Imagination Technologies is making its innovative FlowCloud technology available to developers, including the maker community, hobbyists and students, to speed application development for the Internet of Things (IoT). FlowCloud support will be available on several low-cost development boards with MIPS CPUs across a range of operating systems.

FlowCloud technology connects devices to the internet, enabling easy product registration and updates as well as access to partner-enabled services including FlowAudio, a cloud-based music and radio service that includes hundreds of thousands of radio stations, on-demand programmes, podcasts and more.

The first board with FlowCloud support is the new chipKIT WiFire from Digilent Inc. The chipKIT WiFire board is a development platform that uses Microchip’s 32-bit PIC32MZ microcontroller (MCU) with a MIPS microAptiv CPU, giving users an MCU solution for IoT deployment. Imagination and partners will deploy FlowCloud support for other MIPS-based Android/Linux development boards in the near future.

Says Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination: “Imagination provides complete IP solutions and comprehensive platforms that speed development time for our customers, their customers and developers. FlowCloud is a unique and powerful offering for developers and the industry, and is proven and mature, having already deployed in volume. The new work we are doing with low-cost MIPS-based development boards extends the FlowCloud ecosystem and makes the platform far more accessible to developers.”

Users can start prototyping faster with this newest addition to the Arduino compatible chipKIT ecosystem, built by Digilent Inc. Based on Microchip Technology’s MIPS-based 32-bit PIC32 MCUs, the wide range of chipKIT development boards are designed to get projects up and running in minimum time. Most chipKIT platforms are hardware compatible with many existing Arduino shields, and existing code examples and reference materials are easily migrated. This gives the user a large base of options they can utilize in the development process.

The chipKIT WiFire is only available through Digilent Inc. It builds on the previous chipKIT development boards with a significant processor performance increase over the previous generation, via Microchip’s latest PIC32MZ MCU, whichincludes a MIPS microAptiv CPU core from Imagination. microAptiv is a highly-efficient, compact, real-time embedded processor core with the microMIPS code compression instruction set architecture and DSP instructions.

Rod Drake, director of Microchip’s MCU32 Division, says: “Every day, more and more embedded systems are adding Internet connectivity, and the new chipKIT WiFire with our latest high-performance PIC32MZ MCU, which utilizes the microAptiv core, provides an ideal platform for IoT development. The PIC32MZ and MPLAB Harmony software framework were designed for high-end, next-generation embedded applications that require high levels of performance, memory and advanced-peripheral integration. The addition of FlowCloud provides even more value for IoT and cloud applications.”

Says Clint Cole, president, Digilent: “The chipKIT development platforms were the first to make 32-bit capability available to the Arduino community. Now, the growing chipKIT ecosystem has achieved a new level of innovation with the most advanced 32-bit, MIPS-based MCUs from Microchip, together with the ground-breaking FlowCloud technology from Imagination. It will be very exciting to see what developers can do with the exciting new chipKIT WiFire platform.”