Week In Review: Design, Low Power

Rambus will acquire Hardent, a provider of design services and IP. Rambus said Hardent’s silicon design, verification, compression, and Error Correction Code (ECC) expertise will provide key resources for the Rambus CXL Memory Interconnect Initiative. “Driven by the demands of advanced workloads like AI/ML and the move to disaggregated data center architectures, industry momentum for CXL-based solutions continues to grow,” said Luc Seraphin, president and CEO of Rambus. “The addition of the highly-skilled Hardent design team brings key resources that will accelerate our roadmap and expand our reach to address customer needs for next-generation data center solutions.” Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Hardent was founded in 2002. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. It is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022.

MaxLinear will acquire Silicon Motion, a provider of NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, in a cash and stock transaction worth $3.8 billion. “The enhanced scale of the combined organization creates a new significant $2B+ player in the semiconductor industry with compelling positions across a diversified set of end-markets,” said Kishore Seendripu, Chairman and CEO of MaxLinear. Wallace Kou, president and CEO of Silicon Motion, added, “Combining Silicon Motion with MaxLinear creates significant economies of scale, accelerates our expansion into enterprise storage markets and unites unparalleled intellectual property to continue serving our customers with high-quality expertise and technical support.” Silicon Motion is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, and was founded in 1995.

Ansys acquired Motor Design Limited (MDL), a provider of electric machine design software with coupled electromagnetic, thermal, and mechanical modelling capabilities. The two companies already had a strong relationship, with MDL’s Motor-CAD available through the Ansys sales and support network. “Motor-CAD is the leading electric machine design tool. Bringing its technology into the Ansys family of multiphysics analysis software solutions will allow us to deliver tighter integrations and seamless workflows for all aspects of electric machine design,” said Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys. “Together, we will provide customers with the most comprehensive solution for electric machine design, which is critical as industries and companies around the world pursue more electrification and sustainability initiatives.” Headquartered in Wrexham, UK, MDL was founded in 1998. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Tools, IP, memory
Codasip adopted Siemens EDA’s OneSpin IC verification tools for formal verification of its RISC-V processor IP. Codasip cited the ability to tackle critical IC integrity issues and verify the implementation with minimal set up and runtime.

Sondrel selected Arteris IP’s FlexNoC interconnect IP in its next generation of ADAS architecture. The on chip-interconnect was selected for its configurability and performance and the ability to design the NoC to match the performance of IP blocks.

Cadence is using SiTime Corporation’s MEMS timing solutions for the Cadence Palladium Z2 Enterprise Emulation and Protium X2 Enterprise Prototyping platforms. Cadence cited the precision of the timing solution and the capacity to support rapid production ramp of the platforms.

Everspin announced its new family of SPI/QSPI/xSPI interface MRAM products. The EMxxLX family has full read and write bandwidth of 400 Mbit/s through the new JEDEC expanded Serial Peripheral Interface (xSPI) standard interface and is available in densities from 8Mbit up to 64Mbit. It is targeted for use in industrial IoT and embedded systems applications.

CoreHW debuted new automotive compliant mmWave PLL frequency synthesizer IP on GlobalFoundries’ 22FDX process. Alongside automotive, it also targets the telecommunication industry.

BMW will use Ansys software as part of its end-to-end tool chain to develop and validate ADAS and automated/autonomous driving functions. Specifically guided by safety principles, the tool chain will define test plans, pilot its execution, and gather and compile data-critical system information with the aim of bringing Level 3 autonomous driving to market. Additionally, Safran Aircraft Engines will adopt Ansys finite element analysis (FEA) tools as an end-to-end structural and thermal simulation solution in new programs for developing next-generation aircraft engines.

Financials, people
AMD reported first quarter 2022 financial results with revenue of $5.9B, up 71% from $3.4B in the same quarter last year. “The first quarter marked a significant inflection point in our journey to scale and transform AMD as we delivered record revenue and closed our strategic acquisition of Xilinx,” said AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su. “Each of our businesses grew by a significant double digit percentage year-over-year, led by EPYC server processor revenue more than doubling for the third straight quarter. Demand remains strong for our leadership products, with our increased full-year guidance reflecting higher AMD organic growth and the addition of the growing Xilinx business.”

Ansys reported first quarter 2022 financial results with revenue of $425.1 million, up 17% from $363.2 million in the same quarter last year. Nicole Anasenes, Ansys CFO, said, “Our first quarter results represent a strong start to the year, continuing the momentum off of the outstanding performance in 2021. During Q1, Ansys recorded ACV [annual contract value] growth of 11% in constant currency and GAAP and non-GAAP revenue growth of 20% and 18% in constant currency, respectively. Given the strength of our forecast and current customer demand, we are raising our full-year ACV and revenue in constant currency.”

Rambus reported first quarter 2022 financial results with revenue of $99.0 million, up 40.6% from $70.4 million in the first quarter of 2021. “Rambus delivered a strong first quarter with record product revenue propelled by robust demand in the data center,” said Luc Seraphin, chief executive officer of Rambus. “With our balanced and diverse portfolio of offerings contributing at scale, we continue to generate cash, execute on our strategy and invest in exciting programs to accelerate the company’s profitable growth.”

Intento Design appointed Stéphane Cordova as its new CEO. Cordova was previously VP Business Development at Kalray. Ramy Iskander, the previous CEO and a co-founder of Intento, will take on the role of CTO.

Infineon chief marketing officer (CMO) Helmut Gassel, also a member of the Management Board, will resign from his position at his own request and will leave the company at the end of the month. Andreas Urschitz, currently president of the Power & Sensor Systems (PSS) Division, has been appointed as his successor. Adam White, currently CMO of the PSS Division, is the designated president of the Division.

Find more of the week’s news at Manufacturing, Test and Auto, Security Pervasive Computing.