Power VR Series 8XE

A cracking PR today from IMG at the start of Mobile World Congress.

Of course huge credit goes to ex-CEO SHY for putting this together (there's the rub).

Usually with a new PVR series, the high-end part comes out first (via Apple) but this time it looks as though there has been a deliberate change of strategy , acknowledging the importance of winning back GPU volume from competitors.

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/latest-imagination-powervr-series8xe-gpus-set-new-standard-for-performance-power-and-area-in-cost-sensitive-markets/

22nd February, 2016 – Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) announces a new family of mass market PowerVR GPUs that set a new standard for performance, power and area in cost-sensitive markets. PowerVR Series8XE GPUs deliver the best performance/mm2 for the smallest silicon footprint and power profile, while also incorporating advanced features such as hardware virtualization, multi-domain security, and support for the latest APIs including OpenGL® ES 3.2 and Vulkan™ 1.0*. Series8XE demonstrates Imagination’s continuing leadership in cost-sensitive GPUs.

Today’s consumers want the latest features and technologies in their devices, and they want those devices at the lowest possible prices. To keep costs down, many of these devices are currently shipping with older APIs such as OpenGL ES 2.0. Imagination’s Series8XE GPUs support the latest APIs to enable the best user experience at the industry’s lowest cost.

Peter McGuinness, director of multimedia technology marketing, Imagination, says: “Because of the differentiation they provide, PowerVR GPUs are at the heart of the best-selling phones, tablets, and automotive infotainment units. With the new Series8XE, we’re enabling chip companies and OEMs targeting cost-sensitive applications to provide the best possible user experience at the lowest power and area budgets. We believe it is the best entry-level GPU core ever designed.”

The new Series8XE GPUs have already been licensed by multiple lead customers for mobile/tablets, 4K TVs, OTT set-top boxes, automotive and wearables. They are now being released for general licensing, enabling an even wider range of companies to leverage PowerVR to gain competitive edge and build enduring success. This builds on the momentum of the XE family where there are licensees across all key market segments, double digit licensee growth and a strong pipeline of opportunities.

Joe Chen, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer at MediaTek, says: “Imagination’s PowerVR XE families of entry-level GPUs are designed to deliver the right feature set at the right price point for the next generation of connected devices. MediaTek is delighted to be working with Imagination to bring the benefits of Series8XE GPUs to manufacturers and consumers worldwide.”

A perfect match for cost-sensitive applications

PowerVR Series8XE GPUs are designed to deliver the best possible real world user experience for cost-efficient products including low-cost phones and tablets, industrial displays, IoT, 4K set-top boxes and TVs, and low- to mid-range automotive infotainment and cluster electronics. The GPUs are designed to provide the best experience on GUI, HMI (human machine interface), browser and email applications, as well as casual games. By the numbers:

• Up to 25% smaller versus Series7XE GPUs for the same fillrate, providing the same compelling user experience at lower cost
• 60% to 100% better performance per mm2 over a range of industry benchmarks, and 30 – 45% area reduction versus competitors’ GPU IP cores with the same fillrate

Selected PowerVR Series8XE GPUs also include support for PVRIC3, the latest PowerVR lossless image compression technology, and 10-bit YUV for video streaming in hardware as options – key for optimal integration with H.265 10-bit profiles in set-top boxes and TVs. The new GPUs support Khronos APIs including OpenGL ES 3.2, and Vulkan 1.0 to deliver exceptional performance with reduced CPU requirements.

Security is at the heart of everything

With support for hardware virtualization and Imagination’s OmniShield™ multi-domain security, PowerVR GPUs uniquely enable customers to build systems in which applications and operating systems can run independently and reliably on the same platform in segments such as automotive, set-top boxes and TVs. This is becoming increasingly important as use models and services evolve across a wide range of connected products – demanding that devices be designed to support numerous unique applications, various content sources, and in-the-field software updates from service providers and operators, all while ensuring privacy and protection from security attacks.

Software and tools support

Imagination provides developers with free access to the cross-platform PowerVR SDK, designed to support all aspects of 3D graphics application development; as well as tools and utilities that ease development of 3D graphics and GPU compute applications. Developers can join the PowerVR Insider community, download the SDK for free and interact through developer forums at http://community.imgtec.com/developers/powervr/.

Physical Design Optimization Kits (DOKs) for Imagination’s PowerVR Series8XE GPUs will also be available, offering customers the flexibility to optimize for power, performance and area (PPA). Imagination DOKs are comprised of optimized reference design flows, tuned libraries from partners, characterization data and documentation.

Availability

PowerVR Series8XE GPUs are available for licensing now in scalable configurations starting at 2 pixels per clock (GE8200) and 4 pixels per clock (GE8300) IP cores. Contact info@imgtec.com for more information.

To access Imagination’s press kits for Mobile World Congress 2016 and Embedded World 2016, please visit: https://imgtec.com/press-kit/. Email tradeshows@imgtec.com to arrange a personal meeting with Imagination in Barcelona or Nuremburg.

Sir HY steps down and Pure to be sold

IMG today announced that Sir HY has stepped down and restructuring is on the way. Pure is finally to be sold off and the company will focus on its core activites ie. profitable IP. 

Sir HY's vision and leadership  transformed Videologic to a world-leading tech IP company Imagination Technologies, important to big players like Apple. Unfortunately, things started to get out of control around 5-6 years ago but the Board failed to do their jobs properly and force HY to make the necessary changes. The voices of long-term loyal supporters of IMG fell on deaf ears and the investors, including the brilliant engineers who form the backbone of IMG, suffered big financial losses.

PURE maybe first to go, but I'm sure it won't be the last. Today's announcement signals IMG are serious about turning our company around imo, and whilst the loss of Sir HY as CEO is highly regrettable, it was inevitable. A CTO role would have suited him better but can't see that happening. Best wishes to Sir HY.
Oh yes, and there was another profit warning...

The statement:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia,
processor and communications technology company, announces that Sir Hossein Yassaie has
stepped down as Chief Executive with immediate effect. Andrew Heath, one of the non-executive
directors, has been appointed Interim Chief Executive.
The Group also publishes a trading update as the Board now expects to report an EBIT loss for the
financial year to 30 April 2016.
Imagination is also announcing details on restructuring initiatives. These include the sale of Pure, its
consumer electronics business, and the expectation at this stage that Imagination will reduce total
operating costs of its on-going businesses by £15 million in the next financial year, ending April
2017.

Board change

Andrew, who has been appointed Interim Chief Executive, joined the Group’s Board in August 2012
as a non-executive director. He has a wealth of international business experience gained through
executive roles at Rolls-Royce and more recently as Chief Executive Officer of Alent plc. The Group
will start the search for a new Chief Executive immediately, assessing both internal and external
candidates in the process.
As a result of his appointment, Andrew will step down from the Remuneration and Audit committees.

Trading update

Since the Group published its half year results in December 2015, market conditions have not
improved and the slow-down in the overall semiconductor sector has continued, reinforced by global
uncertainty about future trading prospects with China.
Royalty returns from some key customers have fallen short of previous expectations for the last
calendar quarter of 2015 with lower forecasts for the first calendar quarter of 2016. While the
licence pipeline remains strong, and licences and related revenues already secured this year amount
to £24 million, the pace of deal closure is falling short of prior expectations.
The royalty reduction coupled with continuing uncertainty over licence revenue timing is likely to
result in a material reduction in expected FY16 revenues and resulting profitability. The Group now
expects to report an EBIT loss for the financial year to 30 April 2016.
The Group continues to have sufficient cash resources to meet its obligations going forward.

Restructuring initiatives

Following a detailed analysis of overhead expenses and a preliminary review of research and
development expenditure, the Group will implement a number of restructuring and cost cutting
initiatives and plans to sell Pure.
At this stage, the Group expects to reduce total operating costs of its on-going businesses by £15
million in the next financial year ending April 2017, with a modest impact in the current financial

year. Of this, £2 million will be re-invested in Power VR, further strengthening the Group’s flagship
multimedia product.
The Group believes there are potentially more appropriate owners for Pure, given the economies of
scale in the consumer electronics market, who will be able to leverage its leading technologies and
brand. Imagination will treat the Pure division as a discontinued operation with immediate effect.
Imagination will also initiate a full operational review, including all R&D expenditure. This review,
which is expected to last several months, will ensure investment is focused on core activities which
are set to deliver attractive returns.

Bert Nordberg, Chairman, said:

“Hossein has led the creation of Imagination’s successful IP business model over many
years and through his vision and drive, the Group has become a global technology
leader. His many notable achievements include the development of graphics and video
processors for smartphones, gaming devices, TVs and the automotive industry and the
introduction of digital radios as a mainstream product.
“On behalf of the Board and everyone at Imagination, I would like to thank him for his
considerable contribution, his passion, leadership and many, many achievements. We
all wish him every success for the future.
“Trading conditions continue to be very demanding. We need to be very focussed on
continuing to meet our customers’ needs, and commercialising our IP, cost effectively,
based on our core business.
“The measures announced today will allow the business to maintain the necessary
investment in key areas, in order to further strengthen our unique IP, technologies and
system solutions. They will also set the Group on track to deliver attractive returns in
the coming years.”

Sir Hossein Yassaie, commented:

“I am proud of the successes Imagination has achieved over the last decade or so. We
have built Imagination from very small beginnings into the leading provider of graphics
processors as well as general purpose micro-processors and connectivity solutions.
Imagination is now one of the genuine UK-headquartered companies with significant
global influence and impact.
“It’s now time for someone else to lead this great company. I have been fortunate to
work with a hugely talented team and would like to thank all my colleagues for all their
support and dedication over the years. I would also like to thank the many customers
and partners who have chosen to work with us over many years.”
The information required to be given in relation to section 430(2B) of the Companies Act 2006 in
relation to Sir Hossein Yassaie will be available on the Group’s website in due course.

Statement re. Pure

IMG issued the following rns today:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, processor and communications technology company, notes the recent press coverage.

As stated at the time of the half-year result in December 2015, the Group recognises the challenges it is facing given the current economic backdrop of the industry in which it operates. The Group is already and actively controlling the investments that it is making to minimise Opex growth. Imagination continues to monitor the industry situation and will take further actions as and when necessary.

Pure’s prime focus is now the growing digital radio market and its financial performance is improving rapidly. The Group is reviewing its strategic options for this business.

END

This was in response to yesterday's Sunday Times article which stated that in response to institutional shareholder pressue, the chairman and new CFO were going to offload Pure and also enter a sale & leaseback arrangement for the new HQ buildings.

It's been said many times ,over many years, on this blog, and pretty much by everyone else connected with IMG, that Pure needs to go. Note the prime focus of Pure has finally been changed from the 'of strategic importance' and 'pathfinder' to 'now the growing digital radio market'.

It was always the case that removing Ensigma's R&D out of Pure would perhaps make it profitable but that misses the main issue - we are an IP company, not a consumer OEM and if the IP is good enough (ensigma etc)  then 'they will come' and you don't need to put product on the shelves yourself. I don't think we'll ever approach the 30-40% margin aims as long as Pure is part of IMG, regardless of how well the rest of the business is doing.

Imagination @ CES 2016

A bunch of PR from Vegas:

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-showcases-its-leadership-in-the-automotive-market-at-ces-2016/

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-announces-that-2016-will-be-the-year-of-mips/

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/new-powervr-gpus-from-imagination-combine-advanced-graphics-with-optimizations-for-vision-and-computational-photography/

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/powervr-gpus-from-imagination-pass-openvx-conformance-with-khronos/

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-announces-new-fabric-collaboration-with-netspeed/

London, UK – 11th January, 2016 – Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) announces key highlights and developments featuring its technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2016. These include technological breakthroughs from Imagination, partners’ product and technology developments, and a great number of Imagination based products across the show.

Imagination breakthroughs at CES:

• Demonstrated the next major disruption in mobile and consumer graphics with a silicon implementation of the PowerVR Wizard GR6500 ray tracing GPU which delivers amazing realism and performance with 50x the efficiency of a desktop GPU
• Highlighted the latest integrated platform technologies with PowerVR graphics, OpenVX™ compliant GPU compute, video encode/decode and camera ISP – which together are enabling computer vision applications from the low to the high end for applications including advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), surveillance, smart cameras, drones and more
• Showed how Imagination is making it easy for engineers, developers and integrators to build IoT products and solutions, highlighting the ultimate IoT-in-a-Box development kit – the successfully Kickstarted Creator Ci40 – that provides everything needed to get started with IoT development including all the hardware, software, development tools and cloud infrastructure needed to quickly build a wireless IoT system

Partner products and technology developments at CES:

• Ineda Systems Inc. announced mass production of its low-power I3 Series SoC, which uses two MIPS CPUs with FPU and DSP support, and targets applications such as fitness bands, smart sensors, thermostats and medical applications where low power is a key requirement.
• Mobileye, whose leading ADAS technologies leverage MIPS processors and are used by companies including BMW, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla and others, announced a new crowd-sourced real-time mapping technology development called Road Experience Management (REM); REM partners include General Motors and
• MQA demonstrated high-quality audio playback on Imagination’s Caskeid development system, powered by MIPS processors and Ensigma connectivity IP, for wireless audio synchronization.
• NetSpeed Systems joined with Imagination to announce they are working together to deliver next-generation fabric solutions for the most advanced platforms and SoC designs.
• Qualcomm Atheros demonstrated an implementation of Google’s Weave running on its MIPS-based QCA4531 intelligent connectivity solution.
• Renesas demonstrated its new R-Car H3 automotive SoC which features a high-end PowerVR GX6650 GPU with 192 ALU cores and hardware virtualization for maximum robustness and safety.
• Rightware announced the founding members – including Imagination – of its Kanzi Partner Program, a global ecosystem of companies working together to develop and define the future of digital Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) with a focus on the automotive industry.
• Securifi showed its range of MIPS-based Almond routers and announced the new Almond 3 touchscreen wireless router, a smart home hub and a traditional Wi-Fi router in one device.
• Sequans Communications announced that its MIPS-based Colibri LTE chipset platform passed AT&T’s ADAPT chipset verification program and is approved to operate on AT&T’s 4G LTE network.
• Valens demonstrated its MIPS-based HDBaseT car connectivity technology, which received an Emmy award for Technology and Engineering; and joined with partners including GM, Daimler and Delphi in the HDBaseT Alliance to announce expansion into automotive infrastructure.
• Various partners demonstrated new automotive solutions on SoCs that use PowerVR GPUs: Green Hills Software demonstrated INTEGRITY technologies on the Renesas R-Car H2 and H3, as well as the Texas Instruments (TI) TDA2x ADAS SoC and TI “Jacinto 6” automotive SoC. QNX demonstrated on the TI “Jacinto 6” its new QNX In-Car Communication (ICC) technology.

Also on display at the show:

• Consumer products with PowerVR GPUs, such as VR headsets including those from Nibiru and Dlodlo and OTT media players including those from Amazon and Google
• Several new smartphones and tablets with PowerVR graphics and video including those from ASUS, Dell, HTC, Huawei and others – including Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone, the Mate 8, which features PowerVR H.265 4K video decode
• A Toshiba development board with uses its TZ5011 processor with PowerVR graphics and video, as well as Ensigma 802.11ac 2×2 MIMO Wi-Fi connectivity
• An in-car dash camera using Imagination’s PowerVR Raptor V2500 camera ISP
• Google’s new Brillo operating system for IoT and M2M applications running on the Creator Ci40
• Wearable devices using MIPS CPUs including wearable cameras, smart glasses, the Swimbot smart fitness device and the Pay Watch from Chinese wearable fitness operator FiiSmart in partnership with Alibaba
• MIPS based TVs and set-top boxes using technology from companies including ALi, Realtek, and Sigma Designs from brands including TCL and others
• IoT development boards with MIPS including the Creator Ci40, as well as boards from Vocore, Standing Egg, Digilent and others including the MediaTek LinkIt Smart 7688 development platform
• Altair’s high-performance, low-power LTE chipset that provides a platform for the improved connectivity necessary for a range of IoT applications – with MIPS inside
• Microchip’s PIC32 line of microcontrollers with MIPS Warrior M-class CPUs
• The ultimate multi-room audio and digital radio solutions combining Imagination’s MIPS CPUs, Ensigma RPUs for connectivity and Caskeid audio synchronization technology; plus innovative new in-car audio solutions featuring Ensigma RPUs
• The first silicon implementation of the high-performance MIPS Warrior P5600 CPU, from Baikal
• The Shield network security system from ITUS Networks, which uses a MIPS-based OCTEON III processor from Cavium Networks
• IP cameras from Quanta that use a MIPS CPU and Imagination’s FlowTalk VoIP technology
• Other Imagination partners including AllSeen Alliance, Digital River, the HSA Foundation, the Khronos Group, Pure, Rockchip, Sony, Thread Group, Wi-Fi Alliance, and many others

Imagination Interims 2015/16

A rough morning for Imagineers, with very poor financials (mostly expected) and short-term outlook:

https://imagination-technologies-cloudfront-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/presentations/15122015/FY16%20Half%20Year%20Results%20December%202015%20FINAL%20v2%2015dec2015.pdf

https://imgtec.com/news/press-release/half-year-results-statement-2015/

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, processor and communications technology company, today announces results for the six months ended 31 October 2015.

Overview

• Short-term royalty revenues impacted by slowdown in semiconductor and smartphone markets, and ramp-down of customer’s legacy chip as previously reported
• Medium-term outlook on royalty revenue substantially strengthened through new multi-year multi-core license agreement for PowerVR graphics
• Further significant design-wins achieved in key markets for mobile, automotive and TV
• The above new license agreement and design-wins are expected to result in additional multiple 100m’s of unit shipments in FY18 and beyond
• Licensing closure timing and recognition rate in H1 does not reflect the strong pipeline and substantial growth in backlog
• Operating costs tightly managed resulting in significantly lower rate of cost growth than previously guided, while maintaining the necessary investment in key areas
• The Board currently expects adjusted operating profit for the financial year to 30 April 2016 to be below previous expectations

Financial highlights

• Group revenues of £71.1m (2014: £82.2m)
• Technology revenues of £62.7m (2014: £72.8m)
  • Licensing revenues of £12.6m (2014: £16.0m)
• £3.0m deals closed 24hr outside half-year window (resulting in £1.5m of recognised revenues moving from H1 to H2)
  • Royalty revenues of £49.8m (2014: £56.3m)
• Adjusted operating loss* of £7.3m (2014: profit £5.0m); reported operating loss of £20.8m (2014: £10.3m)
• Adjusted loss per share* 2.6p (2014: earnings 1.3p); reported loss per share 7.7p (2014: earnings 3.9p)

Business highlights

• Strong licensing pipeline and backlog
  • 42 licenses signed (2014: 49) with over 22 existing and new partners
  • Backlog of booked (but not recognised) orders up 50% over the same time last year
• Further increase in new committed SoCs with over 28 additional SoC design-wins which will contribute to future royalties
• New strategic multi-year agreement with tier-one mobile market partner
• Penetration of significant automotive market for both PowerVR and MIPS continues to develop strongly with multiple partners
• PowerVR deployed in all key over-the-top TV platforms
• Strong platform offering for emerging IoT opportunities
• Pure loss further reduced following the actions taken last year

Outlook

• The high backlog level and both the size and quality of the sales pipeline support H2 licensing revenue increasing from H1 and also being higher than H2 FY15
• Unit shipments are expected to recover in H2, although it remains difficult to provide precise guidance given dependence on timing of semiconductor industry recovery
• Careful direction of our investments will result in underlying operating cost growth of around 2%, significantly reduced from previously expected 5%-10%, resulting in a c.£5m reduction against our original plan for the financial year

Hossein Yassaie

, Chief Executive, commented:

“Although our financial performance in the first half has been disappointing, reflecting a short-term slow-down in the overall semiconductor industry and softness in the mobile market, the fundamental medium-term demand drivers remain strong.

“Imagination has significantly strengthened its position in several key markets and in particular in mobile, automotive and TV/STB segments. The strategic license agreements secured with key players in these segments provide the backbone for significant acceleration in unit shipments with multiple 100’s of million unit growth over the next 2-3 years.

“With growing revenues driven by the strong design-win base already established, continued demand for our existing and new technologies and ongoing discipline on operating costs mean that the operating margin is expected to significantly improve in the medium-term.”

AGM 2015

AGM 2015 I arrived quite early to see extensive building work ongoing as the final phase is nearing completion by the end of the year. In total the campus will hold 900 people. For a while I thought I'd be the only attendee, fortunately most people had arrived and whilst a number of familiar faces and stalwarts were missing we still had many others who continue to be very very patient investors.  First impressions of the new Chairman Bert, he is a heavy weight in terms of stature, let's see if that leads to real progress where it matters with galvanising the executive management team and attaining the goal being revenue generation and ultimately consistent shareholder return. In terms of the current financials - "poor" is the only word that can be used. Outgoing and frankly out of his depth CFO Richard Smith gave little reason for optimism. To be fair he did present fairly well but, without a clear indication of where the money is being spent I feel we are more in the dark than ever in terms of how this will really translate into forward revenue in the magnitude that makes the initial investment effort worthwhile. Moving on to the industry and business presentation from HY. As ever it was well delivered and positive. Was it believable? Roll back a few years and no one would question the vision. Given the ride we've been on we can only question whether the strategy is plausible and without the pitfalls that have stricken us with regularity in recent years. Yet HY remains confident and circa £100m license fees in the last 30months must translate into something more than just treading water whilst peddling faster. As for the slide show, here are some key points: On mobile / tablets - IMG will see real growth in late 2016/17, we assume bulk of the growth will come via Spreadtrum. Hossein also mentioned that he saw the iPad pro as a shift from tablet based content consumption to creation. In the home with TV we see good business with Realtek and there is opportunity for connectivity as well. In the network space he spoke about heterogeneous processing as more video based data gets processed via the cloud. In wearables IMG are in the lead player and also have strong wins for graphics and cpu in China. With Automotive the key players in graphics and ADAS we have over 50% of the market. IoT is massive, so massive that it will drive changes 10x greater in the next ten years than the last ten years. Hossein talked about big focus China has put in the semi industry. China only makes 10% of silicon so has huge potential for IMG. Verticalisation - Apple, Amazon, Cisco and now smaller companies with new markets. Volumes - mix of customer base is evolving with different customers IMGs now deal with. We have the four categories of companies IMG deal with in the market place. IMG target all four. Within the partnership OEM space IMG now want to talk more about this market. IMG see huge growth in the platform level space. Big growth will come via adoption in health, industry, energy, retail, security/safety and agriculture. IMG offer 3 types of IOT solutions from basic sensor hub to audio/vision based platforms. Creator gives developers the tools to build the infrastructure. This market will pick up in about three years. Omnishield - security is a big thing. Current phones only have a single secure domain. This is ok if there is just one service provider. Virtualisation is the IMG technique to create up to 256 secure domains. Gaining real traction and is better than trust-zone. do not be surprised if ARM has something up their sleeve. PowerVR Focus to move down from mid-high end to low end. series 7 in production. Series 8 is very efficient super scaleable and is positioned for low end design wins. >50% share in car likely to increase by 2017. TV up take has been slow, but seeing design wins including Realtek. Ray tracing partnered with TSMC. Chip is now back and something cool will be demoed soon. Vision platform targeted for the IOT space. MIPS 3 areas: mobile strategic win on modem side. Still aiming for Apps Processor. Automotive : Mobileye working with the undisputed number 1. Micro controller side is doing well with Microchip. Design wins with tier 1 is the key and discussions continue. MIPS advertising campaign targeting Silicon Valley. Ensigma Relatively sticky as its new and is solving problems today. Explorer shipping in Korea . Whisper lowest power solution for IOT. In 5-10years they see wifi integration in chip. IMG want to be no.1 connectivity IP company. IMG custom solutions designed to save customers $$$ in design costs. Pure To enable digital radio but pushed into unprofitable price points. Has been adjusted to middle price points. Pure is helping with IOT solution development. HY summary Rate of investment now tightly controlled. Semi industry has changed but IMG are ready to make money from MIPS, Ensigma is 2 years from break even. powervr will continue generating revenue. This will enable the 30-40% target. Ray tracing is so disruptive you really have to show it in real silicon. TSMC very excited about it as it could generate huge revenue. 5-6 Ray tracing customers await. Q&A Tony, asked the question around profitability. I felt the answer was rather simplistic and I struggle to give IMG the benefit of the doubt here. We deserved a better response than the one we got. In fact HY was more cohesive at lunch on this topic. HY when asked the question about FTSE 100 by Paul, he unsurprisingly responded yes in 5 years (2020), but that would mean a market cap of £4-5bn at today's market cap which would need something remarkable to happen. My view is we need licensing to be double where we are now by 2018 to have even a faint sniff of that. Post presentation, I wondered into the demo room first. Having wondered around quickly I was about to leave for lunch but luckily bumped into Alexandru Voica and we had a good 20min conversation. Firstly graphics, series 7 delivered to Apple's requirement and series 8 will take things forward. We've heard already about the increased scalability of series 8 and that will matter as high end tablets encroach into the laptop arena. Seemingly we are in a one year cadence cycle. On the current series 6XT/7XT Alex showcased a new demo on an iPad. Graphics quality was fantastic. He stated with Vulkan IMG are leading the pack, and it is now up to Android developers to start to use this far more efficient and graphically rich approach and shift away from OpenGL ES. This would be a key differentiator. In terms of where Alex sees Arm currently, he expects them to shift from vector based to scaler based solutions. He feels IMG have a healthy lead but when price is a key factor you cannot always win as we have found to our detriment in the past 3 years.  We moved on to Ray Tracing. Demoes on the new silicon are a couple of months off, we can assume CES is a good stage to showcase. With Ray tracing IMG have in his words a 5 year lead in mobile. Competition wise the PC space IMG expect to see the likes of AMD and Nvidia give IMG a run for their money. In terms of mobile space we are 2-3 years out from end user product but we can expect this to be when series 9/10 is out and the hybrid solution will no doubt be amazing. Alex then moved on to talk about Creator and we can expect to see announcement of a family of creator products servicing different needs and different end user capabilities. On wearables aside from Apple Watch he appeared to place more emphasis on Android Wear which is surprising given current sales. Having concluded the demo room I moved on to the lunch marque. Unsurprisingly, HY was encircled by many and would expect Pete and Tony's accounts to fairly comprehensive summaries. From what I gleaned when asked about the sox supplier space he mentioned 3 - Qualcomm, Mediatek, and Intel. Nothing will happen with the former, things are slowly improving with Mediatek (which means it's neck and neck with Arm); with Intel I got a two phase answer, currently IMG are not doing well, however the expectation is things will improved via the significant relationship with Spreadtrum. As for the Intel relationship as a whole this continues albeit one can assume they've refocused for the short term in pushing the Rochchip/Mali socs. In terms of current state of play and investment strategy HY was better in his explanation as to why he made the decision to scale and diversify. His legacy is to leave the UK industry with a thriving company that's around in 20 years time, unless of course they get an offer they can't refuse... Apart from HY, I talked to a number of people in the senior management team. No surprise they all reiterated things are progressing well and felt disappointed not to be allowed to shout about what's on the horizon (hopefully not storm clouds). Talk was about using a different business model for new business and where attainable subscription based services would be a supplementary model to follow via cloud based services. So what are Pure up-to, they've retrenched from the US, and refocused on DAB with key markets - UK, Germany, Norway and recently Poland have signalled a full digital switchover. We spent some time with Christ Moseley and Paul Smith who joined a bit later. We learned, Jongo is dead, the concept of wireless speaker will be reborn mid-2016 with something uniquely differentiating. It will feature an all new MIPS based SoC which incidentally isn't a frontier silicon solution.  As for current focus, there are some new radios of which key is a new F3(?) which has inbuilt Spotify capability. I also glimpsed at a legato esq model as well as one up market model that will give Roberts some challenge. In terms of market share Pure is around 26%, behind Roberts 33%. Chris alluded to getting back to no.1 but will that deliver profitability - no need to give an answer :(. Paul mentioned that Caskeid is doing ok and we can expect further news this year. He also referred to a non audio use case for Caskeid, supposedly with video. So for conclusions : for many years at the AGMs we've seen a lot of optimism and this was no different. Ultimately, with little to back up the body language as simply the numbers did not stack up. To get to where we need to be in 5 years time, what management need to set are aggressive executable targets that eat into the competition in the next 2,3 years?  What is the investment strategy? As the budget grows the % spend might tail off but the absolute spend and how it translates to a revenue multiple is what matters! On an upbeat note, if things do work out and we achieve 50% of the plan we will be in a far better place.  To end, many thanks again to the wonderful Susi for organising the AGM it was and always is a great day at KL. We only need some tangible progress on the revenue front in the 2nd half to fully rekindle our dampened enthusiasm.

IMG H1 trading update

IMG released a disappointing trading update a couple of days ago:

https://imagination-technologies-cloudfront-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/presentations/16092015/Interim-update-16-September-2015.pdf

The GPU royalty shortfall is said to be a single quarter issue relating to one customer, though it is against a background of semiconductor 'softness'. Obviously, if IMG could rely on multiple high volume smartphone SoCs from the likes of Mediatek (instead of just 1) and Intel (not IMG's fault) instead of just the Apple juggernaut, then we would not be in this position. ie. GPU-wise we are spread too thin.
The poor performance of the IMG senior sales/executive team 2 years ago, when they dropped the ball at Mediatek in particular, and continued failure to win back Samsung LSI from Mali for over 5 years now (or even understand the importance of this), continues to hurt IMG and its shareholders. Hopefully things will change from next year....

In full:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and processor technology company, is today issuing its Interim update for the period from 1 May 2015 to 15 September 2015.

 Business update Licensing activity in the period has been steady with an encouraging increase in the overall pipeline of opportunities. While some of our customers have performed strongly, overall unit shipments and royalty revenue for the quarter ended 30 June 2015 have been slightly lower than our expectations. The semiconductor market in general has experienced a weaker quarter ending 30 June 2015.
Unit shipments and royalties in the June quarter were also impacted by a customer’s ramp-down of a legacy silicon chip earlier than previously indicated. This resulted in a timing gap before the replacement chip ramps up.
Pure is trading in line with expectations, with improvements seen in the important UK and German markets.
 Operating costs continue to be tightly managed and are marginally lower than our expectations. Technology Multimedia
 Early PowerVR Series7 devices have entered production with several others to follow. PowerVR Series8 technology is at an advanced stage of development with initial engagement with lead partners having begun and already resulted in strong positive feedback and interest.
The reference chip demonstrating our ray tracing IP, mentioned in our June 2015 results statement, has now been received from the foundry. The bring-up and evaluation process is progressing as expected. We are aiming to have demonstrations based on this reference platform for key interested partners by the end of the calendar year.
 CPU and processor cores
 MIPS processors continue to gain further industry recognition and acceptance. The recently announced virtualisation-based security technology, OmniShield, has attracted considerable interest. It offers hardware-enforced multi-zone separation which is essential for emerging security needs as well as reliability in applications which include safety critical aspects, such as automotive. The MIPS business unit is steadily extending the family members across all three of the M, I, and Pclasses. We expect to be able to announce additional cores in the M-class and P-class categories in the near future. The comprehensive range of MIPS IP cores for everything from microcontrollers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to 64-bit application processors and servers is delivering choice in the processor IP market that is increasingly welcomed by a growing number of customers.
Communications
 Ensigma’s key business goal remains becoming the number one global connectivity IP provider, especially in the emerging and fast-growing IoT market, as this IP market continues to develop and grow. In that endeavour the two product lines, Explorer and Whisper, are designed to address performance and low-power requirements across all key markets. The complementary and growing RF technology we are now able to offer alongside our basebands is increasingly enabling delivery of complete solutions which are in growing demand and are helping to create an expanding opportunity pipeline. There are several design-wins for both Explorer and Whisper Series4 RPUs and the first design has now entered production.
 Pure
The Pure business has progressed as expected. With its latest products, the customer engagement and ranging has improved significantly in the UK with Germany also improving steadily. The most active business period is normally the run into Christmas, from October to January.
 Outlook
 The semiconductor sector in general had a weak June quarter but the industry expectation is for this to improve in the second half of the year and in particular in CYQ4. Part of this has been driven by the sharp slowdown in the rate of growth of the emerging economies, and in particular the Chinese market. The combination of general market softness in H1 and the short-term timing impact of the replacement chip ramp up mentioned in the business update, lead us to expect lower H1 revenues than we had previously forecast, which is likely to lead to a loss for H1. Based on the strength of the licensing pipeline and customers’ product launches we now expect a stronger H2 than previously forecast. However, at this early stage of the year, we cannot be certain that we will recover all of the H1 shortfall.
Given the strong licensing activities in the last couple of years and the growing design wins in various markets, we expect the medium-term volume to gain significant momentum despite these short-term industry and specific factors. The progress in Pure has been maintained and we continue to expect an improvement in revenue and profitability this year. To the extent that we see the weaker performance from the June quarter persisting then we will manage the rate of investment in operating costs accordingly.
 Hossein Yassaie, Imagination’s Chief Executive said: “Following the strong licensing during the second half of last financial year, the pipeline of opportunities has encouragingly built-up to healthy levels during the first quarter of the year. “For both our PowerVR GPUs and MIPS cores we are seeing growing interest and engagements from several high volume partners. We expect these engagements to lead to licenses during this financial year and, combined with tier-one deals closed during the second half of last year, will help to build significant volume growth in the medium-term.

“The Ensigma IP families continue to strengthen as we build up all the elements towards complete solutions. The level of customer engagement is increasing strongly, helping to grow this developing business. “There are some indications of general softness across the semiconductor industry for the short-term. However, given the relevance of our technologies to the key markets and design-wins we have already secured and expect to secure, we remain confident of a growing momentum in our business in the medium-term.”

 Enquiries Imagination Technologies Group plc


AGM was today -  presentation slides:

https://imagination-technologies-cloudfront-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/presentations/AGM15/Imagination-AGM-015.pdf



Some good news via Amazon yesterday, as 3 new Fire tablets, including a budget <$50 version, and new Fire TV were announced - all using PowerVR Series 6 graphics.

New Apple products announced

Apple announced 5 new IMG'd products yesterday:

Apple TV - A8 SoC
iPhone 6s & iPhone 6s Plus - A9 SoC
iPad Mini 4- A8 SoC
iPad Pro - A9X SoC

Power VR Series 7XT is favourite for the A9/A9X but there is no confirmation as yet.

More details:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9615/apple-announces-the-ipad-mini-4

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9619/apple-announces-iphone-6s-iphone-6s-plus

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9616/apple-announces-the-new-apple-tv

Next week (16/9/15) there is IMG's interim trading update, followed 2 days later by the AGM.
Royalty volume has been pretty strong of late by the look of things, with huge iPhone 6 sales and growing Mediatek MT6795 volumes. Licensing though is anyone's guess, given the lack of rns these days.

Imagination Technologies FY 2014/15

IMG yesterday released FY results, as below.
These results were always going to be more about the message/outlook rather than the figures , which were fairly poor as expected. The rns itself is quite bullish.
On the plus side, there was the Spreadtrum GPU win (hitherto ARM cpu/gpu, though recently Intel took an equity stake) - will be interesting to see if PowerVR gets actual volume there. H2 licensing was strong but can IMG maintain the momentum? The 30-40% margin target is re-stated but without ditching PURE (7th year in a row of losses)  I am unclear how this will happen - an IP company doesn't need an OEM division no matter what justification is provided - if the IP is good enough, it will be licensed, simples (have a word Bert). The MIPS emdedded sub-system is interesting, looks like a side/back-door entry into mobile apps market - not clear at all who it is but sounds like a vertical player ? The non-MIPS ASP remains strong though we have stagnation of volume -  should pick up this year with more MTK volume (via Meizu MX5 etc etc) but vast majority at MTK still Mali of course.
No change in the post-CC analyst opinions either way, as evidence is required ie. hard numbers. Hard to argue with that.

https://imagination-technologies-cloudfront-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/presentations/30062015/Imagination%20Technologies%20-%20Full%20year%20results%20-%2030%20June%202015.pdf


Key bits:

 Financial highlights

·         Group revenues of £177.0m (2014: £170.8m)

·         Technology revenues increased 7% to £158.6m (2014: £147.6m)

-      Licensing revenues up 2% to £39.0m (2014: £38.3m)

-      Royalty revenues up 9% to £118.9m (2014: £109.0m)

·         Adjusted operating profit* of £21.1m (2014: £24.0m); Reported operating loss of £8.5m (2014: £0.1m)

·         Adjusted earnings per share* 6.3p (2014: 8.1p); Reported loss per share 4.9p (2014: earnings 0.3p)

Business highlights

·         Strong licensing across all IP families, delivering highest ever licensing revenue and record backlog

-        121 licenses signed (2014: 115) with over 40 existing and new partners

-        Agreements signed with partners including Ali, Atomos, Avago, Broadcom, Celeno, Elvees, Fujitsu, HiSilicon, Ineda, InfoTM, Intel, JCI, Lantiq, Loongson, MediaTek, Pioneer, Renesas, Sigma, Spreadtrum, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Toumaz and Yokogawa

·       Significant increase in new committed SoCs with over 60 additional SoC design-wins which will contribute to future royalties

·       MIPS unit shipments increased 9% year on year to record level of 797m (2014: 729m); non-MIPS shipments stable at 530m (2014: 530m)

·       Pure loss reduced following the actions taken last year

Outlook

·       Based on the increased backlog and the active pipeline of prospects, target of 10% growth in licensing revenue in FY16

·       Expect growth in unit shipments and royalty revenue

·       Underlying operating cost growth expected to be 5% - 10%

·       Expansion of operating margins in medium-term with longer-term target of 30% - 40%, with a rise in profitability in FY16

Hossein Yassaie, Chief Executive, commented:

“We have seen robust licensing and royalty revenues across all three IP families whilst continuing to tightly control our costs.

“Significantly we have secured major design wins for our graphics and processor IP with new high volume mobile players - these multi-year agreements will further drive unit shipments in the medium term. Our connectivity IP continues to gain momentum.

“The established strengths and comprehensive nature of our three key IP families have enabled our unique platform capability which has significantly contributed to licensing revenues this year.

“As our revenues grow, the natural operational gearing of the business means that the financial performance is expected to significantly benefit from a slower growth in operating costs. We therefore expect to see significant expansion in operating margins in the medium-term.”

Acceleration of licensing in the second half of the year resulting in record licensing revenues  121 licenses including 52 for PowerVR multimedia, 47 for MIPS CPU, 15 for Ensigma comms and 7 System-level / support IP (including FlowCloud, VoIP, and Caskeid)  Significant agreements with over 40 partners during the year including Ali, Atomos, Avago, Broadcom, Celeno, Elvees, Fujitsu, HiSilicon, Ineda, InfoTM, Intel, JCI, Lantiq, Loongson, MediaTek, Pioneer, Renesas, Sigma, Spreadtrum, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Toumaz and Yokogawa  Licenses signed for new IP across all key IP families (including Series7 GPU, Warrior MIPS cores and Ensigma RPU / NPU)  New, significant and strategically important licensing deals with high volume / tier-one mobile players for both PowerVR graphics and MIPS processors  Increasing number of licenses signed involving IP from multiple families. There is a growing and general trend towards demand for IP sub-systems or solutions combining multiple IP cores, an aspect that our strategy is designed to fully support

Partner chip unit shipments grew to 1,327m units (2014: 1,259m)  Non-MIPS shipments were stable at 530m (2014: 530m). We have seen an increasing proportion of shipments using Series6 graphics technology and given the design wins achieved during the year we expect this to continue to grow  MIPS shipments increased strongly to their highest annual level of 797m units (2014: 729m)  The licensing activity in the year has resulted in a significant increase in new committed SoCs with over 60 new SoC design-wins added which will contribute to future royalties 

 During the year there were 27 PowerVR GPU licenses across all markets and segments. These included a number of licenses to customers using PowerVR graphics in high volume markets, with one licensing PowerVR graphics for the first time.

 As a result customers’ engagements and licensing activities have been strong and encouraging with 47 licenses concluded globally for MIPS cores across existing and new customers during the year. Among these there were a number of strategically important agreements including a key license with a tier-one mobile player for a significant embedded subsystem in mainstream mobile application processors

Imagination's OmniShield

HY has been talking up Security for nex-gen SoCs for some time now, and here is the end-product. He feels , obviously, that it is a better solution than ARM's TrustZone ie. an important differentiator, and that customers are more likely to choose IMG-based SoCs as a result.

http://www.imgtec.com/news/detail.asp?ID=989

LONDON, UK – 20^th May, 2015 – Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) introduces OmniShield™ technology designed to provide the industry’s most scalable and secure solutions for protection of next-generation SoCs. With OmniShield-ready hardware and software IP, Imagination is ensuring that customers’ SoCs and OEMs’ products are designed for security, reliability and dynamic software management, as use models and services evolve across a wide range of connected devices.

Connected products such as Internet of Things (IoT), gateway routers, IPTVs, mobile devices and automotive systems must increasingly be designed to support numerous unique applications, various content sources, and in-the-field software updates from service providers and operators, all while ensuring privacy and data protection. With these multiple applications and associated data co-existing on the same SoC, each must be kept secure both from external attacks and also from each other.

For example, set-top boxes must now protect not only broadcast content, but also over-the-top (OTT) streaming video and third party applications. In automotive, communications are becoming tightly coupled with smartphones, bringing third party services into the automotive infrastructure. And in supporting emerging applications such as self-parking and autonomous driving, it is critical to ensure ultra-safe operation to meet ADAS requirements.

Today’s embedded security approaches are CPU centric, binary (one secure zone / one non-secure zone) and are complicated to implement. These solutions won’t scale to address the sophisticated types of applications and services being enabled by next-generation connected devices and the cloud.

Imagination’s OmniShield is a scalable security technology that ensures that applications that need to be secure are effectively and reliably isolated from each other as well as protected from non-secure applications, while still meeting required levels of functionality, performance, cost, and power consumption. OmniShield goes beyond a binary approach to create multiple secure domains, where each secure/non-secure application/operating system can operate independently in its own separate environment. For example, secure processes such as DRM and payment systems can coexist with non-secure processes such as gaming and web browsing.

This multi-domain separation-based architecture not only ensures security and reliability, but also eases development and deployment of applications and services. Thanks to OmniShield, developers will be able to securely develop and debug code in a virtualized environment, and operators and other service providers can configure devices for provisioning of services in the field.

OmniShield also addresses the scalability that heterogeneous architectures will require by protecting all of the processors in an SoC – including the CPU, GPU and others. In a heterogeneous architecture, application data and resources will be shared between the CPU and other processors in the system, so those processors will now face the same level of exposure as the CPU, and must be given the same level of protection.

OmniShield encompasses both hardware and software components, enabling companies for the first time to implement a truly secure, heterogeneous multi-domain application environment using hardware-enforced separation and protection throughout. Because it is based on hardware supported virtualization, OmniShield is efficient and does not compromise performance, which is especially important in embedded environments such as IoT.

OmniShield leverages the fact that hardware virtualization is applicable to all processing engines including general processors (CPUs) and application specific processors such as GPUs. In addition, since virtualization concepts are already well understood and supported techniques in many operating systems and RTOS, they provide an ideal and proven foundation for hardware enablement and extensions needed for next-generation security. These facts mean that OmniShield can offer a universal security solution that delivers the ultimate combination of protection, scalability and efficiency.

Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination, says: “The separation-based architecture of OmniShield will play a critical role in minimizing attack surface area in next-generation connected devices. Our customers are using OmniShield-ready IP to create innovative SoCs that will empower their customers to deploy new trusted services and applications. PowerVR IP is already used in secure heterogeneous environments thanks to the virtualization in some Series6XT GPUs. We’ll soon see OmniShield-ready systems based on our other processors including PowerVR Series7 GPUs and MIPS Warrior CPUs. This is the start of a new era of secure SoC and cloud-based systems design.”

OmniShield-ready hardware and software

Imagination is building OmniShield support into its entire range of processors, including MIPS Warrior CPUs, PowerVR multimedia processors and Ensigma processors. Imagination’s processors are designed to operate in heterogeneous and coherent clusters connected by a scalable secure interconnect fabric which extends OmniShield throughout the SoC with secure flows controlled by a trusted hypervisor. In addition, Imagination and its partners will provide a growing range of virtualized Root-of-Trust IP blocks for OmniShield including crypto, Public Key Accelerator, true random number generators, secure I/O for external TPMs and secure ROM.

Imagination is building on its OmniShield-ready processor IP technologies by assembling some of the industry’s most advanced SoC and platform software, all OmniShield-ready. This includes trusted boot and other security functions, as well as trusted hypervisors and secure OS, some of which will be available in 2015 through the open source prpl Foundation. The prpl security working group is also working to deliver an overall security framework, open APIs (application programming interfaces), and reference platforms supporting the multi-domain technology. Imagination is already working with a wide range of industry-leading providers of third party security solutions in support of OmniShield, resulting in a strong and growing ecosystem of partners supporting Imagination in every aspect of secure SoC and connected system design.

Availability

Multiple partners are already designing SoCs using OmniShield technology. OmniShield reference designs will be available in 2015. Contact info@imgtec.com for more information.

Imagination Summit Silicon Valley: Securing the Future

Imagination will hold its annual Silicon Valley Summit at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara on Thursday, May 21st. This year the event is focused on “Securing the Future” with presentations from Imagination and partners on a variety of related topics, including OmniShield. Visit http://www.imgtec.com/events/detail.asp?ID=37 for more information and to register.

Supporting Quotes

“As Elliptic focuses on driving open security initiatives as part of the prpl Foundation, we are in close collaboration with Imagination as they develop and roll out OmniShield enabled technologies. The success of future technology advancements depends on trust, therefore it is essential to take a holistic approach to security as we address evolving threats to connected devices in relation to the IoT, gateways, big data and the cloud.”

– Mike Borza, CTO, Elliptic Technologies

“With Ikanos’ multi-threading MIPS-based processors, we are enabling end-to-end, high speed and secure broadband access for provisioning of new revenue-generating triple- and quad-play services. And in the connected home, our processors are powering an array of new wireline and wireless gateways and routers, designed to address performance and security requirements of carriers, looking to offer new applications in IOT, home automation and other cloud-based services. It’s good to see Imagination addressing security needs as use models and services for these devices continue to evolve.”

– Kourosh Amiri, Vice President of Marketing, Ikanos

“Next-generation connected devices such as smart home gateways need to implement new security paradigms to address changing usage models, new applications and a range of new threats. We are pleased to see Imagination taking a leading role in driving discussion and action around next-generation security, which will be key to successfully delivering connected home devices that are consumer-friendly and trusted.”

– Dan Artusi, VP & General Manager, Lantiq – an Intel Company

“With Imagination’s PowerVR GPUs, MediaTek continues to push the envelope in terms of graphics innovation in our products. And while our graphics capabilities will continue to grow in exciting new directions, GPUs will also increasingly go beyond providing pure graphics functionality, and will need the same level of protection as the CPU. We’re pleased that Imagination is taking a leadership position in driving SoC security by offering a separation-based multi-domain architecture across all its GPUs.”

– Tom Hsieh, Marketing Director of Wireless Communications BU, MediaTek

“Imagination’s multi-domain OmniShield technology fits perfectly into the open framework that we are developing in the prpl Foundation’s security working group. There is clear market demand for hardware-based security to augment software-based approaches, particularly in heterogeneous, multitenant applications. Companies in a variety of vertical segments are demanding a way to securely deploy new services on existing devices without impacting services that are already present. Imagination is making important contributions in this regard, and we are excited to rally the prpl community to enable this type of secure, scalable, multi-domain approach.”

– Art Swift, President, prpl Foundation

“Together with Imagination and Green Hills Software, we’ve already shown the power of virtualization on a PowerVR G6400 GPU in our R-Car H2 SoC, enabling a real-time subsystem and a Linux-based subsystem to execute concurrently and securely. The direction Imagination is taking by enabling multi-domain security through its OmniShield-enabled GPUs and other processors with hardware virtualization is well aligned with what we see as needs in future automotive platforms.”

– Masahiro Suzuki, Vice President, Head,
Automotive Information System Business Division, Renesas

“The industry needs to reexamine how it’s dealing with embedded security in light of emerging applications and an ever increasing number of connected devices. The holistic approach that Imagination is taking with its OmniShield technology represents the right direction. Imagination has also developed OmniShield to be accessible to its customers with negligible performance and area overhead. The ability to keep security related costs to a minimum will be a key advantage, especially for cost sensitive applications such as IoT.”

– Richard Wawrzyniak, Senior Market Analyst: ASIC & SoC, Semico Research Corp.