Seeking to expand its sensor footprint, CEVA, Inc., which licenses signal processing platforms and artificial intelligence processors for smarter, connected devices, has acquired the Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. (Hillcrest Labs) business from InterDigital, Inc. Hillcrest Labs supplies software and components for sensor processing in consumer and IoT devices.
Hillcrest Labs is regarded as an innovator in the fusion of data from multiple sensors to enable intelligent systems. The resulting algorithms and software are used in sensors, such as Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), and end user products to enable contextual awareness and an enriched user experience for various devices, such as the precise navigation of autonomous robots and drones.
Hillcrest Labs’ MotionEngine software supports a broad range of merchant sensor chips and is licensed to OEMs and semiconductor companies that can run the software on CEVA DSPs or various RISC CPUs, including Arm Cortex-M and A series and RISC-V based cores. The MotionEngine software expands and complements CEVA’s smart sensing technology, which includes computer vision and AI processing for cameras and sound processing for microphones.
The acquisition enables CEVA DSP licensees to benefit from CEVA’s capabilities as a complete, one-stop-shop for processing all classes and types of sensors. Moreover, the Hillcrest Labs software technology broadens CEVA’s software licensing engagements directly with OEMs and ODMs to enable the addition of a plethora of IMU-based software applications to their merchant SoCs, which adopt a royalty payment scheme based on devices rather than chips.
Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA, said in a statement, "We are truly excited to welcome the Hillcrest Labs team to CEVA. Their unrivalled expertise in sensor processing and innovative sensor fusion technology, as well as proven track record of high-volume shipments align perfectly with our diversification strategy in the smart sensing domain. This acquisition presents opportunities for multiple royalty growth vectors, including from OEMs, and enables us to be a pioneer in the emerging fields of AR & VR and the different classes of robots.”