Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

Automotive, mobility
Synopsys uncorked its new neural processor IP, which can be used to develop scalable neural processors in automotive and consumer products. The ARC NPX6 NPU IP can run at 3,500 TOPS (30 TOPS per watt), running up to 96K MACs with enhanced utilization, new sparsity features and new interconnect for scalability. The ARC NPX6FS NPU IP and MetaWare MX Toolkit for Safety can be used to develop safety-critical automotive SoC development and accelerate ISO 26262 qualification.

Cadence launched its Fidelity CFD Software, a suite of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools for markets such as automotive, turbomachinery, marine, and aerospace. The tool streamlines the workflow for CFD engineers, putting together multi-physics simulations and computations such as flow solvers with mesh making. Combining techniques from Cadence’s recent CFD acquisitions NUMECA and Pointwise, the tool also uses parallel architecture to cut the computation time to a day for complex analyses.

Keysight released an automotive protocol trigger/decode solution (D9010AUTP) to verify automotive serial buses that use CAN XL (Controller Area Network eXtra Long). The system is compatible with Keysight’s Infiniium oscilloscopes. “In-vehicle networking technologies play a pivotal role in transmitting data fast and reliably from sensors to AI decision making units, as well as in-between safety relevant electronic control units and electronic systems within the car,” said Thomas Goetzl, vice president and general manager for Keysight’s automotive & energy solutions business unit in a press release. “The variety of automotive serial bus standards reflects the diverse needs and requirements of the automotive industry, and Keysight is excited to continue providing industry-first solution offerings that support additional capabilities and use cases.” Keysight says the ability to verify and debug low-speed automotive serial bus protocols will simplify the development and troubleshooting of systems such as CAN/CAN FD (Flexible Data Rate) and CAN XL.

Automotive component supplier AISIN will continue using Siemens’ Capital VSTAR tool to create its ECUs (electronic control units). VSTAR is Siemens’ implementation of the AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) standard, which specifies industry standards for automotive software.

Pervasive computing
Singapore-based IoT service provider and SigFox operator UnaBiz has been appointed by a court in France as the new owner of SigFox, the ultra-narrowband low power, wide-area network (LPWAN) IoT service provider that connected low-power devices. SigFox was based in France.

Fraunhofer IIS introduced an ultra-low-latency JPEG XS software development toolkit (SDK) for DELTACAST´s video I/O solution with a latency far below one frame. JPEG XS can transmit high-quality video over IP (Internet Protocol), Ethernet, in local and wide area networks, avoiding the serial digital interface (SDI). According to the press release, “To bridge the gap between SDI and IP, while keeping ultra-low latency in the overall system, special I/O devices with subframe access are necessary. Together with DELTACAST´s I/O solution, the proof of JPEG XS extremely low latency below one frame makes standard latencies of five frames and more things of the past.” 

AMD’s Xilinx says it is about to release the Versal Premium series with AI Engines, which will be part of the 7nm Versal adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP) portfolio. The AI Engines are designed for signal processing-intensive applications, such as radar applications in the aerospace and defense, signals intelligence, wireless system testing, and wireless device testing in the test and measurement markets.

Japan-based ASIC company MegaChips is getting into the global Edge AI chips market by launching an AI Partner program that will provide engineers to work with customers to adapt MegaChips’ products into AI edge use case. Also, MegaChips said is it is expanding the AI program to the U.S.

Security
The CVE-2022-1271 bug in file format gzip, which appears in Linux distros as a file compressor and archive, is not as bad as it sounds, explains Synopsys’ Applications Engineer Jonathan Knudsen. The vulnerability in gzip is actually in a search command called zgrep. Newline characters in a filename can confuse zgrep, making it possible for the file to be overwritten. Code execution can also occur when GNU sed is also installed.

People, companies
Codasip appointed Jamie Broome as its vice president of automotive. Broome recently led Imagination Technologies’ automotive business unit.

Flex Logix appointed Chris Passier as vice president for platform software and Vancouver Canada site executive. Passier served in software leadership roles at Dell Networking, Ericsson Telecom, and Rockport Networks.

SEMI Foundation’s Shari Liss writes about her experience testifying about the need to build the U.S. semiconductor workforce in front of a U.S. House panel of the Science Research and Technology Subcommittee, which is one of the panels informing the United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.