The Week In Review: Design

eSilicon adds online quote for TSMC; Synopsys speeds FPGA prototypes, adds IP for TSMC 28HPC; Cadence wins deals with NexG-Com and QNX; ARM collaborating with Sensor Platforms to speed IoT development; Intel shows off interconnect fabric.

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eSilicon uncorked a GDSII online quote system for TSMC, which allows chipmakers to pick a variety of information ranging from process technology to package to yield and tapeout and production forecast and get a quote within minutes. This is a new twist in the value chain provider market.

Synopsys added program to speed up FPGA-based prototype creation, which includes approved third-party hardware and software.

IP
Synopsys rolled out a suite of IP for TSMC’s 28HPC process, which TSMC is pitting against 28nm FD-SOI offered by GlobalFoundries and Samsung. The emphasis in all cases is on lower power and/or higher performance without having to move to double patterning and finFETs.

Intel has begun showing off its new interconnect fabric, based on IP it acquired from Cray and QLogic. One of the biggest changes is the addition of silicon photonics instead of electrical transceivers in the switches. The technology is aimed at the high-performance computing market.

Deals
NextG-Com ported its LTE protocol stack to Cadence’s Tensilica processor, which is expected to speed up designs of LTE modems for mobile devices. Cadence also is working with QNX, which ported its active noise control software to the Tensilica DSP core.

Sensor Platforms and ARM are extending their collaboration to the Open Sensor Platform, which is design to simplify and speed up the development of sensor-based products based on ARM’s IP. The deal is aimed at IoT, mobile and wearable devices.

Ford and Intel are collaborating on interior cameras for a car that could recognize the driver and either personalize the car based on facial recognition and/or make it more secure.



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