Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto

Internet of Things
Arm aims to accelerate Linux-based embedded design through providing quick access to the Cortex-A5 CPU under the Arm DesignStart program. Developers can work on embedded and Internet of Things system-on-a-chip devices for gateways, medical systems, smart homes, and wearable electronics. IP access to the Cortex-A5 is now $75,000, with one-year of design support from Arm experts, or an access fee of $150,000 that includes three years of design support.

Cybersecurity
The chatter about Facebook this week was that the social media network wants to acquire a cybersecurity firm by the end of 2018 to shore up its internal security measures. The Information reports that multiple cybersecurity firms have been approached to gauge their interest.

ForeScout Technologies is partnering with Belden to help organizations secure their industrial automation and control networks. ForeScout will work with two Belden companies, Tripwire and Hirschmann.

Automotive Tech

Infineon Technologies introduced the OPTIGA TPM 2.0 SLI 9670, providing a Trusted Platform Module specifically for automotive applications. The product can be used in a central gateway, the telematics unit, or the infotainment system.

WM Motor Technology wants to raise more than $288 million in new funding, Reuters reports. The Chinese EV company, established in early 2015, last month began deliveries of its EX5 SUV, which runs on an electric battery. Investors in WM Motor include Baidu, Tencent, Sequoia Capital China, and China Chengton Fund.

Intel released a study on automated driving, including a survey by PSB that found 21% of U.S. consumers would trade in their existing vehicles for a self-driving car, while three times the number of respondents, 63%, said they expect autonomous vehicles to be the norm in transportation 50 years from now. More than half of the survey respondents said they would consume entertainment, socialize, and work, once relieved of driving duties, while one-third said they would host meetings, about one-quarter would do grooming, and 14% would exercise.

General Motors will expand its Maven peer-to-peer car-sharing service to 10 more U.S. cities by the end of this year. The service is currently available in Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Jersey City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities.

Products/Services
Rambus unveiled Vaultify Trade, a platform for the secure storage and transfer of crypto and digital assets with bank-grade, field-deployed tokenization and encryption technology, making use of blockchain. The company will collaborate with American Express Australia, helping merchants secure e-commerce and m-commerce transactions through tokenization, using Rambus Token Gateway, which connects to the American Express Token Service.

Synopsys reports improvements in its FineSim SPICE circuit simulator for analog design with the FineSim SPICE 2018.09 release. The company also announced the 2018.09 version of Custom Compiler, a tool has seen a doubling of new customer adoptions in the past year. Synopsys also says its Custom Design Platform has enhanced capabilities with the latest versions of FineSim SPICE and Custom Compiler. Finally, the company debuted DesignWare Memory Interface IP for next-generation DDR5 and LPDDR5 SDRAMs.

Mentor, a Siemens Business, made the ATE-Connect technology in its Tessent SiliconInsight product available for IC debug and bring-up. Teradyne’s UltraFLEX tester supports the new Mentor interface through its PortBridge technology, it was said.

The LoRa Alliance released three new specifications for the LoRaWAN protocol for IoT low-power wide-area networks, enabling over-the-air firmware updates. They are version 1.0.0 of the Application Layer Clock Synchronization Specification, Remote Multicast Setup Specification, and Fragmented Data Block Transport Specification.

Atmosic Technologies launched the M2 and M3 series of ultra-low-power Bluetooth 5 wireless platforms. The platforms provide connectivity for IoT devices. The M2 and M3 are currently in sampling with customers, and volume production is scheduled for the second quarter of 2019.

Hydro Systems, a Dover company, introduced Hydro Connect, its cloud-based IoT platform. Running on Microsoft Azure, Hydro Connect will first be offered to the industrial laundry market, followed by facility cleaning products.

Market Research
National Instruments released the NI Trend Watch 2019 report, with articles on wireless communications test in the 5G era, autonomous driving, making the IoT work in test, and other topics. The report can be downloaded here.

Juniper Research forecasts that IoT retail platforms will generate revenues of more than $4.3 billion by 2023, compared with an estimated $890 million this year. The IoT Retail Revolution, a free white paper, can be found here. Details on the firm’s IoT (Internet of Things) in Retail: Strategies & Forecasts for Retailers & Platform Providers 2018-2023 are available here.

Tractica published a new report, Artificial Intelligence Market Ecosystem. It can be purchased here.

Finance
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity startup, hired Goldman Sachs for an initial public offering in 2019, Reuters reports. The company has raised more than $400 million in private funding, most recently at a valuation of $3.35 billion.

Goldman Sachs was also hired by Cloudflare of San Francisco to lead an IPO for the provider of a Web performance and security platform. The company has privately raised about $180 million in funding from a variety of blue-chip investors. Cloudflare was most recently valued at $1.8 billion, and its IPO could value the company at more than $3.5 billion.

China’s Niu Technologies, a manufacturer of electric scooters, sold 7 million shares at $9 per share, raising $63 million in its IPO on Nasdaq, where it trades as NIU. The company reduced the terms of its offering, earlier planning to price 8.3 million shares at $10.50 to $12.50 a share, which would have brought in $95.45 million at the midpoint price.

Another Chinese company, TuanChe, filed for a $150 million IPO with Maxim Group as the lead underwriter. The online automotive marketplace plans to trade on Nasdaq as TC.

M&A
KKR finally bagged its acquisition of Magneti Marelli, the auto parts business of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The private equity firm will reportedly pay $7.1 billion for the business, which it will combine with Japan’s Calsonic Kansei, forming an entity known as Magneti Marelli CK Holdings.

Faurecia, another leading manufacturer of car parts, agreed to acquire the majority interest in Clarion, a supplier of auto navigation systems, for some $710 million. Hitachi, which owned 63.6% of Clarion, will sell most of its shares to Faurecia.

Oracle agreed to purchase San Francisco-based DataFox, a provider of predictive intelligence-as-a-service for business data. Financial terms weren’t revealed. DataFox received about $18 million from private investors including Goldman Sachs, GV, and Slack.

ZF Friedrichshafen bought a 35% equity stake in ASAP, which offers software and testing systems for autonomous and electric vehicles. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Farewell
Alta Motors of Brisbane, Calif., ceased operations. The developer of electric motorcycles raised $45 million in private funding and had a co-development partnership with Harley-Davidson.