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Movidius

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Movidius
Information
Industry Semiconductors, computer vision
Founded 2005, Dublin, Ireland
Founder Sean Mitchell, David Moloney
Headquarters San Mateo, California, United States
Notable Personnel Remi El-Ouazzane (CEO), David Moloney (CTO), Sean Mitchell (COO)
Products Myriad vision processing units, Neural Compute Stick
Parent Intel


Movidius was a chip company, founded in Dublin, Ireland, that designed low-power vision processing units (VPUs) sold under the Myriad name. Sean Mitchell and David Moloney set the company up in 2005; by 2016 it was headquartered in San Mateo, California, with a large design center in Dublin.[1][2] Its first-generation Myriad 1 chip was the vision co-processor in Google's Project Tango prototype phone in 2014, and its Myriad 2 was used in DJI drones, the Google Clips camera and the Intel RealSense T265 tracking camera.[3][4][5]

Movidius pitched its chips to virtual and augmented reality headset makers as a way to run camera-based tasks such as eye tracking, hand tracking, depth sensing and positional tracking on a dedicated low-power chip instead of the GPU.[6] Intel announced its acquisition of the company in September 2016 and named AR, VR and merged reality among the areas where it planned to use the technology.[7] Intel kept the Movidius brand for later Myriad chips such as the Myriad X,[2][8] and the neural processing unit in its later PC processors is based on Movidius designs.[9]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Founding, funding, staff, chip figures, customer deals, Intel acquisition and later products checked against every cited source. About review dates.

History

Founding and early years

According to the Irish Examiner, Sean Mitchell and David Moloney founded Movidius in Dublin in 2005.[1] Chief executive Remi El-Ouazzane told The Verge in 2016 that the company "was founded in late 2005, so we've had a long gestation". In its early years Movidius found work converting old films into 3D for the 3D television market, and in 2010 its chips were used as an engine for 3D rendering.[10] In 2013 SiliconANGLE described its Myriad 3-D platform as a low-power co-processor for multimedia tasks such as 3D video capture and 2D-to-3D conversion.[11]

Movidius raised a 9 million US dollar Series C round in November 2011. In July 2013 it raised a 16 million US dollar Series D round led by Robert Bosch Venture Capital, DFJ Esprit and Atlantic Bridge, with existing investors Capital E and the AIB Seed Capital Fund taking part; the money was to fund new mobile products and a team in Silicon Valley, where the company had set up its new US headquarters. At the same time Remi El-Ouazzane became chief executive and Dan Dobberpuhl became chairman of the board.[11] El-Ouazzane had previously managed Texas Instruments' OMAP division.[3] Fora later reported that the company had nearly gone under in 2013 before that cash injection.[12] El-Ouazzane told The Verge that it was only in 2013, through its work with Google's Tango project, that the company saw how widely computer vision could be applied and refocused its chips on that market.[10]

Project Tango and Myriad 2

In February 2014 Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group revealed the Project Tango prototype smartphone, which used the Myriad 1 as a vision co-processor. TechCrunch reported that the chip ran in the range of a couple of hundred milliwatts, far below the more than 1 W drawn by vision systems such as the PrimeSense chip in Microsoft's original Kinect, and that Movidius had raised around 50 million US dollars by then.[3]

Movidius announced the second-generation Myriad 2 on 30 July 2014, claiming 20 times the processing efficiency per watt of the Myriad 1. Silicon Republic reported at the time that the company employed 55 people.[13] Engadget reported that the chip consumed 500 mW while processing up to 2 teraflops per second and could handle six HD cameras at once.[14] Moloney and colleagues presented the architecture at the Hot Chips 26 symposium in August 2014 and in a 2015 IEEE Micro paper that describes the Myriad 2 as an always-on vision processing unit for mobile, wearable and embedded applications.[15][16] The chip has its own article, Movidius Myriad 2.

TheJournal.ie described Movidius as a fabless company that designs chips and outsources their production; The Verge later reported that the chips were made by TSMC.[17][10] In April 2015 Movidius raised 40 million US dollars from a consortium that included the China Ireland Technology Growth Fund. TheJournal.ie reported that it then had about 70 staff across three offices, with its headquarters in Silicon Valley, and that it planned to create up to 100 jobs in Ireland.[17] Taoiseach Enda Kenny and jobs minister Richard Bruton announced the jobs at the company's Dublin offices. The Irish Examiner put the investment at 38 million euro and said the company intended to develop more hardware and software for VR headsets, drones, home automation and wearables.[1] The Irish Examiner also named a design center in Timisoara, Romania, in addition to the Dublin and Silicon Valley offices.[1]

Google, DJI and the Fathom stick

On 27 January 2016 Google announced that it would license the Myriad 2 family, including the MA2150 and MA2450 chips and their software development kits.[18] In March 2016 Movidius announced that the Myriad 2 was at the center of the onboard processor in DJI's Phantom 4 drone. The Verge reported that it processed depth from the drone's stereo cameras, proximity from its sonar sensors and optical flow for following people, supporting the drone's obstacle avoidance and subject tracking, and put the company's size at 125 people at that point.[10] DJI's Mavic Pro, unveiled on 27 September 2016, used a newer Myriad 2 variant, the MA2155, which Movidius said had 30 percent better power efficiency than its predecessor; the Phantom 4 had used the MA2100.[19]

In April 2016 the company introduced Fathom, a USB stick with a Myriad 2 inside that let developers run neural networks built with Caffe or TensorFlow on embedded ARM-based devices. Tom's Hardware reported the stick's performance as 80 to 150 GFLOPS at under 1.2 W.[20]

Intel acquisition

Intel announced the pending acquisition in early September 2016; its investor-relations release is dated 5 September, while its newsroom post and press coverage are dated 6 September.[21] The announcement was a post by Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of its New Technology Group. Walden wrote that "Movidius' technology optimizes, enhances and brings RealSense capabilities to fruition", and said Intel would look to deploy it in "augmented, virtual and merged reality (AR/VR/MR), drones, robotics, digital security cameras and beyond".[7] Intel did not disclose the price. SiliconANGLE cited an estimate of 400 million US dollars and reported that Movidius had about 180 employees and would keep its brand inside the New Technology Group.[2] Irish press reported the deal as worth at least 300 million euro and said Movidius had raised about 85 million US dollars over its life.[22] MIT Technology Review, which had named Movidius one of its 50 Smartest Companies of 2016, noted that DJI drones and Google's Tango platform were using its chips at the time of the deal.[23] In March 2017 Fora reported that Movidius had about 200 staff worldwide, 80 of them in Dublin; chief operating officer Sean Mitchell said that staying independent would have required raising another 50 to 100 million US dollars.[12]

Under Intel

As part of Intel, the unit released the Movidius Neural Compute Stick on 20 July 2017, a 79 US dollar USB accelerator built on the Myriad 2. El-Ouazzane, by then vice president and general manager of Movidius, said the chip delivered "more than 100 gigaflops of performance within a 1W power envelope".[24] On 28 August 2017 Intel introduced the Myriad X, which it called the first system-on-chip shipping with a dedicated Neural Compute Engine for deep neural network inference, and listed virtual reality among its target product categories alongside drones, robotics and smart cameras.[8] In October 2017 The Verge reported that Google's Clips camera relied on a Myriad 2 for its on-device machine vision.[4] The Myriad X-based Neural Compute Stick 2 followed on 14 November 2018.[25] At its AI Summit on 12 November 2019 Intel described a next-generation Movidius VPU code-named Keem Bay, planned for the first half of 2020.[26]

Intel later discontinued the Neural Compute Stick 2, with a last order date of 28 February 2022.[27] In May 2023 Intel told The Register that every Meteor Lake client processor would include a VPU, using the technology it acquired with Movidius.[28] In a 2024 analysis of that block, by then called a neural processing unit, Chips and Cheese wrote that Intel's NPU efforts are based on Movidius designs: it keeps Movidius's SHAVE vector DSP cores and LEON microcontrollers and adds large multiply-accumulate arrays.[9]

Products

Product Introduced Notes
Myriad 1 Shown in Project Tango, February 2014 Vision co-processor in Google's Tango prototype phone; a couple of hundred milliwatts[3]
Myriad 2 (MA2100, MA2150, MA2155, MA2450) Announced 30 July 2014 12 vector processors; 500 mW for up to 2 teraflops per second; used in DJI Phantom 4 and Mavic Pro, Google Clips, Intel RealSense T265[6][14][19][4][5]
Fathom Neural Compute Stick April 2016 USB stick with a Myriad 2 for running Caffe and TensorFlow networks on embedded devices[20]
Movidius Neural Compute Stick 20 July 2017 Myriad 2 USB accelerator; 79 US dollars[24]
Myriad X 28 August 2017 16 vector processors; Neural Compute Engine rated at 1 TOPS; more than 4 TOPS total (Intel figures); up to 8 HD cameras[8]
Neural Compute Stick 2 14 November 2018 Myriad X USB accelerator; discontinued, last order 28 February 2022[25][27]
Keem Bay Described 12 November 2019 Next-generation VPU; Intel claimed about 10 times the performance of the previous generation[26]

XR work

Movidius pitched the Myriad 2 to VR and AR makers. After a company briefing, Tom's Hardware described the chip as designed for tasks such as eye and gesture tracking, object classification and tracking, and environment mapping, with input from up to six HD cameras, and judged it destined primarily for mobile devices such as smart glasses, VR head-mounted displays and mobile AR systems like Project Tango.[29] At Mobile World Congress 2016, marketing communications director Jack Dashwood showed Road to VR a prototype running four vision demos at once from one image sensor, which the team said used 22 percent of the chip's 12 vector processors. He described a possible split of two processors for depth, two for positional tracking and one for eye tracking, and said Movidius was working with several VR and AR headset makers he could not name.[6] El-Ouazzane told The Verge the same year that "inside out tracking, gesture tracking, gaze tracking, depth sensing" were applications where the company's technology was relevant.[10]

On 7 June 2016 Movidius announced that Lenovo would source the Myriad 2 and custom computer vision algorithms for its VR products, for tasks such as head tracking, gesture recognition and blending multiple video streams into interactive VR video. The announcement said the first Lenovo products with the chip were expected in the second half of 2016.[30]

Shipped products that used Movidius chips for XR-related work include the following. The Intel RealSense T265 tracking camera runs its entire SLAM algorithm on a Myriad 2, fusing stereo fisheye images and inertial measurement unit data into 6DoF pose output at 200 Hz while using less than 1.5 W; RealSense's documentation positions it as a stand-alone SLAM system for AR and VR headsets, robots and drones.[5] The Tilt Five AR glasses list an "Intel Movidius Chip for 180 fps Reprojection" in their official specifications.[31]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Tech firm Movidius to create up to 100 jobs". Irish Examiner. 2015-04-14. https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/arid-30671733.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Robert Hof (2016-09-06). "Intel buys Movidius to boost machine vision, deep learning". SiliconANGLE. https://siliconangle.com/2016/09/06/intel-buys-movidius-to-boost-machine-vision/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Matthew Panzarino (2014-02-20). "Inside The Revolutionary Computer Vision Chip At The Heart Of Google's Project Tango Phone". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/20/inside-the-revolutionary-3d-vision-chip-at-the-heart-of-googles-project-tango-phone/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 James Vincent (2017-10-06). "Google's Clips camera is powered by a tailor-made AI chip". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/6/16434834/google-clips-camera-ai-movidius-myriad-vpu. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Introduction to RealSense Visual SLAM and the T265 Tracking Camera". RealSense Developer Documentation. RealSense. https://dev.realsenseai.com/docs/intel-realsensetm-visual-slam-and-the-t265-tracking-camera/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Scott Hayden (2016-02-23). "Movidius' Dedicated Vision Processing Chip is Coming Soon to AR and VR Headsets". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/movidius-dedicated-vision-processing-chip-coming-soon-ar-vr-headsets/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Josh Walden (2016-09-06). "Intel to Acquire Movidius: Accelerating Computer Vision through RealSense for the Next Wave of Computing". Edge AI and Vision Alliance. Intel Corporation. https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/?p=3198. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "Intel Unveils Neural Compute Engine in Movidius Myriad X VPU to Unleash AI at the Edge". Intel Newsroom. Intel Corporation. 2017-08-28. https://download.intel.com/newsroom/2021/archive/2017-08-28-news-intel-unveils-neural-compute-engine-movidius-myriad-x-vpu-unleash-ai-edge.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chester Lam (2024-04-22). "Intel Meteor Lake's NPU". Chips and Cheese. https://chipsandcheese.com/p/intel-meteor-lakes-npu. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Ben Popper (2016-03-16). "The revolutionary chipmaker behind Google's project Tango is now powering DJI's autonomous drone". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/16/11242578/movidius-myriad-2-chip-computer-vision-dji-phantom-4. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Saroj Kar (2013-07-10). "Movidius Raises $16 Million to Boost Augmented Reality Portfolios". SiliconANGLE. http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/07/10/movidius-raises-16-million-to-boost-augmented-reality-portfolios/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Paul O'Donoghue (2017-03-11). "Movidius founder after €300m sale to Intel: 'Losing control of the company is difficult'". Fora. https://fora.ie/sean-mitchell-movidius-intel-sold-3280458-Mar2017/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ John Kennedy (2014-07-30). "Project Tango chipmaker Movidius reveals next-generation chip". Silicon Republic. https://siliconrepublic.com/?p=298664. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Steve Dent (2014-07-30). "Movidius wants to change the way your smartphone sees the world". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2014/07/30/movidius-myriad-2-processor/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ David Moloney, Brendan Barry, Richard Richmond, Fergal Connor, Cormac Brick, David Donohoe (2014-08). "Myriad 2: Eye of the computational vision storm". 2014 IEEE Hot Chips 26 Symposium (HCS), pp. 1-18. doi:10.1109/HOTCHIPS.2014.7478823. https://doi.org/10.1109/HOTCHIPS.2014.7478823. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ Brendan Barry, Cormac Brick, Fergal Connor, David Donohoe, David Moloney, Richard Richmond, Martin O'Riordan, Vasile Toma (2015-03). "Always-on Vision Processing Unit for Mobile Applications". IEEE Micro, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 56-66. doi:10.1109/MM.2015.10. https://doi.org/10.1109/MM.2015.10. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Peter Bodkin (2015-04-14). "There are 100 jobs coming at this cutting-edge Irish company". TheJournal.ie. https://www.thejournal.ie/movidius-funding-2047538-Apr2015/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ Jay Donovan (2016-01-27). "Google And Movidius Partner To Propel Computer Vision In Next-Generation Devices". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/27/google-and-movidius-partner-to-propel-computer-vision-in-next-generation-devices/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "DJI Unveils Mavic Pro Drone, Powered by New Movidius". Edge AI and Vision Alliance. Movidius. 2016-09-27. https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/?p=5448. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lucian Armasu (2016-04-28). "Deep Learning On A Stick: Movidius' 'Fathom' Neural Compute Stick". Tom's Hardware. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/movidius-fathom-neural-compute-stick,31694.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ "Intel to Acquire Movidius: Accelerating Computer Vision through RealSense for the Next Wave of Computing". Intel Corporation Investor Relations. Intel Corporation. 2016-09-05. https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1108/intel-to-acquire-movidius-accelerating-computer-vision. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ Paul O'Donoghue (2016-09-10). "Founder of Irish firm bought by Intel for €300m - 'It's a validation of decades of work'". Fora. https://fora.ie/movidius-intel-david-moloney-2971694-Sep2016/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ Michael Reilly (2016-09-06). "Intel Buys the Company That Gives Machines "The Power of Sight"". MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/09/06/157709/intel-buys-the-company-that-gives-machines-the-power-of-sight/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Intel Democratizes Deep Learning Application Development with Launch of Movidius Neural Compute Stick". Edge AI and Vision Alliance. Intel Corporation. 2017-07-20. https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2017/07/intel-democratizes-deep-learning-application-development-with-launch-of-movidius-neural-compute-stick/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Intel Unveils the Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 at Intel AI Devcon Beijing for Building Smarter AI Edge Devices". Intel Corporation Investor Relations. Intel Corporation. 2018-11-14. https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/111/intel-unveils-the-intel-neural-compute-stick-2-at-intel-ai. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Kyle Wiggers (2019-11-12). "Intel details Keem Bay, a next-gen Movidius Myriad VPU for computer vision at the edge". VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/ai/intel-details-keem-bay-a-movidius-processor-for-computer-vision-at-the-edge. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 (Intel NCS2) Discontinuation Notice". Intel Support. Intel Corporation. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000093181/boards-and-kits.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  28. ↑ Simon Sharwood (2023-05-29). "Intel says AI is overwhelming CPUs, GPUs, even clouds - so all Meteor Lakes get a VPU". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/29/vpus_all_meteork_lake_skus/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  29. ↑ Matt Humrick, Seth Colaner (2016-01-03). "A Third Type Of Processor For VR/AR: Movidius' Myriad 2 VPU". Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/movidiud-myriad2-vpu-vision-processing-vr,30850.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  30. ↑ "Lenovo to Adopt Movidius VPU Technology for Next Generation VR Products". Edge AI and Vision Alliance. Movidius. 2016-06-07. https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/?p=4986. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  31. ↑ "Solutions". Tilt Five. https://www.tiltfive.com/collaborate/solutions. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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