Imagination Technologies has revealed its new line of MIPS-based Creator development board called the Ci40, billing it as "the ultimate IoT-in-a-box development kit" and making it the second in the Creator family. This next-generation board promises to deliver a considerably higher performance than its predecessor, the Ci20.
The Ci40 is geared toward small and medium enterprises or entrepreneurs, but it's also perfect for individual makers, according to Imagination.
"The possibilities are endless — and we can't wait to see how you use Creator in your next project! Examples of applications where Creator Ci40 could be deployed include home automation, e-health, efficient gardening and agriculture projects, smart cities, security and surveillance, safety-critical connected sensors, or environment and air quality monitoring," Imagination says.
While the semiconductor IP company seems far from needing a Kickstarter page to get projects off the ground, Imagination is using the platform to garner user feedback to craft a consumer-ready kit and to deliver the product more quickly compared with traditional methods.
In the box, Imagination packed in the Creator Ci40 IoT hub, two battery-powered MikroElektronika 6LoWPAN Clicker boards and three MikroElektronika click sensors, featuring the Thermo 2 Click, Relay Click and Motion Click.
For the development board's hardware specifications, it houses a 550 MHz dual-core and dual-threaded MIPS interAptiv CPU along with 256 MB worth of DDR3 RAM as well as 512 MB NAND flash and one microSD card for memory. For security, it's fitted with a dedicated TPM chip, and for connectivity, it sports an Ensigma connectivity engine that supports 802.11ac 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1, both Classic and Smart. The hub and other wireless devices can also be connected using 6LoWPAN.
Now for the Clicker board, it features a 32-bit Microchip microcontroller, two LEDs and push buttons, a reset button, a USB connector, a mikroProg connector and the headers for interfacing with external electronics.
As suggested by their names, each of the click sensors has a distinct function, where one can measure temperature, detect motion and control relay.
The Ci40 can also run three different open source operating systems, including OpenWrt, Debian and Google's Brillo. Buildroot can also be used with it to compile embedded Linux systems. On the other hand, the Clicker boards run on the real-time OS Contiki RTOS.
Imagination also adds in access to its FlowCloud IoT framework, allowing users to send in results to the cloud.
Pledgers can get the standalone Ci40 development board for £35 (roughly $53) or the whole package for £80 ($121). For those who want to get the entire kit, it's currently up for £70 (roughly $106) for the first 200 backers.
Hit up the video below to get another look at what Imagination Technologies has in store in its Ci40 Creator kit.
