I was caught a bit off guard during today’s conference call by a question from an analyst who visited our suite at CES where we demonstrated our pre-production ArcticLink 3 S1 sensor hub solution.   The reason I was caught off guard is that, as we were demonstrating pre-production silicon and beta software, we simply don’t see the occasional glitches from beta software as “bugs,” and neither do our perspective customers.

Knowing the one most important thing that prospective customers were most interested in seeing was power consumption under a variety of use cases, we loaded the demo with some new beta software and algorithms to broaden what we could demonstrate, and to illustrate the ultra-low-power consumption of the platform under additional use cases.

Our customers work with leading-edge devices every day, and know that beta software will occasionally exhibit glitches; including some that might require a quick system reboot.  However, the customer focus was on the meter that showed power consumption was running in the range of 216 micro watts to 252 micro watts – much lower than the 300 micro watts we’ve been discussing, and substantially lower than any of the processor-based solutions we’ve seen from other semiconductor companies.  The customers that saw these demos (which occasionally exhibited software glitches) were universally impressed, and in a number cases, we have ongoing design engagements.

Following the conference call, I discussed the specific demo provided for the analyst, as well as the status of the software, with my engineers.  I have been assured the glitches have been fully addressed, fixed, and stress-tested, insuring they are no longer issues.  I apologize for not being able to answer the question more accurately and fully during the conference call, but lacking the specific data for an appropriate answer, I thought it best to research before responding off the cuff.