Flexible licensing & support models speed time-to-market

To accelerate customers’ time-to-market, Imagination provides its Ensigma Radio communications Processor Units (RPUs) as complete communications solutions including certifications. In addition to licensing baseband IP, Imagination provides RF IP for customers who need it. Imagination already works with partner RF providers and customers’ own in-house RF to provide a range of RF choices that work with Ensigma basebands. Customers who don’t already have RF capability can license Ensigma RF as hard IP blocks for SoC integration or standalone use. If needed, customers can also take advantage of Imagination’s back-end productisation, pre-certification, characterisation and test capabilities.

Toshiya Matsui, General Manager, Toshiba, commented: “We leveraged multiple Imagination IP cores in our highly integrated IoT processors. This includes the Ensigma Explorer RPU that provides the high-speed WiFi which is a hallmark of these processors. The fact that Imagination also offers RF made it easy for us to take these processors into production.”

Nir Shapira, CTO, Celeno Communications, said: “As a leading provider of high-performance WiFi chips and software, it’s critical that we partner with companies who provide a combination of high-quality technology and flexible business models. We recently worked with Imagination on a high-end 4x4 802.11ac Wave 2 design project and their highly flexible and proficient approach assisted us tremendously in delivering an optimised solution to the market within tight time-to-market constraints.”

Chakra Parvathaneni, Vice President, Ensigma business operations, Imagination, added: “Connectivity is increasingly moving on-chip, not only the baseband, but also in many cases the RF functionality. With Ensigma, Imagination provides the world’s most complete end-to-end connectivity IP solutions from RF to baseband, enabling customers to easily integrate a broad spectrum of communications capabilities into their SoC designs. Our Ensigma RPUs, including the high-performance Explorer family and low-power Whisper family, are already shipping in millions of units."

As part of its commitment to providing a range of RF choices that complement Ensigma RPUs, Imagination has collaborated with Synopsys, a leading provider of high-quality IP solutions. Synopsys provides DesignWare Bluetooth Smart IP, supporting the latest BLE standard and operating down to 1V supply and AFE IP to enable wireless device connectivity with low-power consumption.

John Koeter, Vice President, Marketing, IP and prototyping, Synopsys, said: “Synopsys collaborated with Imagination to ensure our silicon-proven DesignWare Bluetooth Smart IP and AFE IP solutions are fully interoperable with Imagination’s Ensigma baseband IP. We worked closely with Imagination to optimise radio drivers, enabling low-risk integration of our Bluetooth Smart IP with Ensigma’s baseband into customer designs.”