eInfochips and Toshiba uncover ARTOS12 Development Kit

eInfochips along with Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) has unveiled the ARTOS12 Development Kit at the Project Ara Module Developers Conference 2015.

Devices on Google Project Ara specifications are expected to transform the smartphone experience. Ara modular smartphone users will be able to pick the camera they like, rather than picking a phone for its camera. They could have a battery that lasts for days, have a louder speaker, gaming console, or use the smartphone as their car key. The possibilities are endless.

To enable modular smartphones, eInfochips and TAEC offer the ARTOS12 Google Ara Development Kit for the 1x2 Module that uses Toshiba bridge chip technology and eInfochips engineering services.

Shardul Kazi, Senior Vice-President & Technology Executive, System LSI Group, TAEC, unveiled the Development Kit at the Project Ara Developers Conference this week in the USA, and will do so in Singapore next week.

Shardul Kazi said, "Smartphones double up as HD displays, music players, computers, cameras, wallets and video conferencing equipment. Next, it may be your watch, blood-pressure monitor, memory stick, TV remote, projector and car key. While the Toshiba chips are at the heart of the Ara Smartphone providing the connectivity between the modules, the Development Kit and services can enable these new and exciting designs to get to market much quicker."

The kit features MicroSD and USB slots enabling developers to store data and interface to external devices. The Toshiba T6WR6XBG general-purpose bridge used in the development kit supports optional interfaces such as UART, I2C, I2S, SPI, and GPIO on the 1x2 module.

eInfochips, in addition to being the development and support collaborator for the EITAEC Development Kit, will also offer its expertise on Google Ara modules with custom design and engineering services. These include platform porting, multimedia integration, application development, and performance optimization, among others.

According to Parag Mehta, Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer, eInfochips, "eInfochips is one of a handful of global engineering services companies with the experience in hardware, software and system design needed to deliver world-class Project Ara smartphone modules."

Project Ara is a development effort to create a modular hardware ecosystem-rivalling mobile apps in the pace and level of innovation around smartphones. With the goal of enabling users to create a modular smartphone that is precisely tailored to their functional and aesthetic preferences and to bring the mobile internet to the approximately 5 billion people who don't yet have smartphones.