A few weeks ago QuickLogic introduced its new, revolutionary EOS Sensor Processing Platform. (In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn – symbolizing that this product represents “the dawn of a new generation of sensor processing systems”.) The announcement garnered a lot of attention in the editorial and analyst community, with over 200 articles published. So what was all the excitement about?
At a high level, it is about a tremendously capable sensor processing platform operating at an amazingly low level of power consumption. Specifically, the platform integrates three dedicated processing engines – Sensor Manager, patent-pending Flexible Fusion Engine (FFE) microDSP, and an ARM Cortex-M4. We save power by using more purpose-built hardware to do the sensor processing, and then leave the ARM core asleep longer. We believe most of the always-on, real-time sensor processing can be done in the FFE, and then the Cortex-M4 can be used to run a Real-Time Operating System, and our sensor framework. And if our customers need more computing capability than the first FFE? We can build a second one using the embedded, ultra-low power in-system reprogrammable FPGA.
Have you heard of always-listening? Through our partnership with Sensory, we now integrate a dedicated block for always-on voice triggering and phrase recognition to enable voice-driven commands at very low power levels – meaning, always listening without the negative impact to battery life. Finally, the platform is designed to work seamlessly with our extensive SenseMe algorithm library as well as customer-developed algorithms.
Customers who choose the EOS Sensor Processing Platform will find that they are able to easily integrate a wide range of advanced user functions without breaking their power budget. These include: pedestrian dead reckoning, sports monitoring, biological and environmental sensor applications, gesture and context awareness, augmented reality and gaming. Just imagine what you could do…