Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

IoT
Arm is proposing to transfer its two IoT divisions to SoftBank Group Corp., which will own and operate them under new entities. The two IoT Services Group (ISG) businesses are IoT Platform and Treasure Data. Arm intends to focus more on its IP roadmap in data and compute, once the transfer becomes finalized. It is subject to more board review. “Arm believes there are great opportunities in the symbiotic growth of data and compute,” said Simon Segars, chief executive officer, Arm, in a press release. “SoftBank’s experience in managing fast-growing, early-stage businesses would enable ISG to maximize its value in capturing the data opportunity. Arm would be in a stronger position to innovate in our core IP roadmap and provide our partners with greater support to capture the expanding opportunities for compute solutions across a range of markets.”

JLQ Technology Co., a joint venture in China among Qualcomm, China’s Datang Telecom, and two other investors, adopted Synopsys’ DesignWare IP for its next-generation high-performance, low-power mobile chipsets. JLQ Technology makes chips for mobile phones and IoT devices.

Maxim Integrated’s newly introduced MAXM86146 is the thinnest dual-photodetector optical sensor module for wearables, says the company in a press release. It consists of an optical biosensing analog front end (AFE) with a powerful Arm microcontroller unit (MCU) and two high sensitivity photodiodes. It can take heart rate and pulse blood oxygen saturation (SpO₂) measurements.

Automotive AI in space
Artificial intelligence from AiMotive, the self-driving car EDA startup, is going into space. Satellite and space hardware provider C3S will be working with AiMotive to adapt AImotive’s aiWare NN (neural network) hardware acceleration technology onto an area- and power-constrained satellite. The neural network will make some decisions about what images are taken and stored by the satellite in orbit, depending on the use case, before sending the data down to earth. AiMotive will be working with C3S to adapt algorithms. Use cases include detecting changes in an agriculture fields or before-and-after photos of natural disasters. Hungarian-based C3S has technology in projects for the European Space Agency.

The British government and India-based telecom Bharti Enterprises are offering $1 billion to buy satellite company OneWeb to establish the U.K.’s own satellite constellation in low Earth orbit. The opportunity came up after OneWeb, who funding was dropped by SoftBank Group, declared bankruptcy, according to Reuters.

Automotive
NXP will be using Imagination Technologies has extended its license for Imagination’s Ethernet Packet Processor (EPP) IP for use in S32 vehicle network processors. Imagination Technologies also announced its ADAS acceleration XS GPU product family for automotive. The GPU IP.is ISO 26262-capable  and and safety-critical graphics workloads.

Intel’s Mobileye is working with transportation operator WILLER to launch a robotaxi service in Japan and parts of Southeast Asia.

Electric mobility
Airbus and Ansys, working with Formula One Racing Association, are sponsoring the Air Race Events’ Air Race E, a competition of electric-powered airplanes. Ansys will help teams with improve batteries and manage the battery use. The 2021 Air Race E World Championship will be a series of races held around the world.

The HVAC — air conditioning and heat — in an electric vehicle can reduce the car’s range. Turn on the heat, and car estimates its battery reserves will drive 30 fewer miles. Renesas says its newly introduced automotive pressure sensor solution, the ZSSC4132, may help. featuring integrated certified LIN v2.2a interface. In a single-package sensor signal conditioner (SSC) for hybrid and electric plug in vehicles.

AI
Scientists in the Experimental Therapeutics Branch of U.S. military’s Walter Reed Army Research Center is using high performance computing, AI, and machine learning (ML) to find possible drug treatments for patients with COVID-19, according to an article in NextGov.

IMEC and Globalfoundries say they have demonstrated a new AI chip that can do deep neural network calculations using Imec’s analog in memory computing (AiMC) architecture on GF’s 22FDX process. The AiMC architectures eliminates the von Neumann bottleneck by performing analog computation in SRAM cells.

People & Companies
FormFactor, Inc. revised upward its guidance for the second quarter, which ended June 27, 2020, because it has not seen any slowdowns from COVID-19. In May, the IC test equipment and measurement technology company now says its second quarter revenue to be between $157 million and $161 million.

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