ARM acquires Sensinode, a vendor of software for Internet of Things

ARM has acquired Sensinode in Finland in its bid to provide technology and processors for the "Internet of things," consisting of a variety of low-power and inexpensive devices including sensors communicating with the Internet and one another.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Privately-held Sensinode has led to the creation of the 6LoWPAN and CoAP standards for low-cost, low-power devices to connect to the Internet, ARM said Tuesday.

CoAP, for Constrained Application Protocol, enables web services for constrained devices and networks, while integrating with the Web architecture and HTTP. 6LoWPAN is a standard from the Internet Engineering Task Force first published in 2007, which optimizes IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) for use with low-power, low-bandwidth communication technologies. The technologies reduce the complexity and overhead of key Internet and Web protocols to make them easy to handle by small footprint devices.

ARM is adding Sensinode technologies to its mbed project, an industry collaboration to deliver open source hardware and software building blocks for rapid development of intelligent connected devices. IMS Research said in October that the Internet of Things will have 28 billion Internet-connected devices by the end of 2020.

ARM in Cambridge, U.K., has said it is committed to enabling a standards-based Internet of Things where devices of all types and capabilities are connected through interoperable Internet protocols and Web services.

The company, which licenses the designs for the chips that go into a majority of smartphones, is now targeting the embedded market, providing free software libraries, hardware designs and online tools for professional rapid prototyping of products built around ARM microcontrollers.

ARM will continue to offer Sensinode's NanoStack and NanoService products, built around 6LoWPAN and CoAP, commercially to existing and new customers, it said.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com