Ford re-enters the AV race; 2022 foundry results; Risc-V at European conferences

The Netherlands’ government is reportedly planning new restrictions on exports of semiconductor technology. The restrictions will obviously impact ASML’s litho equipment, and – according to the report – will also affect DUV systems. More updates included in this week’s roundup concern automotive applications, foundry results, and upcoming European conferences.

Automotive updates: Ford, imec, proteanTecs

Ford Motor Company has established Latitude AI, a wholly owned subsidiary focused on developing automated driving systems. The move comes just a few months after the company shut down Argo AI, a self-driving technology unit that Ford ran in collaboration with Volkswagen. Latitude employs about 550 employees formerly of Argo AI and is headquartered in Pittsburgh – with additional engineering hubs in Dearborn, Michigan, and Palo Alto, California.

Belgian research center Imec has developed a digitally calibrated charge-pump phase-locked loop that can generate high-quality frequency-modulated continuous-wave signals for mmWave radars at low power consumption. The novel PLL is a critical building block for future short-range automotive (in-cabin and out-of-cabin) and industrial radar applications.

Chip monitoring specialist proteanTecs and car electronics supplier Harman (a Samsung subsidiary) have collaborated to advance a new approach to predictive and preventive maintenance of vehicle electronics combining over-the-air (OTA) technology, deep data analytics and device health monitoring.

2022 foundry results

Four foundries have recently announced their 2022 results. TSMC’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$2,263.89 billion and net income was NT$1,016.53 billion. GlobalFoundries preliminary financial results include revenue of $2,101 million, up 14% year-over-year; gross margin of 29.6% and adjusted gross margin of 30.1%; net income of $668 million. SkyWater foundry revenue increased 31% year-over-year to $212.9 million. Gross margin increased to 12.2% on a GAAP basis, compared to 4.6% in 2021, and increased to 13.7% on a non-GAAP basis, compared to 2.0% in 2021. Tower Semiconductor’s revenue was $1.68 billion, as compared to $1.51 billion in 2021, reflecting 11% year over year revenue growth and 23% year over year organic revenue growth (that is, excluding revenues from Nuvoton in the Japanese fabs and from Maxim in the San Antonio fab). Net profit was $265 million, 76% higher than the $150 million in 2021.

A standard for lightweight cryptography

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has selected the Ascon algorithm co-developed by Infineon as an international standard for lightweight cryptography aimed at IoT and other resource-constrained applications. A first version of Ascon was developed at the Graz University of Technology (Austria) in 2014. At its core, Ascon replaces the functionality of a symmetric encryption scheme and a hash function (AES-GCM with SHA-2 or SHA-3) with much improved efficiency for many use cases.

Single-poly based embedded flash memory technology

Sunnyvale-based Anaflash, a microcontroller developer for edge computing, has acquired an exclusive license for a single-poly based embedded flash memory technology from the University of Minnesota. According to the company, this non-volatile memory is cost-effective and energy-efficient, lending itself to applications in battery-powered devices. The technology does not require any process overhead beyond the standard logic process, making it easy to deploy in advanced nodes.

Alibaba to develop a Risc-V-based chip for secure payments

China’s Alibaba will reportedly release chips for secure payments based on the Risc-V instruction set architecture. The chips will be jointly developed by Alibaba’s subsidiaries T-Head (chip unit) and Alipay (payment service). Reuters reports that the announcement was made at the first “Xuantie Risc-V Developer Ecosystem Conference“; representatives from Alphabet, Intel and Imagination were present at the event. At the conference, Ni Guangnan, a renowned computer scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, reportedly described China as the “backbone” of Risc-V.

Upcoming events

And Risc-V will be one of the many themes addressed by two major European events taking place around mid-March and mid-April. Embedded World is scheduled for March 14 to 16 in Nuremberg, Germany; and the DATE Conference will run from April 17 to 19 in Antwerp, Belgium. Both events will offer extremely rich programs, in some cases blurring the distinctions among adjacent technology areas. The DATE Conference confirms its role as a showcase of academic research – not only from Europe but from universities around the world – on a wide range of themes well beyond EDA and test. Among innumerable other topics, both events will offer several papers concerning Risc-V. Most Risc-V papers to be presented at Embedded World have been summarized in this page, but more can be found browsing the conference program. Themes include the software tooling ecosystem requirements for heterogeneous multicore designs mixing Risc-V and Arm cores; early Risc-V software verification using virtual prototypes; the addition of Risc-V custom instructions post-silicon through eFPGA; a 64-bit dual-issue Risc-V microprocessor developed using an open-source EDA toolchain; a complete design and verification flow of a Risc-V class of instructions; example of extending Risc-V for AI/ML domain specific processors etc. As for the DATE Conference, an example from the event’s program concerns an SoC based on a 64-bit Risc-V processor, implemented in GlobalFoundries 22-nanometer FDX technology, running a 64-bit Linux software stack within a power envelope of just 250 milliwatts.

Acquisitions

Infineon will acquire Canada-based GaN Systems for US$830 million. GaN Systems specializes in the development of GaN-based solutions for power conversion and has more than 200 employees. The two companies are planning to combine GaN Systems’ “foundry corridors” with Infineon’s in-house manufacturing capacity. In February 2022, Infineon announced the construction of a new wide bandgap fab in Kulim, Malaysia, adding to the company’s existing manufacturing capacities in Villach, Austria.

NI (National Instruments) has acquired German company SET, a specialist in aerospace and defense test systems which has recently developed innovative solutions for testing SiC and GaN power devices used in automotive applications. National Instruments itself is also looking for a buyer and has reportedly informed Emerson, Fortive and Keysight that their offers qualify them to go through the second round of bidding for the company.

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