Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

Automotive/Mobility
General Motors is working on a next version of Ultium battery chemistry and announced a joint development agreement with Singapore-based SolidEnergy Systems, a lithium metal battery startup founded by a graduate of MIT. The companies plan to open a Woburn, Massachusetts prototype production line by 2023. GM’s is attempting to lower the cost of its proprietary battery technology, a lithium metal battery with a protected anode, while increasing performance and energy density. (These batteries differ from lithium ion batteries used today in EVs.) The company says it has already taken its initial prototype batteries on 150,000 simulated test miles at GM’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan.

Mixel, Rambus, and Hardent are working together on a MIPI DSI-2 technology display subsystem that can be used in automotive displays and AR/VR systems. Hardent is providing the video compression IP, Rambus its DSI-2 controller core, and Mixel its high-frequency, low-power PHY cores. All three companies are members of MIPI Alliance.

Security
Tortuga Logic announced it is developing a new open and extensible Security Governance Platform (SGP) for advanced hardware security. The SGP will expand Tortuga Logic’s Radix security testing process to include more the needs of more stakeholders — engineering, security, marketing, and legal/compliance — in semiconductor development and the whole chip lifecycle. Radix technology is a tool to find and fix hardware vulnerabilities before manufacturing and deployment within existing design and verification environments. The company points to a recent investment from the non-profit In-Q-Tel, Inc., which invests in national security technology. “The past journey in Software Application Security has demonstrated that a successful security program hinges on the tight collaboration of its various stakeholders. With SGP, we address the critical need of a collaborative platform in the rapidly emerging areas of semiconductor chip security,” said Andreas Kuehlmann, executive chair and CEO, Tortuga Logic in a press release.

Codasip is offering three new commercially licensed add-ons to the 32-bit SweRV Core EH1 RISC-V core. The add-ons are:

• a floating-point unit;
• a configurable-size data cache with associativity and cache lines;
• additional instructions for bit manipulation which can be beneficial for error detection/correction, DSP, and security algorithms.

A free version of the Codasip’s SweRV Core Support Package Pro is available on CHIPS Alliance’s page on Github. SweRV Core EH1, and other EH cores are open sourced through CHIPS Alliance.

People, companies
Cadence product engineer Johannes Grad won Si2’s Pinnacle Award, which goes to volunteers for exceptional contributions to Si2’s success as an R&D joint venture.

Cadence received TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform (OIP) Ecosystem Forum Customers’ Choice award for Cadence’s paper called “Optimized Digital Design, Implementation and Signoff on TSMC’s N3.”

EmergeTek will be Vtool Smart Verification sales representative in the U.S.

Former Volvo automotive executive Peter Mertens is joining proteanTec’s board of directors. Based in Israel, proteanTeacs provides health and performance monitoring solutions, such as its UCT (Universal Chip Telemetry) for advanced electronics.

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