Another go with MIPS IoT: Imagination unveils new Creator board

Imagination Technologies has announced the Creator Ci40, a development board for Internet of Things (IoT) projects, based on the MIPS interAptiv CPU. Imagination Technologies is best known for its PowerVR GPUs, which are licensed to mobile and SoC (System on a Chip) vendors including Apple. In late 2012, the company acquired …

[Destroy All Monsters]

Someone has gone to some length to test the boundaries of Direct El Reg Power Posting Protocol (DERPPP) in order to revive the below El Reg Tombstone.

Kudos!!

[Sykobee]

This doesn't appear to do graphics at all, so it will truly be an IoT board.

So not a follow up to the Ci20, but a complementary board for more embedded uses.

Quad-threaded wireless controlled microwaves/ovens/fridge-freezers anyone?

[tojb]

no, actually it does appear to do graphics

TFA mentions a powerVR SGX 540 on board, which supports OpenGL ES 2.0. Normal sort of graphics level for a tablet or phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

"two virtual processing elements (VPEs), or hardware threads"

They couldn't exactly call it Hyper-Threading now could they...

[Steve Todd]

Not an easy sell

There are many options already out there. At the really cheap end there is the ESP8266, that gives you a microcontroller with built in WiFi for a few dollars. Most IoT stuff doesn't require multiple GHz cores so what exactly are they targeting with this?

[tojb]

Re: Not an easy sell

Hmm: tablet-like graphics + radio etc. About the spec of an ipad a few years ago.... so....

1) e-reader?

2) touchscreen-controlled domestic appliances? Currently to do anything much with my washing machine beyond turning it off or on, I have to pair it with my phone. That is actually pretty annoying. Can see similar reasoning for house thermostats.

3) Houses with complicated, integrated, energy systems? Solar panels+batteries+wood-pellet-boiler+e-vehicle charging.... all need an interface, nice if they have some sort of networking, although fixed kit should imho have fixed wiring.

4) Chromebook-type-things? Doesn't quite have the beef for modern internet, HD ads, multiple youtube videos etc. Thats a nope on number 4 from me.

5) In-car entertainment player/controller? I notice the ENSIGMA name on the block diagram, this part of IMG works with digital radio & video.

6) Home media server? Should be a good fit actually, no need to shove in a wifi dongle as for R-Pi.

[Steve Todd]

Re: Not an easy sell @tojb

I'm not quite sure you get the IoT, or how much CPU power you need for a given job.

1) a couple of hundred MHz CPU is plenty for an eReader. Look at what's in the Kindle.

2) You can handle touch screens with 8 bit CPUs, STM do a version of their Discovery board with a built in touch screen and a 180MHz ARM. It's plenty fast enough for anything an appliance would need.

3) a house would comprise a network of IoT devices. Non of them, nor the hub, need serious power to handle their job.

4) chromebooks are not IoT devices.

5) ICE doesn't need huge amounts of CPU either. The trend here is to make it little more than a smart screen for whatever latest and greatest smart device the user has bought. That way it won't lag behind over the lifetime of a car (10+ years).

6) you can get very cheap ARM based systems (the Orange Pi for example is a 4 core, 1.6GHz ARM A7 machine with 1GB of RAM, and costs £10). The cost of an external WiFi dongle is tiny. Unless you expect to see these in sub £20 devices then it's a non starter.

[tojb]

Re: Not an easy sell @tojb

>>I'm not quite sure you get the IoT

Quite right, I have no clue what conceivable benefit swarm-networking desklamps and tins of beans is supposed to provide. Hopefully I'll understand it when I see it.

I have to agree with you on all points, except:

1) OK, a more powerful ereader is a tablet, maybe specced a bit above the kindle fire but below a surface 2.

2) So throw in gesture and speech recognition, that can burn a bit more.

6) My R-Pi (OK I only have the first one) is painfully slow when I run full-fat linux on it with a proper sized TV screen. More beef than that, with a better GPU and some built-in codecs and radio support would be a good thing to have. Whether it comes in at a competitive pricepoint to similar-powered x86 stuff, we can find out.

[druck]

Re: Not an easy sell @tojb

tobj wrote:

My R-Pi (OK I only have the first one) is painfully slow when I run full-fat linux on it with a proper sized TV screen.

Try a Pi2, its far faster than the Pi1 vs Pi2s specs would suggest, and a mid weight desktop such as Mate is eminently usable.

[LaeMing]

Re: Not an easy sell

Putting out something different to all the cheap stuff already out there may be part of their plan.

[Mikel]

Imagination doesn't like open source

No docs, no deal.

[Flocke Kroes]

Remember it's IoT

OK, _normally_ you need docs for open source drivers so you can keep the kernel up to date with security fixes. This is IoT, so security does not matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another go?

In the time frame of things they have only just started.

We have NT, the main basis for XP running on Mips so why not have a full blown Windows 10 running on a now 50 times faster Mips? Incredibly, NT suooprted4 chip typesbefore the monoloply X86 decision was made.

Times, they are a changin'. Android already supports Mips, so with this Android total now at 3, the consumer likely wins below 10.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Another go?

A long time ago (like 1998) I was involved in a project that decided to go with Windows NT instead of VMS because it was going to support multiple hardware platforms and be flexible and secure. All of the things that MS promised.

Alas, after buying some Alpha workstation for this (not cheap, but super-computer like speeds then) MS announced the death of all non-x86 platforms. Our customer (who was quite technical) was far from pleased and although the project was completed fine (and better than some other partner's work) the change in MS' support was a major blow.

Fast forward almost 20 years and I can see MS blow this way and that, and I am might pleased not to be dependent on them for any of my work (other than the odd Windows VM to run CAD software).

[nigelhorne]

Stability?

Let's hope it's more stable than there CI20.