ARM has made two acquisitions in the past week, both indicating new markets in which the leading mobile processor IP provider believes it can expand. It has bought a line of display controller core IP from Cadence, and an internet of things specialist, Sensinode.
Processors based on ARM’s architecture may power over 90% of handsets, but as that sector commoditizes ‘ and eventually goes into PC-style stagnation ‘ ARM needs to get its designs into growth segments, from microservers to networking infrastructure, and post-PC devices to the ‘internet of things’. In addition, the company aims to make its technologies indispensable in more than the CPU ‘ notably with its Mali graphics processor and TrustZone security framework, the latter poised to become a de facto standard in mobile.
Acquisitions are unusual at ARM, and its double whammy highlights the accelerating pace of change in its industries, and its expanding ambitions. Taking on Intel everywhere from servers to sensors will require more than the UK firm can produce inhouse, so M&A may become a larger part of its strategy.
It now owns Cadence’s PANTA line of display controller core designs, which support multimedia, high resolution displays with low power consumption. The cores were developed in partnership with ARM, so are already integrated into Mali and should enhance the supplier’s core selling point of low power. This will become increasingly vital as smartphones gain ultra-high resolution screens, most recently 4G video.
“Display technology is critical to the mobile consumer’s user experience,” said Pete Hutton, general manager of ARM’s media processing division. ‘The addition of the PANTA family of display cores to the ARM product portfolio will help our ecosystem of partners get to market quickly with high end displays that are fully integrated with ARM’s Mali graphics and video solutions and protected with TrustZone security.” The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A week before, ARM had announced the acquisition of Finnish software firm Sensinode, adding further capabilities to its internet of things platform. This goes beyond the actual microcontroller IP and into connectivity, security and programming frameworks.
Sensinode has been a major contributor to emerging standards for IP-based connectivity between machine-to-machine devices, notably 6LoWPAN. This is effectively a version of IP for the embedded space, providing a compression format for IPv6 that is optimized for low power, low bandwidth wireless links. It has also built protocols based on COAP (Constrained Application Protocol), which enables connected devices to talk to cloud-based servers. The Finnish firm has also been a contributor to the IETF, ZigBee IP, ETSI and OMA standardization efforts. The goal of such platforms is to hide the fragmentation of different connectivity protocols ‘ such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee ‘ with a unified high level technology.
Sensinode is a 20-person start-up which has been developing M2M software based on 6LoWPAN, which will now be licensed by ARM. The UK company will continue to offer the Sensinode NanoStack and NanoService product and make the code available for evaluation through its mbed project, which lets engineers test products online. Mbed is based on pre-certified ARM-based hardware and is enabled with Sensicore protocols and cloud functionality.
Other IoT platforms such as Xively’s are currently supported too, though the move from an cooperation with Sensinode to full ownership may signal a change of strategy at ARM, and a bid to create a de facto standard, as it has with TrustZone.
Such moves also bring ARM closer to the end developer and increase its influence over the whole end-to-end chain, which will be far more integrated in IoT than in smartphones.
The start-ups which have pioneered web standards for IoT software, particularly via 6LoWPAN, are gradually being snapped up as larger firms eye the potential of this market. Linear Technology bought Dust Networks last year, while Cisco acquired Arch Rock in 2010.