Embedded Vision Alliance announces eight new members, upcoming industry summit

USA: The Embedded Vision Alliance announced that eight companies have joined the Alliance in the past four months, bringing membership to a total of 33 companies.

The Embedded Vision Alliance brings together providers of technology that enables creation of computer vision applications in embedded systems, mobile devices, PCs and the cloud. On April 25, the Alliance will host the Embedded Vision Summit, a free day-long technical educational forum for engineers interested in incorporating visual intelligence into electronic systems and software.

Reflecting the Alliance's diversity, its new members supply ICs, IP cores, software and services to companies implementing embedded vision capabilities in their next-generation products. The new Alliance members are also geographically diverse, based in Austria, Belgium, Canada, India and the US.

New Alliance members providing semiconductors and associated software include GEO Semiconductor, Qualcomm and SoftKinetic.

GEO Semiconductor develops technologies for geometric correction and compression of video and specializes in ultra-wide field of view "fisheye" dewarping; in early 2013, the company acquired the video processing business of fellow Alliance member Maxim Integrated Products.

Qualcomm supplies the popular Snapdragon line of ARM-based application processors, as well as other embedded vision innovations such the Vuforia augmented reality software platform and the FastCV algorithm library.

SoftKinetic is a provider of 3D vision and gesture recognition solutions, including CMOS sensors, cameras and embedded modules, middleware, and applications such as games.

New Alliance members providing processor IP cores are FireFlyDSP and Tensilica. FireFlyDSP offers DSP core solutions, accelerators and consulting to optimize embedded vision for performance, code size and silicon costs while enabling a modern software programming environment. Tensilica's highly specialized and customizable dataplane processor unit (DPU) cores sit alongside a central applications processor.

Tensilica recently introduced the IVP, an imaging and video DPU for the complex image/video signal processing functions in mobile handsets, tablets, digital televisions, automotive, video games and computer vision based applications.

New Alliance members providing design services include Bluetechnix, Fidus Systems and PathPartner Technology Consulting. Austria-based Bluetechnix provides hardware and software design services and a broad range of standard products. Bluetechnix just released its new line of 3D time-of-flight cameras featuring the Argos3D-P100 off-the-shelf camera and the Sentis-M100 board-level camera.

Fidus Systems, which is headquartered in Canada and operates a Silicon Valley design center, specializes in high-speed, high-complexity, electronic design services. Fidus' extensive expertise includes hardware, FPGA, signal integrity, embedded software, and mechanical design. Fidus is a Xilinx Premier Design Services member.

PathPartner, based in India, provides software solutions, engineering services, system integration and technology consulting which enable the development and deployment of devices for embedded vision and other markets.

"The Alliance's recent—and quite rapid—membership growth shows that embedded vision is no longer a 'future' technology, but one that presents real and exciting opportunities today, in applications as diverse as automotive safety, healthcare and entertainment," said Alliance founder Jeff Bier.