Week In Review: Design, Low Power

Arm plans to double down on its core IP business and transfer its two IoT Services Group (ISG) businesses, IoT Platform and Treasure Data, to new entities that would be owned and operated by SoftBank. “SoftBank’s experience in managing fast-growing, early-stage businesses would enable ISG to maximize its value in capturing the data opportunity,” said Arm CEO Simon Segars. “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.” Arm acquired Treasure Data in 2018; the company specializes in taking data from sources like CRM, ecommerce systems, and IoT devices to provide business with insights on customers. At the same time, Arm launched the Pelion IoT Platform to connect and manage IoT devices and data. Arm plans to continue collaboration with the ISG businesses; the transfer is expected by the end of September 2020.

Imagination Technologies unveiled the new XS GPU product family for automotive. The ISO 26262-capable IP has a new safety architecture, making it suitable for ADAS compute acceleration and safety-critical graphics such as dashboards, surround view, and camera systems. The XS family incorporates Tile Region Protection, which can identify and track safety-critical areas of a screen and perform safety-passes only on those elements to maximize performance.

SmartDV launched verification IP for the Arm AMBA CHI, CXS, and LPI protocols. Assertion IP and SimXL Synthesizable Transactors are also available. The VIP includes a configurable bus functional model, protocol monitor and library of integrated protocol checks.

Deals & Numbers
JLQ Technology selected Synopsys’ DesignWare Interface IP, including USB, MIPI, and DDR, in the development of its new generation of high-performance, low-power SoCs for a range of applications such as mobile and IoT/IIoT. JLQ has used Synopsys IP in past designs and cited technical expertise and responsive local support infrastructure.

NXP extended its license for Imagination Technologies’ Ethernet Packet Processor (EPP) IP for use in S32 vehicle network processors. The EPP IP accelerates the routing of Ethernet packets while processor cores focus on providing vehicle services with cloud connectivity. NXP cited the IP’s flexibility and programmability.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $35.0 billion in May 2020, according to the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization. That’s an increase of 5.8% from the May 2019 total of $33.0 billion and 1.5% more than the April 2020 total of $34.4 billion. A WSTS forecast projects annual global sales will increase 3.3% in 2020 and 6.2% in 2021.

Events
Many conferences have now been cancelled, postposed, or moved online. Find out what’s happening with each at our events page. How about checking out a webinar instead?

DAC will be a virtual event this year. It will still take place July 19 – 23, 2020. Watch what’s new in this year’s content and focus. Keynotes for the event will cover a system look at semiconductor technology, the RISC-V revolution, wafer-scale deep learning accelerators, and looking ahead to 6G.

ICCAD will also be held as a virtual event this year. The conference will take place November 2-5, 2020. More details on the program will be available later.