The demand for sensor hubs, dedicated processing elements used for low-power sensor processing tasks, is booming. In fact due to "always on" sensor processing trends and the limitations of battery technology, the overall market for all types of sensor hubs exceeded one billion units in 2015, and is projected to rise to nearly two billion units in 2018, according to IHS. Samsung, Apple and Motorola have already been using sensor hubs in their smartphones for a number of years, and Apple, Motorola and Microsoft explicitly advertise their use of sensor hubs or sensor cores in certain smartphones. "The sensor hub market is incredibly dynamic, changing rapidly over the last two years, due in large part to Apple's iPhones," said Marwan Boustany, Senior Analyst at IHS. "When Apple shifted from a discrete microcontroller to an integrated application processor based solution for the iPhone 6S line in 2015, it signaled to other manufacturers that this approach had reached maturity."
