Week In Review: Design, Low Power

Siemens acquires Avery; Ansys and Rambus earnings; Japan earmarks $450M for 6G; $200M Funding rounds for batteries;

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Earnings and Acquisitions

Siemens will acquire Avery Design Systems, a simulation-independent verification IP supplier, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Siemens executives say the acquisition will “enhance Siemens’ offerings across mainstream verification IP segments, while further extending Siemens verification solutions into areas such as high-performance computing, edge, networking, and 3D-ICs.”  “Increasing SoC complexity, demand for new protocols and standards, and broadening use of verification IP use cases present customers with new challenges relating to the verification of sophisticated, next-generation IC designs. The acquisition of Avery further extends Siemens’ leadership in the verification space,” said Joseph Sawicki, executive vice president for IC-EDA at Siemens Digital Industries Software. Separately, Siemens said it added scalable, on-demand, high performance simulation capabilities to Siemens Xcelerator as a Service (XaaS) via the launch of Simcenter Cloud HPC software.

Ansys announced third quarter revenue of $472.5 million, a record for the company, and an increase of 7% year-over-year (reported currency). “We once again had double-digit ACV and revenue growth in constant currency both in the quarter and year-to-date. Our strong Q3 ACV performance was broad based across customer types, geographies and industries in constant currency, which is further evidence of the essential nature of our market-leading simulation portfolio, multiphysics product leadership and deep customer relationships,” said Ajei Gopal, Ansys president and CEO. In a separate announcement, Ansys said its Redhawk-SC and Totem power integrity platforms are certified on TSMC’s FinFlex architecture on N3E and N4 process technology. Lastly, the company launched the Ansys Gateway cloud-based platform powered by AWS.

Rambus reported third quarter earnings of $112.2 million, a 38% increase from the same period last year. “Our strategic focus and strong execution in data center, combined with a diverse portfolio of offerings, drive the company’s long-term profitable growth and enable consistent capital returns to our stockholders,” said Luc Seraphin, Rambus’ CEO. Rambus also announced that it extended its patent license agreement with Samsung Electronics through late 2033.

Tools and IP

Arteris IP announced that Microchip Technology licensed its FlexNoC Interconnect IC from Arteris’ high-performance 32-bit microcontroller product line. “Microchip’s decision to use Arteris FlexNoC interconnect as the dataflow backbone of their MCU product family is further proof of our system IP technology’s suitability for markets with diverse performance and cost requirements,” said K. Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris.

Codasip said SiliconArts adopted Codasip’s 7-series RISC-V processors with Codasip Studio customization tools. SiliconArts is developing immersive photorealism in augmented reality applications using powerful ray-tracing GPUs. “It’s becoming extremely difficult to make performance gains from scaling semiconductors to smaller nodes. RISC-V, combined with the customization capabilities of Codasip Studio, enables our customers to make significant performance gains,” said Ron Black, Codasip’s CEO.

The EDA ecosystem is racing to keep up with the requirements of faster, lower-power chips as fundamental principles like Amdahl’s Law and Moore’s Law run out of steam. Read more here.

Batteries

Battery technology dominated October’s startup funding news. Four battery-related funding rounds exceeded $200 million and the Department of Energy awarded grants to six startups. Read more here.

A new algorithm developed by Argonne researchers allows for the study of battery charging and discharging in real-time. The technique uses machine learning paired with data generated from shining high-powered x-ray beams on a material and capturing the light through diffraction.

5G/6G

Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications earmarked the equivalent of $450 million for 6G research. The fund will offer financial support over several years and will be established within the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.

Keysight said it is the first company to be validated by the Global Certification Forum for a 5G location-based services (LBS) Assisted Galileo test case by combining 5G new radio and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology. “The GCF validation of the first 5G LBS test case demonstrates Keysight’s commitment to supporting rapid development of technologies that enhance 5G NR deployment, benefiting consumers, enterprises, and government organizations,” said Muthu Kumaran, general manager at Keysight Technologies.

Upcoming Events

Nov. 8-9, Arm DevSummit 2022 Workshops, virtual

Nov. 10, Automotive Tech Day, Detroit, MI

Nov. 14-17, Supercomputing SC22, Dallas, TX

Nov. 15-18, Semicon Europa, Munich, Germany (co-located with electronica)

Nov. 21-22, CadenceLive Europe 2022, Munich, Germany

Nov. 29-30, Synopsys Memory Technology Symposium, virtual

Find more events here.

In Case You Missed It

Check out the new Systems & Design newsletter as well as the Low Power, High Performance newsletter for these highlights and more:

  • Raising IP integration up a level
  • Bespoke silicon rattles chip design ecosystem
  • How to make the right decisions about clock network architecture
  • Dealing with heat in near-memory compute architectures

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