Microsoft-AMD collaboration; Google’s new cloud platform; memory price to decline; Synopsys acquires Silicon Frontline

EDA research is alive: the DAC 2023 technical program received a record high number of submissions. For the Research Track, the Conference’s Technical Program Committee reviewed 1,156 submitted research manuscripts and accepted 263 for presentation and publication. In addition, 269 Engineering Track submissions were reviewed with 71 accepted for presentation.

Hyperscalers updates: Microsoft, Meta, Google

Microsoft and AMD are reportedly collaborating on artificial intelligence chips. Unlike what one would expect, the AI processor design is being provided by Microsoft, not by AMD: it is the Athena chip that was in the news a couple of weeks ago. Microsoft is also reportedly providing financial support to bolster AMD’s AI efforts.

Meta (Facebook) has reportedly hired an Oslo-based team (at least ten engineers) that until late last year was building artificial-intelligence networking technology at British AI chip unicorn Graphcore. According to Reuters, Graphcore closed its Oslo office as part of a broader restructuring announced in October last year.

Among the many innovations introduced on occasion of the recent Google I/O event, Google Cloud has announced the private preview launch of the next-generation A3 GPU supercomputer for training and inference of generative AI and large language models. The A3 VMs combine Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs and Google’s custom-designed 200 Gbps IPUs, with GPU-to-GPU data transfers bypassing the CPU host and flowing over separate interfaces from other VM networks and data traffic. This enables up to 10x more network bandwidth compared to Google’s A2 VMs. The A3 supercomputer’s scale provides up to 26 exaFlops of AI performance.

Infineon and Foxconn to collaborate on SiC and electric vehicles

Infineon and Foxconn have signed a Memorandum of Understanding focusing on silicon carbide development, leveraging Infineon’s automotive SiC innovations and Foxconn’s know-how in automotive systems. The two companies will collaborate on the implementation of SiC technology in automotive high-power applications like traction inverters, onboard chargers, and DC-DC converters. In addition, Infineon and Foxconn plan to establish a system application center in Taiwan focusing on a range of automotive solutions, including smart cabin applications, advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving applications. The joint center, which is expected to be established within 2023, will also address electromobility applications such as battery management systems and traction inverters.

Onsemi new automotive image sensor family

Onsemi has launched its Hyperlux automotive image sensor family, featuring a 2.1 µm pixel size, 150dB ultra high dynamic range (HDR) and LED flicker mitigation (LFM) across the full automotive temperature range. LED flicker mitigation ensures that pulsed light sources do not appear to flicker and thereby avoids flicker-induced machine vision issues. According to onsemi, the new image sensors boast the industry’s lowest power consumption and smallest footprint. The Hyperlux family spans products with resolutions from 3 to 8 megapixel and higher, catering to both sensing and viewing camera applications – for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and Level 2+ driving automation.

DRAM and NAND prices to decline in 2Q23

According to market research firm TrendForce, as production cuts to DRAM and NAND Flash have not kept pace with weakening demand, the average selling price of some products is expected to decline further in 2Q23. DRAM prices are projected to fall 13-18%; NAND Flash is expected to fall between 8-13%. TrendForce reports that the significant drop in DRAM prices was mostly attributed to high inventory levels of DDR4 and LPDDR5 as PC DRAM, server DRAM, and mobile DRAM collectively account for over 85% of DRAM consumption. Meanwhile, the market share for DDR5 remains relatively low. NAND Flash is primarily affected by enterprise SSD and UFS price drops, and the oversupply situation in the market has yet to be resolved. These two products account for over 50% of total NAND Flash consumption.

South Korean startup to demo four AI solutions at Embedded Vision Summit

South Korean AI chip startup Deepx will demonstrate its four AI chip solutions and edge AI technologies at the upcoming Embedded Vision Summit (Santa Clara, May 22 to 24). Deepx will show demos that include driving robot and facial recognition algorithms developed with Hyundai Robotics Lab, high-performance camera modules developed with Jahwa Electronics, and smart factory solutions developed in collaboration with Posco DX.

Neuromorphic advancements

A team of Dutch researchers has recently published a work on new neuromorphic (spike-based) neural networks showing the performance benefits of two combined innovations: Forward-Propagation Through Time (FPTT) learning and “liquid time-constant spiking neurons”. A pre-print version of the paper can be found here.

People

The Electronic System Design Alliance has elected its Governing Council for the 2023-2025 term. New to the Governing Council are Niels Faché, vice president and general manager at Keysight, and John Lee, general manager and vice president at Ansys. The other members are Aart de Geus (Synopsys), Anirudh Devgan (Cadence), Aki Fujimura, (D2S), Maheen Hamid (Breker Verification Systems), John Kibarian (PDF Solutions), Prakash Narain (Real Intent), Joe Sawicki (Siemens EDA) and Bob Smith, executive director of the ESD Alliance.

Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) has appointed Robert Aslett as president and chief executive officer. Aslett is a former Intel engineering vice president and general manager.

Acquisitions

Synopsys has acquired Silicon Frontline Technology (San Jose, CA), the provider of an electrical layout verification solution that detects “blind spots” in the design of large-scale power semiconductor devices and electrostatic discharge protection networks. According to Synopsys, Frontline’s products are the de facto standard for power devices as well as mixed-signal and analog designs. Silicon Frontline’s Dynamic ESD Simulation solution complements the static ESD technology in Synopsys IC Validator PERC physical verification solution.

Qualcomm Technologies has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Autotalks, an Israel-headquartered fabless semiconductor company that provides automotive qualified dual-mode global V2X (vehicle-to-everything) solutions compatible with multiple V2X standards. Autotalks standalone safety solutions will be incorporated into Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Digital Chassis product portfolio.

CEVA has acquired the RealSpace 3D Spatial Audio business, technology and patents from VisiSonics. Based in Maryland, close to CEVA’s sensor fusion R&D development center, the VisiSonics “spatial audio” R&D team and software extend the company’s application software portfolio for embedded systems, targeting hearables.

DAC speakers line-up

The next Design Automation Conference – which will be taking place in San Francisco, CA, from July 9 to 13, co-located with Semicon West – will offer a number of speeches from prominent speakers. The combined line-up from the four speech categories in the conference program (Keynotes, Visionaries, SKYTalks and TechTalks) will include Alberto L. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (Berkeley University), Heike Riel (IBM), Walden Rhines (Cornami), Mark Horowitz (Yahoo!/Stanford University), Joe Sawicki (Siemens EDA), Prith Banerjee (Ansys), Lip-Bu Tan (Cadence), Cecilia Metra (University of Bologna), Dev Shenoy (US Department of Defense), Paul Cunningham (Cadence), Jean-Philippe Fricker (Cerebras), Edith Beigné (Meta Reality Labs), Robert Wille (Software Competence Center), Zeke Wheeler (KJ7NLL), Chandrasekar Vuppalapati (Microsoft), Majid Ahadi Dolatsara (Keysight).

This entry was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2023 at 1:57 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.