Hillcrest Labs Joins Atmel® Partner Program to Deliver Low Power, High Performance Sensor Hubs

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Hillcrest Labs today announced it has extended its collaboration with Atmel® Corporation as part of Atmel's Partner Program to deliver turn-key sensor hub solutions. Sensor hubs are an increasingly popular approach to offload sensor management from the main processor. The combination of Hillcrest's SH-1 sensor hub software and Atmel's ultra-low power microcontrollers provides 'always on' features such as context awareness and gesture recognition to augment the consumer experience and minimize system power consumption.

This announcement builds on previous collaborations between Hillcrest and Atmel which resulted in earlier generation sensor hub solutions. In a separate announcement today, Hillcrest unveiled its SH-1 sensor hub product, which will efficiently manage inertial, magnetic and environmental sensors initially using Atmel's SAM D20 ARM^® Cortex^® M0+ based microcontroller. This product is targeted at smartphones, tablets, wearable electronic devices, and the Internet of Things.

"It's critical that software and hardware are harmonized to deliver the advanced functionality and extended battery life that today's consumer electronics OEMs require," said Espen Krangnes, Senior Product Marketing Manager, MCU Product Marketing, Atmel Corporation. "Hillcrest's heritage in developing cutting-edge motion processing software and our past experiences with the team made them an essential partner for our new program, and we look forward to working with them to develop products to address this rapidly growing market."

"Atmel's commitment to power-efficient, processing-intensive microcontrollers made them a perfect complement to our low-power, high-performance sensor hub software," said Chad Lucien, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Hillcrest Labs. "By extending our partnership, we are now able to provide a turn-key solution with more functionality and better performance to our customers."

Hillcrest will present information about the new sensor hub solution during the session: "Sensor Fusion, Sensor Hubs, and the Future of Smartphone Intelligence" at ARM TechCon, taking place October 30^th in Santa Clara, CA at 1:30 p.m. PT in Grand Ballroom B, and in Atmel's booth #207.

For more information on the Atmel Partner Program, visit: www.Atmel.com/SensorHub . Additional information about Hillcrest's broad portfolio of motion control products is available at: www.HillcrestLabs.com.

About Hillcrest Labs:
Hillcrest Labs is the leading global supplier of software and hardware for motion-enabled products. Our Freespace^® technology transforms human movement into high quality, application-ready motion information. With a decade of development and many unique patented features, products come to life with Freespace motion. Companies that have licensed or use Hillcrest's motion technology include: Atmel, Eastman Kodak, Hisense, Intel, LG Electronics, Logitech, Roku, SMK Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., TCL Multimedia, Universal Electronics (UEI), and others.

Hillcrest has received numerous awards and recognitions including the prestigious CES Innovations Honoree Award multiple times, IMS Research's TV Innovation Awards, EE Times' ACE Award, PC World's 100 Best Products and Greatest Tech Designs, Popular Mechanics' Editors Choice, ECN's Reader's Choice Tech, and many others. Additional information about Hillcrest's broad portfolio of motion control products is available at: www.HillcrestLabs.com. Follow Hillcrest on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HillcrestLabs or Twitter at @HillcrestLabs.

SOURCE Hillcrest Labs