The Week In Review: Design/IoT

Mergers & Acquisitions

Cadence acquired Rocketick, an Israel-based company focused on multicore parallel simulation. Founded in 2008, their original rise and claim to fame was acceleration on GPUs, having received significant funding from Nvidia. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, and terms were not disclosed.

Tools & IP

Mentor Graphics integrated network testing company Ixia’s virtual edition test product family with the Veloce emulation platform, allowing the reuse of traffic flow generation scripts in the verification of complex networking chips.

Mentor also has a new way to use its emulation platform on an immediate basis, as well as for short-term additional capacity, including access to verification specialists and IP.

Synopsys uncorked verification IP and UVM source code test suite to support the USB Power Delivery 3.0 standard. The VIP includes built-in comprehensive coverage, verification planning, extensive protocol checks and protocol-aware debug.

Brite Semi debuted a new line of IP, including interface IP for DDR and USB, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) analog PHY, and several system in package (SiP) platforms.

Chips

NXP introduced a new RF transistor designed to deliver 1.50 kW CW at 50V that operates up to 500 MHz for a broad range of applications. It can withstand a voltage standing wave ratio of 65:1 and absorb 50% more energy than its predecessor. NXP also added four new LDMOS transistors focused on defense radar and identification friend or foe (IFF) systems operating between 900 and 1400 MHz.

Standards

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group released the USB Type-C Authentication specification, defining cryptographic-based authentication for Type-C chargers and devices. The protocol allows host systems to confirm the authenticity of a USB device or USB charger, including such product aspects as the descriptors/capabilities and certification status, at the moment a wired connection is made.

Certifications

Kilopass and pure-play foundry Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor signed a technology development agreement for the first of several one-time programmable (OTP) enablement projects. Initally, Kilopass will port its OTP NVM IP to MIFS’s 40nm low-power (40LP) process.

Samsung Foundry qualified Ansys’ solutions to meet the accuracy and reliability requirements for its 14nm and 10nm FinFET processes.

UMC qualified Cadence’s Layout-Dependent Effects (LDE) Analyzer for its 28HPCU process technology.