Sensor Platforms is a fabless semiconductor company enabling the next wave in personal electronic devices as they progress beyond personal computers and web-enabled handsets to include solutions that interact with their surroundings. Because the transition to a new level of location- and motion-aware computing requires a new class of algorithms and hardware, Sensor Platforms delivers precision analog/mixed signal products including a family of devices for navigation, Natural Motion™ interface, and rotational vibration cancellation.

Founded: August 2004
Investors: Arrowpath, Newbury, North Bay Angels
Intellectual Property: Two patents filed; six in progress
Foundry Partner: TSMC, Ltd.
Headquarters: 2860 Zanker Road, #210, San Jose, CA 95134

The Mission

Sensor Platforms delivers ICs to enable location- and motion-aware personal electronic devices. The company has a brain trust with a rich background in, and knowledge of, sensor physics, advanced algorithms and precision analog/mixed signal technology. The company combines those elements with its proprietary application-specific heuristics to produce easy-to-use systems that offer sustainable advantages in their various markets.

Sensor Platforms’ Technology and Market Opportunities

Sensor Platforms’ brain trust includes leaders in the fields of accelerometers, micro-magnetometers, algorithms and precision analog technology working to address the rich opportunities opening up as the demand for location-aware sensors grows exponentially.

Sensor Platforms’ new class of sensor system ICs enable high levels of personal productivity in devices targeted at consumer, computer and industrial applications. Upcoming product families include: rotational vibration cancellers for hard disk drives; location-aware devices for heading orientation and indoor positional tracking; and Natural Motion™ interfaces for handheld devices. Applications range from gaming controllers and free-space remote controls, to “indoor GPS” and dead reckoning products in handsets and personal navigation devices (PND).

We will look at each of these application categories, beginning with what we call Natural Motion interfaces, and then “Indoor GPS”/Dead Reckoning opportunities.

Natural Motion Interface Opportunities

People are drawn to the Internet because of its astonishing variety of content. At the same time, the Internet has to compete with traditional media outlets from cable television to DVDs. And each of these, in turn, offers a wide variety of content, from MTV to ESPN to video on demand. Providers of both conventional and Internet media must compete for consumers’ attention (and dollars) by offering quality content, easy-to-use interfaces, and a more immediate, even tactile, user experience.

Just as it is inconceivable now to imagine using the Internet without a mouse, the limitation of an up-down-left-right arrow keypad for home entertainment systems is an obvious place for improvement. Consumers want an interface that offers more while remaining intuitive to use.

A Natural Motion interface is a pointing device that allows a viewer to manipulate images on a TV screen by moving a pointer freely in 3-dimensional space, doing for the TV even more than the mouse did in 2-dimensions for the personal computer.

For example, action gaming is expanding far beyond young hard-core gamers to include people of all ages and interests. The market opportunities are nearly limitless. The reason the Nintendo Wii out-ships the PlayStation is because it offers a natural motion interface which is far more intuitive and satisfying than using thumbs-only.

But Sensor Platforms is advancing natural motion interface technology beyond today’s performance and cost barriers. For example, the Nintendo Wii requires unsightly LED strips that limit the users range of motion and add needless extra cost. And current attempts at implementing 3D remotes require pointers whose location is difficult to control, and which need expensive, power-hungry rechargeable batteries.

The Sensor Platforms advantages in a Natural Motion interface include the use of inexpensive, commodity sensor elements, including accelerometers and magnetometers. The company’s auto-calibration algorithm continuously adapts to usage environments and provides a seamless interface to its users, all while being powered by AA batteries.

The “Indoor GPS”/Dead Reckoning Opportunities

Market research firm Gartner Inc. projects 43.2 million subscribers to mobile Location-Based Services (LBS) in 2008, generating revenue of $1.3 billion. By 2011, Gartner expects the number of subscribers to reach nearly 300 million and revenue will top $8 billion. This will be for such applications as:

• Indoor navigation
• Child monitoring/Security
• Asset tracking/Car finder
• Social networking and “buddy finders”

At the same time, “Indoor GPS” is becoming a recognized challenge for indoor and subway commuters since current cellular service cannot pinpoint indoor locations and altitude (required for safety and security), or determine location in an ‘urban canyon’ surrounded by high-rise buildings.

The Sensor Platforms approach addresses all of these issues because the company partners with those who are making sensors and GPS devices.

Other benefits of the Sensor Platforms approach include:

• improved performance over existing cellular infrastructure triangulation technology;
• lower cost due to minimize indoor AGPS infrastructure;
• replacement of expensive drifting gyros by magnetometers and effective GPS radio power is reduced from 50mW to 5mW.