Week In Review: Design, Low Power

Marvell will acquire Innovium, a provider of Ethernet data center switches, in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.1 billion. Innovium’s switching architecture is optimized for ultra-low latency, optimized power, high performance, and telemetry in cloud applications and will join Marvell’s portfolio of data center products to provide “architectural choice and flexibility to meet a diverse set of requirements,” stated Innovium CEO Rajiv Khemani. The companies noted that Innovium “has been selected to become a significant supplier at a Tier 1 cloud customer, and this is expected to drive a significant revenue ramp in calendar 2022.” Founded in 2014, Innovium is based in San Jose, Calif. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2021.

Tools
Ansys reported second quarter 2021 financial results with revenue of $446.7 million, up 16% from the same quarter last year. On a GAAP basis, earnings per share in Q2 2021 were $1.06, down 5% from $1.11 per share in Q2 2020. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.85, up 19% from $1.55 in the same quarter last year. Ansys CFO Nicole Anasenes stated, “Our outstanding performance was highlighted by 25% ACV growth in the second quarter, driving our first half 2021 ACV growth to 16%. Given the strength and momentum in our core business year-to-date, coupled with our sales pipeline, I am confident in our ability to achieve our increased full-year 2021 guidance.”

OpenROAD, an organization developing open-source EDA tools, adopted eFabless’ OpenLane as the flow of record for the program to provide a more robust flow and additional point tools. “Efabless has led the way in enabling the OpenROAD tool to be used for the creation of real integrated circuits,” said Andrew Kahng, principal investigator of the OpenROAD project. “Through the Efabless chipIgnite and Google-funded openMPW programs, the OpenLane flow has been used to create more than 100 designs from a wide range of users utilizing SkyWater’s SKY130 open PDK.”

IP
The DARPA Toolbox Initiative added several products to the program, which provides simpler licensing and lower-cost access to IP and tools for research projects. From Intrinsic ID, two physically unclonable function (PUF) IP are  available: the QuiddiKey SRAM-based PUF IP and Apollo ‘soft’ PUF for FPGAs. Additionally, AccelerComm will provide access to its physical layer product portfolio for satellite, cellular, and other communications networks.

Rambus reported second quarter 2021 financial results with revenue of $84.9 million, down $1.6% from the same quarter last year. On a GAAP basis, income per share was $0.10 in Q2 2021, compared to a loss per share of $0.08 in Q2 2020. “Product revenue from memory interface chips remains strong, and we had record revenue from security and digital controller IP,” noted Rambus CEO Luc Seraphin.

Arasan Chip Systems released ONFI v5.0 NAND Flash IP that includes the Host controller IP, PHY IP, and software stack. The controller supports all ONFI Specification modes at all speeds, including the new NV-LPDDR4 mode, and has a fully verified AXI interface. The PHY uses a PLL / DLL combination to provide flexible frequency access and includes ESD protection on all of the ONFI interface pins.

Omni Design Technologies debuted a line of ADCs and DACs sampling at greater than 1Gsps on TSMC 28nm HPC+ process. Alereon has deployed them in an integrated analog front end in the production version of its next generation Ultra-Wideband chipset.

Subsidiaries of the intellectual property management company WiLAN, Woden Technologies Inc. and Innovative Memory Systems Inc., acquired patents relating to semiconductor process, packaging, and circuit technologies from an unnamed company in the areas of capturing, preserving, accessing, and transforming data for data centers, mobile, and personal devices.

MarketsandMarkets predicts the FPGA market size is to reach $9.1 billion by 2026 from an estimated $6.2 billion in 2021, a CAGR of 7.8% from 2021 to 2026. The market research firm particularly calls out the low-end segment as expected to hold the largest market share due to the wide range of applications including security and tamper protection.

Automotive
Infineon reported third quarter 2021 financial results with revenue of €2.7 billion (~$3.2B), up 25% from the same quarter last year. Earnings per share were €0.18 (~$0.21) in Q3 2021, up from a loss of €0.11 (~$0.13) per share in Q3 2020. Infineon CEO Dr. Reinhard Ploss commented on the chip shortage: “Inventories are at a historic low; our chips are being shipped from our fabs straight into the end applications. Under these circumstances, any pandemic-related restrictions on manufacturing, such as those recently imposed in Malaysia, are especially grave. We are doing our utmost to improve matters along the entire value chain and are working as flexibly as possible in the best interests of our customers. At the same time, we are continuously building up additional capacity.”

NSITEXE uncorked a RISC-V based 32-bit CPU that supports ISO 26262 ASIL-D. The NS31A is a general-purpose CPU with a single-issue, in-order 4-stage pipeline that targets embedded and automotive applications.

Qualcomm has made an offer to acquire Veoneer, a provider of automotive software and hardware, for $4.6 billion in a cash transaction. Veoneer’s products include ADAS, driver monitoring, and restraint control, as well as vision sensors, radar, and lidar. “As the automotive industry continues to transform, it is becoming increasingly important for automakers to have a partner who develops horizontal platforms that drive innovation and enable competition. The proposed acquisition will bring together our industry-leading automotive solutions with Veoneer’s assisted driving assets to deliver a competitive and open ADAS platform to automakers and Tier 1 suppliers at scale,” said Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon. Veoneer has not yet said whether it will accept the offer. In July, automotive Tier 1 Magna International announced a definitive merger agreement in which it would value Veoneer at $3.8 billion.

The upcoming Volkswagen VW ID.4 electric SUV includes over 50 semiconductors produced by Infineon as well as energy efficient electric drives and charging infrastructure. At launch in the U.S., the VW ID.4 is powered by a 77 kWh (net) battery pack and has a range of approximately 517 kilometers (321 miles) (WLTP) in ID.4 Pro rear-wheel-drive models.