The Week In Review: Design

M&A
Invecas will acquire Lattice Semiconductor’s HDMI design team and Simplay Labs subsidiary, which oversees standards compliance and interoperability testing services. Invecas supplies foundation, analog, and interface IP optimized for GlobalFoundries processes. The deal is expected to close later this month. Last year, Lattice announced it would be acquired by Chinese private equity firm Canyon Bridge in a $1.3B deal currently being reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.

Tools
Blue Pearl Software updated its Visual Verification Suite, adding built in FPGA libraries and vendor specific rules such as the Xilinx UltraFast Design Methodology. The suite integrates with Xilinx’s Vivado environment. The release also features direct project import for Intel/Altera Quartus Prime Software and Microsemi Libero Design Software as well as updates to linting and debug, CDC analysis and Synopsys Design Constraints generation.

IP
UltraSoC debuted full debug and monitoring IP for ARM’s recently announced AMBA 5 Coherent Hub Interface (CHI) Issue B.

Mobiveil launched a FPGA-based SSD development platform targeting 3D NAND devices. Additionally, the company’s NVM Express Controller is now compliant with NVMe 1.3 and its PCI Express Controller supports the Gen4 specification.

Avery Design Systems updated its NVMe VIP to support the NVMe 1.3 standard, plus enhancements to models, protocol checking, and compliance testsuites. It supports the new NVMe-Management Interface (NVMe-MI) to communicate out-of-band with an NVMe NVM Subsystem Management Endpoint via PCIe 4.0 or SMBus 3.0.

Certifications
Synopsys’ 16nm finFET interface IP for LPDDR4 multiPHY, MIPI D-PHY and Multi-Protocol 10G PHY supporting PCI Express 3.1 and Ethernet met the AEC-Q100 Grade 1 temperature requirements (-40C to 125C ambient). The IP is designed to meet a range of automotive temperature profiles as well as offering ASIL Ready ISO 26262 certification.

Numbers
Ansys released second quarter financial results with revenue of $263.9 million, up 7% from the second quarter of 2016. On a GAAP basis, earnings per share for the quarter were $0.80, up 3% from $0.78 in Q2 2016. Non-GAAP earnings were $0.99 per share for Q2 2017, up 6% from $0.93. Ansys joined the S&P 500 in June. For the next quarter, the company expects revenue in the range of $256.6 – $266.0 million.

Market research firm IC Insights predicts the IC market will increase 16% this year, in its revised 2017 forecast. The growth is primarily driven by DRAM and NAND, which are expected to show 55% and 35% growth, respectively. Excluding these two markets, the overall IC market growth is forecast to show just 6% year-over-year growth. At the beginning of the year, IC Insights predicted a 10% growth for memory markets, while the full IC market was pegged to grow 5%.