By Linley Gwennap (May 5, 2014).
Today’s wearable devices get by with smartphone processors or microcontrollers, but more-successful de-vices will require processors custom-designed for this application. To jumpstart that design process, Ceva an-nounced a collection of useful IP at last week’s Linley Tech Mobile Conference. This integrated platform supports always-on functions and low-power connectivity, two capabilities that are critical in wearable devices.
The platform includes a low-power TeakLite-4 DSP to handle voice functions and sensor management, as Figure 1 shows. It can even run a simple user interface, eliminating the need for a host CPU. The second hardware piece is Ceva’s Bluetooth core, which includes the MAC and baseband for Bluetooth 4.1. Most importantly, the platform comprises a set of pretested software modules that implement these functions, enabling customers to focus on their own value-add software.
