Week In Review: Design, Low Power

Renesas Electronics Corporation will acquire Dialog Semiconductor in an all-cash deal worth about US $5.9 billion. Dialog is a supplier of mixed-signal ICs targeting IoT, consumer, automotive, and industrial. The company’s primary areas of focus were communications and power control. These products are complementary to existing Renesas embedded compute products.

Dialog CEO Dr. Jalal Bagherli said that the combination of the companies’ portfolios “creates even greater growth opportunities in today’s increasingly connected world. The Dialog team is excited to join forces with Renesas. The combined company will be in an even stronger position to provide innovative products for these markets, building on Renesas’ extensive sales, distribution and customer support capabilities.” Founded in 1985, Dialog is based in Reading, UK. It is expected that the deal will close by the end of 2021.

Tools & IP
Rapid prototyping systems can speed the development process, so Avnet and On Semiconductor joined forces to create a framework that helps OEMs more rapidly develop end-to-end Internet of Things (IoT) devices. They will offer a selection of pre-integrated hardware and software solutions with a range of connectivity options. Guidance on building the solution is also provided for the purposes of simplifying and speeding development and allowing the OEM to focus on building market-differentiated solutions.

QuickLogic announced an open source SoC development kit targeting IoT applications that includes an Arm Cortex M4F MCU + eFPGA combination and fits into a USB Type A port. It is supported by an open source, vendor supported development tool environment.

Rianta Solutions uncorked a new 400G/800G Single Channel Ethernet PCS/FEC product addition to its IP portfolio targeting ASIC and SoC devices. Rianta’s Ethernet IP packages serve both multi-channel and single channel applications for data center, networking, and 5G wireless infrastructure at rates ranging from 1G to 800G.

Tiempo Secure released its TESIC Secure Element IP core for customer designs on TSMC 40 ULP, GF 22 FDX, and TSMC 16 FFC. TESIC is a CC EAL5+ PP0084 certification-ready secure element IP that is delivered as hard macro for plug-and-play SoC integration.

Collaboration
Siemens Digital Industries Software and ASE are teaming up on new enablement solutions for IC package assembly. As part of the Siemens OSAT Alliance, ASE produced an assembly design kit (ADK) that helps customers using ASE’s Fan Out Chip on Substrate (FOCoS) and 2.5D Middle End of Line (MEOL) technologies to fully leverage the Siemens high-density advanced packaging (HDAP) design flow. ASE and Siemens also agreed to extend their partnership to include the future creation of a single design platform from FOWLP to 2.5D substrate design.

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) and Flex Logix successfully taped out first-time working silicon with Flex Logix’s EFLX eFPGA IP. GUC worked to integrate the eFPGA IP in the InferX X1 edge inference accelerator. “We look forward to working with Flex Logix for InferX X1 production ramp-up, as well as with our mutual customers to enable future ASICs with RTL reconfigurability,” said Ken Chen, President of Global Unichip.

CEA-Leti introduced a European 6G research project for next-generation wireless connectivity. Called RISE-6G, it will design, prototype, and test smart and energy-sustainable technological advances based on reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) that will enable programmable control and shaping of the wireless propagation environment. The project will address the design of key hardware building blocks and their integration in future B5G/6G networks. A LinkedIn group has been set up to track their progress.

People
The CHIPS Alliance has brought in Rob Mains as their new Executive Director. Mains is a seasoned veteran of the design industry with over 35 years of experience, primarily in processor design. In a recent interview Mains said, “Considering the benefits of open-source collaboration, whether it be in software or hardware design, or artificial intelligence, I think it offers a huge opportunity by allowing the best minds to work together to solve some very difficult and challenging problems.”

Events
Find a new conference or learning opportunity at our events page, or check out an upcoming webinar.

The 2021 International Solid-State Circuits Virtual Conference will be held Feb. 13-22. The International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays will take place Feb. 28-Mar. 2.

In March, DVCon 2021 will be held Mar. 1-4. The U.S. government-focused electronics conference GOMACTech will be held Mar. 29-Apr. 1.