MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.,
Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CEVA,
Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA); (LSE: CVA), the leading licensor of silicon
intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, today
announced that it has made a minority equity investment, together
with Mitsui & Co. Global Investment Ltd, in eyeSight Mobile
Technologies, a leader in touch-free interfaces for smartphones,
tablets, PCs, smart TVs and other digital devices. Under the equity
investment agreement, eyeSight will offer its advanced portfolio of
touch-free interface technologies, including gesture recognition
and finger tracking software, to users of the CEVA-MM3000 image
signal processing (ISP) and video platform. The combined offering
will deliver an ultra-low power, software-based solution, enabling
the cost-efficient deployment of gesture recognition technologies
in mass market devices.
Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA, commented: "The combination of
our fully programmable CEVA-MM3000 platform together with
eyeSight's industry-leading gesture technology will clearly
demonstrate the versatility of our powerful, software-based ISP and
video platform. This equity investment in eyeSight is aimed at
expanding the addressable markets for our CEVA-MM3000 platform to
include the burgeoning embedded vision and scene analysis arenas.
We are strategically focused to further enhance our DSP and
platform ecosystems, providing our customers with broader solutions
to enable true product differentiation and to shorten their time to
market."
The complexity of gesture recognition applications continues to
rapidly evolve and poses a significant burden on CPU performance
and power consumption. By offloading the main CPU from performing
advanced gesture technologies to the CEVA-MM3000, it is estimated
that the system power efficiency can be improved by a factor of
20X, crucial for any battery powered device. Enabling low cost
deployment for gesture applications, eyeSight leverages the
existing camera in any device to enable the gesture functionality
without any increase in bill-of-materials. In addition, the fully
programmable nature of the CEVA-MM3000 platform facilitates future
upgrades of eyeSight's technologies through software updates, and
allows customers to add their own proprietary features and
algorithms to the platform.
Gideon Shmuel, CEO of eyeSight,
commented: "We are pleased to strengthen our relationship with CEVA
towards advancing the adoption of gesture technologies in mass
market devices. Semiconductor vendors require higher performance,
lower power and more flexible processor solutions to successfully
incorporate advanced gesture technology into their product
designs. Our strategic partnership with CEVA brings together
our industry-leading gesture recognition technologies with the
industry's most advanced ISP and video platform to offer the
CEVA-MM3000 users a powerful, software-based solution that delivers
dramatically improved performance when compared to existing
RISC-based architectures."
The CEVA-MM3000 is a family of scalable, low-power, fully
programmable ISP and video solutions, targeting pre and post
processing of HD video and imaging functions, image pipeline, ISP
applications, scene analysis and video codecs. The CEVA-MM3000
comprises a complete hardware platform, pre-optimized software
layers, and a comprehensive software development environment,
including compilers, debuggers, simulators and development boards.
The solution is scalable to meet various market needs, from
smartphones and tablets to smart TVs and set-top boxes.
CEVA and Mitsui & Co. Global Investment Ltd participated in
the current investment round of $4.2
million.
To learn more about the CEVA-MM3000 platform, visit
www.ceva-dsp.com/HD.
About eyeSight
eyeSight Mobile Technologies Ltd. is a leader in touch free
Interfaces for digital devices. Its technology allows users to
control digital devices with simple hand gestures by using the
built-in camera, advanced real-time image processing and machine
vision algorithms. For more information, visit
www.eyesight-tech.com.
About CEVA, Inc.
CEVA is the world's leading licensor of silicon intellectual
property (SIP) DSP cores and platform solutions for the mobile
handset, portable and consumer electronics markets. CEVA's IP
portfolio includes comprehensive technologies for cellular baseband
(2G / 3G / 4G), multimedia (HD video, Image Signal Processing (ISP)
and HD audio), voice over packet (VoP), Bluetooth, Serial Attached
SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2010, CEVA's IP was shipped in
over 600 million devices, powering handsets from 7 out of the top 8
handset OEMs, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson
and ZTE. Today, more than one in every three handsets shipped
worldwide is powered by a CEVA DSP core. For more information,
visit www.ceva-dsp.com. Follow CEVA on twitter at
www.twitter.com/cevadsp.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements about the
market opportunities and anticipated performance of the combined
offering that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as
assumptions that if they materialize or prove incorrect, could
cause the results of CEVA to differ materially from those expressed
or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. The
risks, uncertainties and assumptions include: the ability of the
combined offering of CEVA-MM3000 platform and eyeSight gesture
technologies to achieve the anticipated performance, CEVA's success
in penetrating new markets with the combined offering, offerings by
competitors, the possibility that the markets for CEVA's
technologies may not develop as expected, and other risks relating
to CEVA's business, including, but not limited to, those that are
described from time to time in its SEC filings. CEVA assumes no
obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information,
which speak as of their respective dates.
SOURCE CEVA, Inc.