Google adds Android support for RISC-V; Ansys buys particle dynamics simulation firm; Quadric-OSRAM co-develop smart image sensors; Renesas rolls out Matter Wi-Fi development kit.
Google announced it will support the RISC-V architecture with the Android open-source operating system. In a keynote at the RISC-V Summit, Lars Bergstrom, Google’s director of engineering for the Android Platform Programming Languages, noted that Android currently has more than 3 billion users and the support of more than 24,000 vendors. “We’ve been following RISC-V for a very long time on the Android side, watching its progress,” said Bergstrom. “We think that RISC-V is ready to be supported as one of the architectures within the Android open-source platform.”
DARPA and Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) officially kicked off the Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0, also known as Jump 2.0. The consortium is aimed at furthering “high-risk, high-payoff research” in novel architectures, materials, and other focus areas. Several universities announced they received Jump 2.0 funding for research centers, including Georgia Tech, Columbia, and UC San Diego.
Investors poured $2.8 billion into semiconductor startups in December, including a GPU startup raising over $200 million and another startup receiving $100 million to develop solid-state cooling chips.
Ansys acquired Rocky, a particle dynamics simulation software subsidiary of Engineering Simulation and Scientific Software. Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys, said that integrating Rocky’s software and team members into Ansys “enables Ansys to provide an even more efficient and powerful solution for our customers.” Ansys separately announced the use of its simulation and development tools in several domains, including air purification technology, construction and agricultural vehicles, humanoid robots, e-bikes, electric fan motors, and research and development processes for Sub-Zero.
Quadric and ams OSRAM inked a deal to jointly develop smart image sensors. Under terms of the deal, Quadric will provide integrated sensing modules based on its GPNPU processors for OSRAM’s sensors for visible and infrared light. The companies said the new processors will be operate at much lower power than existing solutions, which can require a 5W edge chip or 15W board-level solution for sensing functions like facial recognition, object detection and recognition, and scene analysis. The modules will be aimed at automotive, consumer, and industrial applications.
Keysight is working with 16 organizations to create a 6G-SANDBOX for experimentation and validation of 5G-Advanced and 6G technologies. Keysight will act as project coordinator. The effort is being funded by Horizon Europe, a 7-year EU scientific research initiative. Included in the 6G-SANDBOX COSMOTE are Eurescom; FOGUS Innovations & Services P.C.; Fraunhofer FOKUS; INFOLYSIS P.C.; Institute of Software Engineering and Technologies (ITIS) at the University of Malaga; Keysight; Lenovo; National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR) Demokritos; Nokia eXtended Reality Lab; OpenNebula; OWO; Queen’s University Belfast; Telefonica, and University of Oulu.
MIT researchers demonstrated directional photon emission, which could be used to connect quantum information nodes.
Scientists discovered a “surprising” electron bridge between layers of the semiconductive materials tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide. The bridge facilitates rapid heat transfer, which could have significant implications for next-generation electronic devices.
The technical papers recently added to SE’s library include research on a RISC-V decoupled vector coprocessor, a novel clock gating approach, inverse-designed silicon photonics, and printed organic photovoltaic modules.
Renesas introduced its first Wi-Fi development kit with support for the new Matter protocol. “As the embedded processing leader, connectivity is a critical part of our IoT solutions,” said Sean McGrath, vice president of the Connectivity and Audio Business Division in Renesas’ IoT, Industrial and Infrastructure Business Unit, said the company is “well positioned to take advantage of the Matter standard in a variety of applications working with customers worldwide.”
Keysight and Qualcomm collaborated on an end-to-end 5G non-terrestrial network connection using satellite channel and 5G base station emulation platforms. Cao Peng, vice president and general manager for Keysight’s Wireless Test Group, said the collaboration enables the companies to “comprehensively address a wide range of complexities that arise as advanced space and terrestrial technologies are combined onto a single modem platform.”
Jan. 5-Jan. 8, CES 2023, Las Vegas, NV and virtual
Jan. 8-Jan.11, ISS 2023: Industry Strategy Symposium, Half Moon Bay, CA
Jan. 16-Jan. 19, Asia & South Pacific Design Automation Conference, Tokyo, Japan
Jan. 23-Jan. 27, Florida Semiconductor Week, Gainesville, FL
Jan. 24-Jan. 26, Chiplet Summit, San Jose, CA
Jan. 28-Feb. 2, SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA
Jan. 30-Feb. 1, AR/VR/MR: SPIE event focused on augmented, virtual and mixed reality, San Francisco, CA
Feb. 23, Phil Kaufman Award Ceremony and Banquet, San Jose, CA
Check out the Systems & Design newsletter as well as the Low Power, High Performance newsletter for these highlights and more:
If you’d like to receive Semiconductor Engineering newsletters and alerts via email, please subscribe here.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |  |
Leave a Reply