D&R Headline News (August 2011)

Headlines for Wednesday Aug. 31, 2011

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CSR and Zoran combine to create a leading provider of platforms and solutions to the global consumer electronics industry

CSR and Zoran today completed their merger to create a global leader in wireless connectivity, location-aware, imaging, video, and audio products.

• Economic news not all bad for semiconductors
• Synopsys and Achronix Announce Multi-Year Renewal of Synthesis Partnership
• NSA Approved Defense-Grade Spartan-6Q FPGA in Production for Highest Level Cryptographic Capabilities Strengthens Xilinx Secure Leadership
• Zoran Stockholders Approve CSR Merger

Headlines for Tuesday Aug. 30, 2011

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Kilopass Expands Embedded Non-Volatile Memory Offering To GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 0.13um G Process

Kilopass today announced that its XPM™ embedded one-time programmable (OTP) NVM technology has completed 1000 hours of JEDEC standard reliability testing for high temperature operating life (HTOL) and high temperature storage life (HTSL) on 3 lots for GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 0.13um generic process technology.

• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Samsung Extend Fab Sync to New High-Performance 28nm Technology for Mobile Applications
• Renesas Electronics Introduces World's First USB 3.0-SATA3 Bridge SoC Supporting High-Speed UASP Protocol
• UMC Delivers High Endurance, Variable Voltage Range Embedded EEPROM Solution
• Kawasaki Microelectronics Licenses SNAP to Design Next-Generation, High-Volume Networking Chips
• Nufront Selects CEVA DSP Core for Wireless Baseband Chipsets
• Cosmic Circuits tapes out MIPI MPHY in 85nm
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Amkor to Collaborate on Advanced Assembly and Test Solutions
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES Announces Design Enablement Support for 20nm Design Flows from Leading EDA Vendors
• Silicon Image's Dual-Mode MHL and HDMI Port Processor Designed Into Industry's First MHL-Enabled Televisions From Toshiba

Headlines for Monday Aug. 29, 2011

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Idea! Electronic Systems Selects Mixed-Signal IP from S3 Group for Digital TV ASIC

S3 Group today announced that Idea! Electronic Systems has licensed its mixed-signal IP for their Digital TV ASIC.

• DRAM Pricing to Plunge in Q3 and Rest of Second Half
• Crocus Acquires NXP's MRAM Patent Portfolio
• Cadence and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Significantly Speed Design for Manufacturing Signoff at 32, 28 Nanometers

Headlines for Friday Aug. 26, 2011

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Calypto Design Systems Acquires Mentor Catapult C Synthesis Tool

The merger of two market-leading electronic system level (ESL) products, Catapult C Synthesis and Calypto SLEC System-HLS verification tool, will create a better integrated ESL hardware realization flow, and enhance the company’s partnership with Mentor Graphics, a leader in ESL technology.

• Zoran Urges Stockholders to Vote "FOR" the CSR Merger
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Graphics Extend Collaboration to Third Generation of DFM
• Leakage divided by more than 250 at 180 nm eLL with Dolphin Integration Panoply of memory and standard cells

Headlines for Thursday Aug. 25, 2011

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NEC Releases High Level Synthesis IDE, CyberWorkBench World's 1st Dedicated FPGA Version

CyberWorkBench is a C-based LSI design platform developed by NEC over the course of twenty years. CyberWorkBench is developed around the "All-in-C" paradigm that allows high level synthesis and verification of any ANSI-C or SystemC program generating high quality RTL.

• Arasan Chip Systems Announces Additional Sales Territory in Singapore and Vietnam
• Microsemi Announces Availability of Cost-optimized SmartFusion cSoC Device
• IC Market to Top $300 Billion for First Time in 2013
• Faraday Accelerates the Development of SoCs with Model-Based Design
• Recore Systems selects Zeisel Engineering as representing partner
• Triad Semiconductor to Introduce the World's First Via-Configurable Mixed Signal ARM Cortex-M0 Solution

Headlines for Wednesday Aug. 24, 2011

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Altera Ships World's First 28-Gbps-Enabled FPGA for Next-Generation 100G Systems and Beyond

Altera today announced it has started shipping the world's first FPGA featuring 28-Gbps transceivers. Stratix ®V GT devices are the industry's highest bandwidth and highest performance FPGAs available today.

• SiTune unveils low power single-die Dual/Diversity Terrestrial/Cable/Analog CMOS TV Tuner
• Evatronix to Participate in Tech Design Forum Events in Asia

Headlines for Tuesday Aug. 23, 2011

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Palmchip Licenses AcurX51 Smart Grid Platform to Greenvity Communications

Palmchip and Greenvity Communications today announced that Greenvity has licensed Palmchip's AcurX Smart Grid platform for use in Greenvity's smart energy and Home Area Network (HAN) based solutions.

• Arrow Electronics' Custom Logic Solutions Group Expands ARM Cortex Processor Portfolio to Deliver a Cost-Effective Range of Turnkey ASICs

Headlines for Monday Aug. 22, 2011

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Silicon Image Expands IP Portfolio With High-Quality Video Processing Technology

Silicon Image today announced its new family of high-quality cineramIC™ video processing IP cores, ranging from scalers and deinterlacers to video enhancement solutions such as noise reduction and edge enhancement.

• JEDEC Announces Key Attributes of Upcoming DDR4 Standard
• Cosmic Circuits partners with Innotech for Japan market
• ZiiLABS Selects High Performance Video DAC from S3 Group for High Definition TV Output

Headlines for Friday Aug. 19, 2011

• ARM wrestles with silicon, battery hurdles
• Tensilica DSP core does 100 GMACs at 1W
• Dolphin Integration launch a three-phase configuration of Analog Front-End with 20 bit sensitivity for Smart Metering

Headlines for Thursday Aug. 18, 2011

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Complex SoC Silicon and Software Design Costs Are Skyrocketing

Today, everywhere we turn, we hear speakers give presentations at conferences and industry events despairing how the rise in silicon design costs hampers the semiconductor industry's growth path. As part of this problem, we now recognize that software design costs have eclipsed silicon design efforts and have become the largest portion of the SoC creation effort.

• Arasan Chip Systems Announces Additional Sales Territory in Turkey
• TI says OMAP not for sale
• eASIC Appoints Industry Veteran, Brian McDonald as Chief Financial Officer
• eSilicon and TSMC Support Long-Lifecycle Products
• Synopsys Posts Financial Results for Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2011
• WiLAN Announces Intention to Make an All-Cash Takeover Offer for MOSAID Technologies and C$200 Million Extendible Convertible Debenture Offering
• ClariPhy Names Broadcom Executive as CEO and President

Headlines for Wednesday Aug. 17, 2011

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Viewpoint: Why Microsoft should buy Nokia

Monumental changes are taking place in the wireless handset and tablet PC market. Companies are crossing operating lines as it becomes more obvious that the dividing lines between software and hardware businesses were artificially created and are no longer justifiable or viable.

• Could Intel buy TI's OMAP division?
• Posedge Announces ONFI-3.0 compliant Universal Flash Controller IP Core

Headlines for Tuesday Aug. 16, 2011

• Google to Buy Struggling Motorola Mobility
• Microsemi Announces IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol IP and Reference Design on SmartFusion cSoC Devices
• What Google/Moto means for Android OEMs
• Google's Moto bid: It's all about the patents
• Avant Technology Inc. Will Represent Cortus at D&R IP-SoC Days 2011 - Shanghai

Headlines for Monday Aug. 15, 2011

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Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

Google and Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Google will acquire Motorola Mobility for $40.00 per share in cash, or a total of about $12.5 billion, a premium of 63% to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares on Friday, August 12, 2011.

• CEVA Leads Israeli Smart Grid Consortium for the Advancement of Smart Grid Technologies
• MOSAID Expands Patent Infringement Suit Against Elpida
• Viewpoint: Don't believe the patent sale hype

Headlines for Friday Aug. 12, 2011

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TranSwitch's HDMI 1.4 Technology Selected by Samsung Electronics for Next-Generation High-Definition Televisions

TranSwitch today announced that the Company’s HDMI® 1.4 Intellectual Property (IP) with patented Phaswitch™ technology has been selected by Samsung Electronics for its next generation of televisions.

• TSMC's A6 processor to respin, says report
• Dolphin Integration enables audio designers to hear the quality of their audio application simulated with SMASH

Headlines for Thursday Aug. 11, 2011

• ASIX Electronics buys MosChip assets
• SATA-IO to Enable Higher Speed Storage Applications with SATA Express Specification
• Samsung Announces High-performance 512GB SSDs with Ultra-fast SATA Revision 3.0 Interface
• VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd. Expands Power Architecture Eco-system and Technology throughout Asia

Headlines for Wednesday Aug. 10, 2011

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Alvand Technologies Announce tape-out of its compact, low-power Wireless MIMO Analog Front End in 40nm

Alvand’s Wireless MIMO AFE at the 40nm process node represents the fourth generation of this proven IP technology, which has already been implemented in 130nm, 90nm and 65nm processes across multiple foundries.

• Arasan Chip Systems Announces New Partner in Japan
• Link_A_Media Devices Secures $16 Million in Series D Funding
• Altior, Inc. Appoints Robert Zecha and Jim Carlson to Executive Management Team
• SMIC Reports 2011 Second Quarter Results
• TSMC July 2011 Sales Report

Headlines for Tuesday Aug. 09, 2011

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MOSAID Announces ARM Complaint

ARM, in its complaint, is seeking a declaration of non-infringement and invalidity with respect to the same seven U.S. patents at issue in MOSAID's suit against NVIDIA, Freescale and Interphase.

• SATA-IO Introduces New Standard for Embedded SSDs
• ARM CoreTile Express for Cortex-A5 Processor
• Duolog Technologies is First IP Integration Company to Join TSMC Reference Flow 12.0
• Silicon Image InstaPort S Technology Featured in Toshiba REGZA 2011 DTV Models
• Sunplus Core Technology Speeds ProtoType Verification of Multimedia ICs with SpringSoft's ProtoLink Probe Visualizer
• Imagination and Kishonti preview GLBenchmark 2.5 at SIGGRAPH 2011
• Imagination previews Brazil 3.0 Beta running on OpenRL
• MOSAID to Sell 'Covenant Not to Sue' on Cellular Handset Patents at ICAP Patent Brokerage Auction

Headlines for Monday Aug. 08, 2011

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Northwest Logic and Avery Design Systems Successfully Team on PCI Express 3.0 Solutions

Northwest Logic Inc., a leader in high-performance digital IP Cores, and Avery Design Systems, a leader in Verification IP (VIP) solutions, today announced Northwest Logic’s Expresso 3.0 solutions for PCI Express® (PCIe®) for Endpoint, Root Complex, and Switch have been fully verified and deployed to customers based on Avery’s PCI-Xactor verification models and compliance testsuites.

• Micrium Makes uC/OS-III Source Available
• Loongson Licenses MIPS32 and MIPS64 Architectures for Embedded and Computing Applications
• ViXS Systems Introduces Turnkey Hardware and Software Blu-ray & Personal Video Recorder (PVR) Reference Design available for Set-top and Consumer Electronics Manufacturers
• XENTROTEC Selects the LatticeECP3 FPGA Family for Multi-Channel HD Video Multiplexer and HD-DVR Solutions
• Nordic Semiconductor and Broadcom collaborate on Bluetooth low energy proximity fob prototype for mobile device security
• SMSC Introduces Industry's First 7-Port USB 3.0 Hybrid Hub Controller Family
• SMIC Appoints Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu as CEO and Executive Director
• Sunplus Technology Picks Cadence Transaction-Level Modeling Flow for Next-Gen Multimedia ICs
• Android takes almost 50% share of worldwide smart phone market

Headlines for Friday Aug. 05, 2011

• MIPS' fourth quarter disappoints
• Vector Fabrics working with Imagination Technologies to tap the power of multi-pipe and multi-core PowerVR GPUs
• MIPS Technologies CFO Maury Austin to Retire
• MIPS Technologies' Fiscal 2011 Revenue Grows 16% Year-to-Year

Headlines for Thursday Aug. 04, 2011

• Elpida Starts Industry's First DRAM Shipments of 25nm Process Technology

Headlines for Wednesday Aug. 03, 2011

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Orca Systems Announces the Launch of DRBT, a Dual Mode Bluetooth RF and Modem Intellectual Property (IP) Core

Orca Systems announced today the launch of DRBT, a dual mode Bluetooth® RF plus modem IP core, providing customers with revolutionary reductions in silicon area, low power and exceptional radio performance.

• Mentor CEO Rhines fears foundry oversupply
• TowerJazz Qualifies 0.13um SiGe Process at Its Israeli Fab; Technology Successfully Transferred from Its US Facility
• Microsemi Announces Availability of Intrinsic-ID's Security IP on Its Flash-Based cSoCs, FPGAs and Development Boards
• Mobile Revenue Drives Silicon Image Growth in the Second Quarter
• Xilinx Flagship Spartan-6 FPGAs Built Into New National Instruments CompactRIO Systems and Single-Board RIO Devices
• Samsung Electronics Acquires Grandis, Inc.
• Cosmic Circuits releases video on it's Silicon Validation capabilities

Headlines for Tuesday Aug. 02, 2011

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Is Cadence preparing for a change at the top?

John Bruggeman, the face and voice of Cadence Design Systems Inc. for most of his two-year tenure as the EDA vendor's chief marketing officer, is suddenly out the door (almost), and at least one analyst thinks the move portends a change in leadership at the firm.

• C*Core Technology Co., Ltd. Brings 32-bit CPU and SoC Expertise to the Power Architecture Eco-System
• Sidense Completes TSMC IP9000 Assessment for SiPROM NVM IP and Attains more than 70 Customer Licenses in the Last 12 Months
• Lauterbach TRACE32 Supports MIPS32 M14K Core Family
• HiSilicon Licenses ARM Technology for use in Innovative 3G/4G Base Station, Networking Infrastructure and Mobile Computing Applications
• Analog Bits Low Jitter LC Tank PLL IP Targets Ultra High End Networking, Cloud Computing SoC's
• Analyst: Apple had 57% of Q2 handset profits
• ANSYS, Inc. Announces Successful Closing of Apache Acquisition
• Ridgetop Receives Microelectronics R&D Contract From Missile Defense Agency
• LG Electronics Picks Tensilica's HiFi Audio DSP and SW Codecs for HDTV

Headlines for Monday Aug. 01, 2011

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Global Semiconductor Sales Grow 3.7% in First Half of 2011

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors were $24.7 billion for the month of June 2011, a 1.5 percent decrease from the prior month when sales were $25 billion and 0.5 percent decrease from a year ago.

• Averant Adds RTL and Gate Level Combinational Equivalency Checker
• mimoOn integrates LTE PHY software on Texas Instruments' new system-on-chips for small cell base stations
• TowerJazz Israel and Ramon Chips Deliver Advanced, Second Generation Radiation-Hardened Processor for Space Applications
• Faraday Reported 2011 Second Quarter Results