D&R Headline News (April 2014)

Headlines for Wednesday Apr. 30, 2014

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Sidense 1T-OTP NVM Qualified in Second-Generation TSMC 180nm BCD Process

Sidense today announced that the Company's 1T-OTP macros for TSMC's 180nm BCD 1.8/5.0V Gen 2 process have met all TSMC9000 Assessment program requirements.

• Sonic Emotion Absolute 3D Sound Software Now Available on Cadence Tensilica HiFi Low-Power Audio/Voice Processors
• CEVA, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2014 Financial Results
• CEVA Unveils Bluetooth Solution for CEVA-TeakLite-4 DSP Targeting Low Power, Always-on, Smart Connected Devices
• Synopsys DFTMAX Ultra Deployed By Dialog Semiconductor to Successfully Test Silicon Parts
• Robust Marketshare Gains for Makers of Tablet and Cellphone Processors

Headlines for Tuesday Apr. 29, 2014

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Synopsys' New Silicon-Proven DesignWare USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 femtoPHY IP Cut Area by 50 Percent

Synopsys today announced that it has reduced the area of USB PHY implementations by up to 50 percent with the new DesignWare® USB femtoPHY IP, minimizing USB PHY silicon footprint and cost for designs in 28-nanometer (nm) and 14/16-nm FinFET processes.

• Intilop announces Collaboration Agreement with Xilinx to provide TCP and UDP Networking Protocol Acceleration IP Cores and Solutions
• Cirrus Logic Agrees to Acquire Wolfson Microelectronics
• Is It Secure to Use Bluetooth Low Energy in Cars?
• Sonics Extends Flagship On-Chip Network Product, Addresses Low Latency SoC Designs for the Wearable Market
• Thalia Design Automation Ltd completes A round funding and prepares to launch suite of Analog and Power design optimisation tools
• DINI Group Verifies Compatibility of Northwest Logic's PCI Express Cores with Virtex-7 ASIC Prototyping Platforms
• New Software for Mentor Graphics Questa Platform Enables Early Verification of IEEE 1149.1-2013 Compliant IP and On-Chip Instruments

Headlines for Monday Apr. 28, 2014

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RivieraWaves Licenses its Bluetooth Smart 4.1 Intellectual Property to Dialog Semiconductor

RivieraWaves, leading provider of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi silicon and software intellectual property (IP), today announced that Dialog Semiconductor has licensed RivieraWaves Bluetooth Smart 4.1 baseband controller, software protocol stack and profiles for use in its Bluetooth Smart ICs.

• What Are EDA's Big Three Thinking?
• SMIC Reports 2014 First Quarter Results
• Strong 2014 for semiconductor equipment & CapEx
• GUC and Verisense Announce Strategic Alliance
• IP-Maker Expands Global Sales Reach, Adds Silicon Valley Representation for its Memory Products
• Centaur Technology Deploys Synopsys' Formality Ultra to Shorten Design Schedules by Weeks
• Eric Penain to join Reflex CES as Sales Director

Headlines for Friday Apr. 25, 2014

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Many-core processor IP company Recore Systems secures $2 million Series B investment for go-to-market

Recore Systems, a many-core processor IP company, today announced that it has closed $2 million in Series B financing, bringing its total raise to date to $5 million. Initial Series A investors Point One Innovation Fund, Participatiemaatschappij Oost Nederland and Twente Technology Fund led this Series B financing round.

• Xilinx Demonstrates FPGA-Based Acceleration Technology for Next-Generation Data Centers at IBM Impact 2014

Headlines for Thursday Apr. 24, 2014

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ARM: Smartphone Sales Drop, but Recovery Is Coming

Smartphone chip giant ARM Holdings, PLC reported slightly disappointing financial results for the first quarter of 2014 due to what it called an "inventory correction" following a global dip in smartphone sales during the final months of 2013.

• Accellera Systems Initiative advances the SystemC ecosystem with new releases of the core language and verification libraries
• Xilinx Announces Record Fiscal 2014 Revenues; 28nm Sales Increase More Than 40% Sequentially In Q4
• Panasonic and Fujitsu Form Fabless Chip Company

Headlines for Wednesday Apr. 23, 2014

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Synopsys Announces Industry's First Complete LPDDR4 IP Solution for High-Performance, Low-Power Mobile SoC Designs

Synopsys today introduced the industry's first complete LPDDR4 IP solution, which includes Synopsys' DesignWare® LPDDR4 multiPHY, Enhanced Universal DDR Memory Controller (uMCTL2) and verification IP (VIP), as well as hardening and signal integrity services

• Executive Insight: Charlie Cheng
• Cadence breaks into top four in semi IP core ranking
• Alchip and Credo Provide 28Gbps SerDes ASICs for Enterprise Data Communication
• Altera Achieves Industry Milestone: Demonstrates FPGA Technology Based on Intel 14 nm Tri-Gate Process
• Krivi announces 28nm silicon proven DDR3/3L PHY with ARM CoreLink Technology
• UMC Certifies Synopsys IC Validator Physical Verification Tool for 28 nm
• Codasip Secures $2.8 Million First Round of Funding, Led by Credo Ventures
• ARM Holdings PLC Reports Results For The First Quarter 2014
• M31 Technology in the TSMC 2014 North America Technology Symposium demonstrated "Art and Science" innovative solution for Silicon IP
• Industry's Highest Capacity SoC Interconnect IP Core from DMP Adopted by eSilicon
• Dolphin Integration announce the availability of the TSMC sponsored sROMet and DpRAM generators at 90 nm LP eFlash
• Synopsys' New ProtoCompiler Software Speeds Time to First Prototype by Up to 3X

Headlines for Tuesday Apr. 22, 2014

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Cadence to Expand Verification Solution with Acquisition of Jasper Design Automation

Cadence today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Jasper Design Automation, Inc., a leading provider of formal analysis solutions, for approximately $170 million in cash. Jasper had approximately $24 million of cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of December 31, 2013.

• FIDO Alliance Welcomes Leading Technology Company ARM to the Board of Directors to Help Deliver a Secure World beyond Passwords
• VESA and MIPI Alliance Announce the Adoption of VESA's New Display Stream Compression Standard
• Altera Changes the Game for Floating Point DSP in FPGAs
• Sonics Expands Market Lead in Network-On-Chip
• Xilinx Recognizes TSMC with Best Supplier Award
• Cactus Semiconductor chooses Dolphin Integration's Library for their low power, portable medical applications
• Toshiba Joins GLOBALSOLUTIONS Ecosystem as Worldwide ASIC Partner
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2014 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.06

Headlines for Monday Apr. 21, 2014

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Athena Announces Fastest Elliptic Curve Cryptography Accelerator Core

The Athena Group, Inc., the leader in high-performance public key (PK) and elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), today announced the industry’s fastest ECC accelerator core. Athena’s commitment to maintaining leadership in the high-performance PK cryptography and ECC marketplace is reinforced with the release of the EC Ultra family of dedicated ECC accelerators. Athena introduced three variants ranging in performance from 2,000 to 8,000 NIST P-256 EC-DSA verify operations per second.

• Cadence Reports First Quarter 2014 Financial Results
• Memoir Systems Introduces Renaissance Memory Uptime for Next Generation SoCs
• Xilinx and Open-Silicon Announce Hybrid Memory Cube Controller IP for All Programmable FPGAs
• Altera and TSMC Collaborate to Bring Advanced Packaging Technology to Arria 10 FPGAs and SoCs
• Innosilicon Announce the world 1st 28nm Litecoin ASIC and Reference Miners
• Real Countries Have Fabs
• ARM Implements the Cadence Library Characterization Solution for Advanced Node Foundation IP Development

Headlines for Thursday Apr. 17, 2014

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Smallest, Lowest-Power OpenVG Vector Graphics IP Core Now Available from CAST

A competitively small and low-power vector graphics processing unit (GPU) IP core is now available from semiconductor intellectual property provider CAST, Inc. The ThinkVG Vector GPU IP Core offers full support of the OpenVG™ 1.1 vector graphics API.

• Imagination introduces world's highest quality WebRTC media engine
• Credo Semiconductor Breaks Through the 50Gb/s NRZ Serial Data Rate Barrier - Deliver The Most Advanced SerDes
• TSMC Gets Ready to Enjoy Apple Booster
• Samsung and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Forge Strategic Collaboration to Deliver Multi-Sourced Offering of 14nm FinFET Semiconductor Technology
• TSMC Reports First Quarter EPS of NT$1.85
• Analog Bits Leads the Industry with New Mixed Signal IP Products
• MegaChips and Vidatronic execute Joint Development Agreement
• Mentor Graphics Veloce Emulation Platform Selected by Imagination Technologies for IP Verification Based on Performance and Capacity

Headlines for Wednesday Apr. 16, 2014

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Elliptic Technologies Announces the Availability of High Performance, NIST SP 800-90 Compliant Random Number Generators

Elliptic Technologies today announced the launch of two NIST (National Institute of Standards Technology) SP 800-90a/b/c Compliant True Random Number Generators (TRNG): CLP-850 and CLP-890 to add to their extensive security portfolio.

• Cortus opens Office in Bundang, Korea
• Faraday Delivers a Complete Set of UMC 28nm Cell Libraries and Memory Compilers
• Vivado Design Suite 2014.1 Increases Productivity with Automation of UltraFast Design Methodology and OpenCL Hardware Acceleration
• Sidense Exhibiting at TSMC 2014 North American Technology Symposiums
• Cadence Digital and Custom/Analog Tools Achieve TSMC V1.0 DRM Certification for 16nm FinFET Process

Headlines for Tuesday Apr. 15, 2014

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MIPI UniPort-M Selected by Google for Modular Smartphone "Project Ara"

The MIPI®Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, is proud to announce that Google, Inc. has chosen the MIPI UniPort-M protocol for its smartphone Project AraModule Developers Kit (MDK).

• Mentor Graphics Design and Verification Tools Certified for TSMC 16nm FinFET Production
• Flower Technology partners with EnSilica for the development of new ASIC mining solutions for scrypt-based cryptocurrencies
• Acacia Subsidiary Partners With a Leading Semiconductor Company on Patents Related to DisplayPort and MIPI DSI
• Google's ATAP Group Selects Lattice FPGAs for its Project Ara Modular Smartphone Prototype
• Spreadtrum Adopts Cadence Palladium XP II Platform for Mobile SoC and Hardware-Software Verification
• NEC uses eASIC to Optimize iPasolink Microwave Products

Headlines for Monday Apr. 14, 2014

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Entropic Selects OmniPhy High-Speed Physical Interface Solution for Next-Generation Set-top Box System-on-a-Chip Designs

OmniPhy today announced Entropic, a world leader in semiconductor solutions for the connected home, has licensed the OmniPhy DDR4/3 solution to design low-power, high-performance system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for set-top box (STB) applications.

• TSMC Certifies Synopsys Digital and Custom Solution for V1.0 N16 Process
• Xilinx's DDR4 Memory Solution for UltraScale Devices Completes Agilent N6462A Compliance Test Running at 2400 Mb/s
• GigOptix Expands Industrial ASIC Product Line (CX) Offering with ASIC Sunrise Product Family to Address Advanced Low-Geometry Foundry Processes

Headlines for Friday Apr. 11, 2014

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Chips&Media's HEVC 4:2:0 10-Bit Decoder IP Licensed to Chipmaker

Chips&Media Inc. announced today that they has signed a licensing agreement with one of the major fabless companies for WAVE410™v2- HEVC 4:2:0 10bit decoder IP and has finished shipping.

• TSMC to Sell 5% of Vanguard International Semiconductor
• Videantis wins Red Herring award for its vision and video processor IP technology

Headlines for Thursday Apr. 10, 2014

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China's Quest for "MIPS in Wearable"

Let's be blunt: Not many serious players in the electronics industry today are sanguine about the survival chances for MIPS processors in a global mobile market where in the last decade -- almost single-handedly -- ARM has built its formidable ecosystem.

• Key semiconductor IP players forecast to target China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore markets over the next few years
• M31 high density and low power IP solutions on TSMC 55nm embedded flash technology
• TSMC March 2014 Revenue Report
• Watching the Hardware Emulation Market Take Off
• Tablet Apps Processor Revenue to Reach $7.2 Billion in 2018
• Global Unichip Corp. (GUC) Licenses Arteris FlexNoC Fabric IP for 16nm System-on-Chip (SoC) IP Verification Platform
• Sunrise Micro Devices partners with Wicentric to offer a complete Bluetooth® Smart software solution for its first sub-volt IoT product
• How Much Will That Chip Cost?
• Smartphone Apps Processor Revenue to Reach $30 Billion in 2018 says Strategy Analytics

Headlines for Wednesday Apr. 09, 2014

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Common Platform in Preparation for SOI, FinFETs at 10nm

A team of engineers from IBM Microelectronics, Globalfoundries, Samsung, STMicroelectronics and UMC are due to present a 10nm logic platform that supports FinFETs on both bulk CMOS and on silicon-on-insulator wafers.

• UMC Reports Sales for March 2014
• Novel Features of new Multi-Channel Video Processor on show at NAB
• Cryptography Research and Fairchild Semiconductor Sign Patent License Agreement for DPA Countermeasures
• OmniTek releases enhanced version of Multi-Channel Streaming DMA Controller Core

Headlines for Tuesday Apr. 08, 2014

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VeriSilicon Expands Its Hantro Video IP Portfolio With HEVC Main 10 Profile and AVS+ Decoder Capabilities

VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd. (VeriSilicon), a leading custom silicon solution and semiconductor IP provider, today announced the availability of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Main 10 Profile decoder in Hantro Video IP as well as the availability of AVS+ decoder IP to support HDTV and 3D TV services in China.

• Ineda Systems Secures $17M in Series B Funding From Key Partners
• Ineda Systems Delivers Breakthrough Power Consumption for Wearable Devices and the Internet of Things
• Freescale enters into definitive agreement to purchase Mindspeed ARM processor business from MACOM
• ARM Compiler Builds on Open Source LLVM Technology
• HDL Design House Signs Representative Agreement with Laflin Limited for Japan Market
• SEMI Reports 2013 Global Semiconductor Materials Sales of $43.5 Billion
• Sensor Platforms and ARM Introduce Open Source Software To Enable Sensor Hub Implementations
• eMemory's SIP Introduced to Electro-Medical Applications

Headlines for Monday Apr. 07, 2014

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PLDA and OmniPhy Announce PCIe Gen 2 Controller and PHY Combination for the TSMC 28nm Process

PLDA and OmniPhy today announced successful interop testing for a combined PCIe Gen 2 Controller IP and PHY IP solution. Initially targeting the TSMC 28nm process, the combined PCIe 2.0 Controller/PHY solution can also be ported to additional fabs and processes.

• First VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) Decoder IP Announced by Hardent
• Harmonic Chooses Altera Solution for H.265 4Kp60 Video Encoding
• Altera Announces High-Efficiency Power Conversion Solution for High-Performance FPGAs
• DMP Expands Image Cognition Processor IP "APEX ICP" Sales to Taiwan Market
• February Semiconductor Sales Up 11.4 Percent Compared to Last Year
• INSIDE Secure acquires Metaforic, gaining access to key technologies for enabling cloud-based mobile payments security with Host Card Emulation (HCE)
• GUC Monthly Sales Report - March 2014
• KALRAY to showcase world's first ultra low power, live Ultra HD (4K, 60fps) HEVC encoder at NAB 2014 in collaboration with DivX
• New leadership in place at KALRAY along with $8 million funding
• Kilopass To Participate at GSA Silicon Summit, TSMC 2014 Technology Symposia, ChipEx 2014
• As Moore's Law slows, open hardware rises
• InterDigital and Fujitsu Limited Agree to Worldwide Patent License Agreement

Headlines for Friday Apr. 04, 2014

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intoPIX Showcases a SMPTE2022 Reference Design running on Xilinx FPGA and enabling Live Video over IP transport using JPEG2000

intoPIX has today officially released its smart SMPTE2022 video over IP reference design based on Xilinx FPGAs. For this reference design, intoPIX has developed a new MPEG2-TS encapsulation layer for their JPEG2000 compression IP-core and has co-integrates the Xilinx SMPTE2022-1/2 IP-core.

• Vidatronic Announces Partnership with Industry-Leading Semiconductor Company

Headlines for Thursday Apr. 03, 2014

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Vivante GC7000 GPUs Deliver Desktop-Class Graphics to Mobile Devices

Vivante today announced multiple silicon partner integrations of its GC7000 Series GPU IP into SoCs targeting wearables, mobile, automotive, and 4K TV products. GC7000 supports the newly released OpenGL ES 3.1* API and hardware TS/GS/CS (tessellation / geometry / compute shader) extensions for Android. Integrated TS/GS/CS support puts the most advanced desktop 3D features in your hand bringing 4K rendering to the next level by adding even more stunning, fine-grained 3D detail and realism to game play, while lowering power and memory bandwidth.

• Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 5 Percent in 2013, According to Final Results by Gartner
• Xilinx and its Ecosystem Demonstrate All Programmable and Smarter Vision Systems at NAB 2014
• Barco Silex and Vanguard Video announce strategic partnership for FPGA based H.265/HEVC encoder showcasing on Xilinx FPGA
• Tata Elxsi announces HEVC Ultra HD (4K) Decoder compliance with Harmonic Encoding Technology
• AMD Amends Wafer Supply Agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES

Headlines for Wednesday Apr. 02, 2014

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Moortec Semiconductor Target Stacked DRAM Applications with its High Accuracy On-Chip Temperature Sensor

Moortec Semiconductor, provider of high accuracy on-chip temperature sensors for advanced-node CMOS technologies, target 3D stacked Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) applications supporting temperature compensated refresh rate schemes and optimised power performance.

• 100 million instructions for (good old?) M68HC08
• NXP LPCXpresso and ARM's mbed platform now fully aligned
• Pyxalis adopts Cortus APS cores for smart CMOS image sensors
• IC Insights Shows Big Changes to 2013 Top 20 Semi Supplier Ranking

Headlines for Tuesday Apr. 01, 2014

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PLDA announces OpenCL-compliant Stratix V Prototyping Board Solutions

PLDA today announced the availability of their Altera Prefered Board solutions based on the Altera Stratix V FPGA. OpenCL allows users to write programs in C/C++ or OpenCL C that execute across heterogeneous computing platforms such as CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and FPGAs and extract parallelism from that code.

• Allegro DVT Wireless Display Codec IP Receives Frost & Sullivan Global New Product Innovation Leadership Award
• INSIDE Secure to sign a new NFC technology and IP license agreement with Intel
• Tech Veteran Jerry Rudiak Joins Vidatronic as VP
• EDA Consortium Reports Revenue Increase for Q4 2013
• HDL Design House Announces JESD204B PCS Tx IP Core HIP 600
• intoPIX Bridges the Worlds of Professional Video Production and Ethernet Networks with New AVB FPGA IP-cores
• Shikino Launches Still Image Encoder IP Obtaining High-speed Image Processing in 16X speed (16 data/clock)
• TowerJazz Announces Completion and Kick-off of its Joint Venture with Panasonic Corporation
• Crossbar Closes Series C Funding of $25M; Oversubscribed Round Validates Company's Readiness to Scale
• Altera Demonstrates New 4K Broadcast Connectivity and Encoding Solutions at NAB 2014
• Imagination highlights solutions for IoT and wearables at EE Live!