News about Arm-based and Risc-V-based processors make up most of the updates this week. As for Risc-V, besides the two startups mentioned below, new adopters include Imagination, which this year is re-entering the CPU market with designs based around the open ISA. Speaking of Arm, according to British newspaper “The Telegraph”, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has expressed his opposition to the Nvidia-Arm deal. The Sunday Telegraph also understands that Amazon and Samsung have lodged opposition to the deal with US authorities. As far as EDA is concerned, a very recent update is the resignation of Babak Taheri as chief executive officer of Silvaco and member of the board after two years in the role. The official press release does not provide any explanations for this decision. Let’s now move to the other news.
Translating C++ algorithms to RTL for Microchip FPGA programming
Microchip has added an HLS design workflow. called SmartHLS, to its PolarFire FPGA families that allows C++ algorithms to be directly translated to FPGA-optimized RTL code. The solution is aimed at applications involving edge compute, computer vision and industrial control algorithms that are developed natively in C++ by developers with little or no knowledge of underlying FPGA hardware. The SmartHLS design suite is based on the open-source Eclipse integrated development environment. According to Microchip, the SmartHLS tool requires up to ten times fewer lines of code than an equivalent RTL design.
Google reportedly developing Arm-based CPUs for notebook and tablet PCs
According to Nikkei Asia, Google is developing its own Arm-based CPUs for its notebook and tablet computers which run on the company’s Chrome operating system. Roll out would be planned for 2023. Google is also reportedly ramping up its efforts to build Arm-based mobile processors for its Pixel smartphones and other devices. The company is hiring chip engineers in the US and around the world, including in Israel, India and Taiwan.
