to hobbyists and businesses around the world.”

The Creator Ci40 IoT-in-a-Box development kit enables individual makers to build innovative connected projects, and lets small to medium sized enterprises and entrepreneurs quickly prototype IoT platforms which can be easily turned into real products for volume production. The main development board is the Creator Ci40 microcomputer with a dual-core, dual-threaded 550MHz MIPS processor. Operating system (OS) support includes GNU/Linux distributions such as OpenWrt, Debian, Contiki and Google’s Brillo OS for IoT. Creator Ci40 features numerous I/Os and peripherals so users can add a wide choice of accessories and expansion boards. The Ci40 also features a dedicated TPM chip for added security, a vital requirement for IoT applications.

In addition to the 802.15.4 6LoWPAN functionality, the Creator Ci40 microcomputer also features support for other key low-power wireless and wired protocols, including 802.11ac 2×2 Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® 4.1 (Smart + Classic) and super-fast Ethernet.

Imagination’s Creator Ci40
Creator Ci40 is the ultimate IoT-in-a-box development kit. It includes not only the hardware building blocks needed to quickly prototype a wireless IoT system from scratch, but most importantly the open source software frameworks, network stacks and cloud connectivity capabilities required to securely connect and authenticate devices to the cloud. The Creator Ci40 board is a high-performance, low-power microcomputer based on a subsystem optimized by us specifically for IoT applications.

About Imagination Technologies
Imagination is a global technology leader whose products touch the lives of billions of people across the globe. The company’s broad range of silicon IP (intellectual property) includes the key processing blocks needed to create the SoCs (Systems on Chips) that power mobile, consumer and embedded electronics. Its unique software IP, infrastructure technologies and system solutions enable its customers to get to market quickly with complete and highly differentiated SoC platforms. Imagination’s licensees include many of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, network operators and OEMs/ODMs who are creating some of the world’s most iconic products. See: www.imgtec.com.

Imagination, Ensigma, MIPS and the Imagination Technologies logo are trademarks of Imagination Technologies Limited and/or its affiliated group companies in the United Kingdom and/or other countries. Wi-Fi® is a registered trademark of Wi-Fi Alliance. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by the Bluetooth SIG, Inc. All other logos, products, trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About Cascoda
Cascoda is a fabless semiconductor company which specialises in wireless communications for the Internet of Things (IoT). Cascoda’s technology is based on a completely new type of radio receiver which delivers much improved area coverage for no penalty in power consumption. For more information, visit http://www.cascoda.com/.