What’s Behind Synopsys’ Interest in Ansys?
Chiplets serve as the strongest link between Synopsys and Ansys.
News & Analysis
ADAS in 2024: Don’t Expect Clarity on Autonomy & Safety
What’s at stake:
If 2023 marked the public’s disillusionment with robotaxis, 2024 augurs a big shift toward advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) crammed with automated features. Expect the auto industry to play high-stakes games on the safety of highly automated driving, the accelerated use of embedded artificial intelligence, and a fresh emphasis on in-vehicle comfort and convenience.
The $64,000 question in 2024 boils down to this: what sort of future – vehicle platforms and applications – is envisioned by carmakers not named Tesla? Are these carmakers with Tesla, or prepared to chart their own destiny?
Read More »ADAS in 2024: Don’t Expect Clarity on Autonomy & Safety
How Tesla’s Plea Deal Foiled Autopilot Remedy
What’s at stake:
After the national safety regulator’s multi-year investigation into nearly 1,000 crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot, Tesla agreed to a “voluntary recall” of two million cars — almost all its vehicles sold in the United States since 2021. A big question, however, is what exactly Tesla is prepared to do to fix the safety defect.
This was a historic, hard-won victory for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
But Tesla scored an even bigger win.
Read More »How Tesla’s Plea Deal Foiled Autopilot Remedy
Infineon: Europe’s Overachieving, yet ‘Undervalued’ Chip Gem
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Infineon Technologies blazed through the industry’s recent downturn unscathed, a testament to its well-placed bets on recession-proof segments of the semiconductor market. Now comes the hard part; proving this was not a fluke performance, fending off Chinese rivals and determining the right amount of fab capacity in a rapidly evolving market.
Infineon Technologies AG should be a hot stock. It is not.
Institutional equity investors and bargain hunters should be banging on the German semiconductor supplier’s doors and helping to boost its market value to several multiples of the current €47 billion ($51 billion). Infineon seems to be lacking such an appeal.
That’s a shame.
Read More »Infineon: Europe’s Overachieving, yet ‘Undervalued’ Chip Gem
Does Nvidia Want to Remake the Foundry Business?
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Nvidia Corp. is growing at a rate that its current foundry partners may not be able to support. How will they respond and who else stands to benefit? In addition, Nvidia is tearing up the definition of foundry services, dubbing itself an “AI foundry.” What exactly does this mean and is this the beginning of a redefinition of terminologies in the industry?
Nvidia Corp. is not only setting sales records for the semiconductor industry, the AI and GPU chip supplier is creating what may be an almost impossible act to follow.
Read More »Does Nvidia Want to Remake the Foundry Business?
Microchip Puts Pedal to the Auto Design Metal
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
The automotive semiconductor market needs chipmakers, enterprises that not only excel at technology innovations, but which also anticipate and meet the evolving design and supply chain needs of their tier-one and OEM customers at an accelerated speed. Microchip is betting that offering extensive labs services for customers in all major auto manufacturing regions of the world will strengthen its relationship with OEMs and tier-ones.
Microchip Inc. is not a newbie in Detroit. The company has had a presence in America’s auto heartland for more than 20 years, but with a recent move and investment decision, the chipmaker tells customers and competitors it sees opportunities for greater engagements with leading automakers despite ongoing supply chain disruptions and design architectures evolution.
Synaptics’ Wedge in Edge AI is ‘Astra’
What’s at stake:
Synaptics is joining the edge AI club with a platform called “Astra” – a glimpse of which the company teased out this week. Synaptics is banking on Astra to win a crowded, fragmented, and highly competitive edge AI segment. Can it pull it off?
Synaptics developed the Astra platform to enable system designers to make AI as easy, ubiquitous, and quotidian as possible in a host of products, including some not typically viewed as needing AI.
Read More »Synaptics’ Wedge in Edge AI is ‘Astra’
Can Chinese Chiplets Dodge Export Controls?
What’s at stake:
Chiplets can advance the semiconductor industry by enabling system companies and semiconductor suppliers to mix and match chiplets manufactured by different foundries for heterogeneous integration. That concept, however, is also helping China to develop home-grown AI processors that could rival those manufactured by Western companies, currently banned from export.
Late last month, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published updated export controls covering advanced computing items and semiconductor manufacturing equipment under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR).
Buried within the dense bureaucratese was a reference to chiplets, a data point largely unreported in the tech media.
The agency’s updated export controls, set to go into effect on Nov. 17, 2023, added chiplet restrictions.
Read More »Can Chinese Chiplets Dodge Export Controls?
Renesas’ Automotive Future: Go Big on Chiplets
What’s at stake:
While Nvidia, Qualcomm and Mobileye tend to suck the oxygen out of the next-gen automotive E/E platform discussions, other automotive semiconductor companies must pick a spot where they think they can win and hold onto their share. But by pre-announcing this week the Gen 5 R-CAR SoCs and their new chiplet options, Renesas is planning to cover a broad range of automotive architecture. Will the new strategy work?
Renesas Electronics this week unveiled its latest automotive semiconductor strategy. Executives laid out the company’s planned product offerings ranging from high-performance SoCs to Arm-based automotive MCUs, and automotive chiplet options.
Read More »Renesas’ Automotive Future: Go Big on Chiplets
Ask Not What Apple Net Zero Can Do For You …
By Junko Yoshida and George Leopold
What’s at stake:
So far, Apple’s leadership toward net-zero emissions is a mixture of sincere advocacy, lip service and marketing deflection. Even as it prescribes remedies to suppliers and partners, it must also heal itself.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently visited NXP Semiconductors at its Eindhoven headquarters.
This triggered a posting outburst by NXP’s social media team, including a photo of CEO Kurt Sievers with Cook posing near a workbench in what looks like a design/engineering room. NXP’s LinkedIn post called Cook’s visit “truly historic.”
Indeed, capturing Sievers and Cook together in a single frame was a “photo op” to make any corporate PR marketing team drool and apply adjectives like “historic.”
More historic, though, is the photo’s context.
Read More »Ask Not What Apple Net Zero Can Do For You …