Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

2022-05-21 15:14:43 By : Ms. Selina Zhang

BEV sales blast off; CISA VMware warnings; NIST certs Renesas RA security; Arm’s SystemReady.

Automotive, mobility The number new energy vehicles (NEVs) sold went up 80% from year over year, says TrendForce in its review of market for Q1 2022. NEVs are battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and fuel cell vehicles. Over 2.004 million units sold in the first quarter of 2022 (1Q22), with BEVs making the strongest showing at 1.508 million units, a 271% rise when comparing 1Q21 to 1Q22. PHEV sales hit 142,000 units in 1Q22. Tesla has the most market share for BEVs, at 20.5% followed by BYD at 9.5%. In the PHEV market, BYD has the most market share at 28.8% followed by BMW at 10.1%.

Dragonfly Energy is using the entire Bruker portfolio of spectroscopy equipment in Dragonfly’s battery technology research facility to further its development of non-toxic lithium batteries in a solvent-free process. Dragonfly is also searching for new ways to store renewable energy, focusing on the company’s solid-state cell technology.

Infineon Technologies announced a dual-channel DC-DC controller for LED automotive headlamps that does not require an additional microcontroller. Part of the Infineon’s LITIX Power family, the TLD6098-2ES can run a full LED headlamp with all its light modes.

Advantest and Synopsys said they are working together on real-time analytics for Synopsys’ SiliconDash platform, which collects and gives visibility into semiconductor manufacturing and test data. Advantest’s ACS Nexus, software embedded in its equipment, aggregates real-time data from multiple test cells, will be included in SiliconDash. “Collaborating with Advantest enables Synopsys to extend the value of SLM analytics in the silicon manufacturing supply chain,” said Steve Pateras, vice president, hardware analytics and test at Synopsys, in a press release. “Combining ACS Nexus with SiliconDash delivers a solution that greatly increases the profitability and quality of our joint customers’ end products.” Advantest also announced a compact EXA Scale EX test station, for use in manufacturing and engineering labs for structural and functional test bring up, debugging and characterization of complex digital devices.

Pervasive computing At GF Technology Summit (GTS), GlobalFoundries formally announced its GF Connex Portfolio, a partner ecosystem and design tools for power-efficient radio frequency (RF) technology for 5G and newer wireless connectivity. GF Connex is already used in infrastructure, smart mobile, IoT, smart home, and automotive products now, some of which include technology from GF’s RF silicon-on-insulator (SOI), FDXTM, silicon-germanium (SiGe), and FinFET platforms. GF’s mmWave solutions are in automotive grade RADAR mission profiles, which GF said its customers could use for sensor designs.

Cadence said its digital full flow is now certified on GlobalFoundries’ 12LP/12LP+ process platforms. Siemens Digital Industries Software announced that GlobalFoundries’ GF Fotonix process design kits (PDKs) — for silicon photonics on 300mm and RF-CMOS — now include Siemens’ Calibre nmDRC software for design rule checking (DRC) and Calibre nmLVS software for layout vs. schematic (LVS) verification.

GlobalFoundries also launched its GF Labs, a new program that aims to accelerate semiconductor innovation by bringing together GF’s research and industry relationships and its library of patents. GF Labs will collaborate with Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) in Belgium, Fraunhofer in Germany, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S., and the Institute for Microelectronics in Singapore, in addition to its network of university partnerships.

Arm’s SystemReady, a set of platform formal rules that Arm launched in 2020 to address different types of connected systems that use Arm, has over 50 certifications. The Microsoft Azure Ampere Altra Arm-based server has a SR certification, and the Azure Virtual Machines series with Ampere Altra Arm-based processors has a Arm SystemReady Virtual Environment (VE) certification.

Juniper Networks used Ansys RedHawk-SC’s distributed processing capabilities to accelerate the power integrity signoff for their newest high-performance networking chips.

Flex Logix formed a partnership with Roboflow, computer vision company, to produce edge AI vision models built for the Flex Logix InferX platform. Customers will be able to train computer vision models for AI inference capabilities for complex models such as YOLO object detection models. Various uses are robotic vision, industrial, security, and retail analytics.

Security The United States CISA issued a warning about VMware vulnerabilities, an increase in active and expected exploitation of multiple vulnerabilities in VMware products: VMware Workspace ONE Access (Access), VMware Identity Manager (vIDM), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), VMware Cloud Foundation, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. CISA issued Emergency Directive (ED) 22-03 and released a Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) on threat actors.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has certified Renesas’s RA family of 32-bit Arm Cortex-M microcontrollers under NIST’s Cryptographic Algorithm Verification Program (CAVP). The Renesas RA6M4, RA6M5, RA4M2, and RA4M3 MCU Groups have the certification.  The certification means the MCUs have a suite of cryptographic algorithms, including multiple modes of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), hashing, Rivest Shamir Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) key generation and authentication, Key Agreement Schemes, and Deterministic Random Bit Generator (DRBG).

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