Weartech-Design Sources / Software Archives - Page 5 of 14

Alliance Memory combines NAND flash and eMMC controller in FPGA package

Fri, Jul 07, 2023

Compliant With JEDEC eMMC v5.1, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN integrates NAND flash memory with an eMMC controller and flash transition layer (FTL) management software in a single 11.5 mm by 13 mm 153-ball FBGA package. The 16Gbyte industrial grade device is available from Alliance Memory.

The device for solid-state storage in consumer, industrial, and networking applications features boot operation, replay protected memory block (RPMB), device health report, field firmware updates, power-off notification, enhanced strobe features for faster and more reliable operation, write levelling, high-priority interrupt (HPI), secure trim / erase and high-speed HS200 and HS400 modes. The ASFC16G31M-51BIN is also backwards-compatible with eMMC v4.5 and v5.0.

The eMMC can be used in smart watches, tablets, digital TVs, set-top boxes, VR and AR headsets, digital cameras, CCTV, surveillance, automation, PoS systems and emerging embedded applications. According to Alliance Memory, the ASFC16G31M-51BIN simplifies designs for fast and easy system integration in these products, speeding up product development and time to market. It also saves valuable space by eliminating the need for an external controller. The FTL software provides high reliability and stable performance with wear levelling and bad block management, the company added.

The ASFC16G31M-51BIN operates over an industrial temperature range of -40 to +85 degrees C and offers programmable bus widths of x1, x4, and x8. The device’s NAND memory with internal LDO can be powered with a single 3V supply voltage, while the controller can be powered by 1.8 or 3V dual supply voltages.

Samples of the eMMC are available now. Production quantities are available with lead times of 8 to 10 weeks.

David Bagby, Alliance Memory’s president and CEO confirmed that eMMCs are a new focus product for the company. “We are making a significant investment in this product portfolio, and with further, higher-density additions we’ll be launching in Q3 2023, Alliance Memory is set to become one of the leading providers of eMMC technology,” he predicted.

http://www.alliancememory.com

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Synopsys and Arm push on with next-gen mobile SoC designs

Wed, May 31, 2023

Synopsys combines EDA and IP with Arm’s Total Compute Solutions at Computex Taipei. The AI-enhanced design collaboration tackles mobile chip designs on advanced nodes down to 2nm. At the show, Synopsys announced Synopsys.ai full-stack AI-driven EDA suite, Synopsys Interface and Security IP and Synopsys Silicon Lifecycle Management PVT IP have been optimised for the highest levels of performance and power for Arm’s latest compute platform

These advancements continue the decades of collaboration between the two companies to accelerate customers’ delivery of Arm-based SoCs for smartphones and VR / AR applications.

Shankar Krishnamoorthy, general manager of Synopsys EDA group, commented: “Collaborating with Arm to optimise our EDA and IP solutions enables mutual customers to tackle some of the toughest multi-die system integration challenges from design, IP integration and verification to software development. The addition of the Synopsys.ai EDA suite starts a new phase, where co-operative keystone companies, like Synopsys and Arm, align expertise to help mutual customers turbo-charge the delivery of their Arm-based SoC designs.”

Arm announced its Total Compute Solutions 2023 (TCS23) platform at the show in Taipei. “The new TCS23 platform delivers a suite of segment-specific technology, designed with the system in mind, so that our customers can tap into the compute performance required for the next generation of visual computing experiences,” said Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager, client line of business, at Arm.

For TCS23, the Synopsys.ai full-stack AI-driven EDA suite leverages the power of AI from system architecture through manufacturing to optimise power, performance and area (PPA) and enhance time to market, said the company.

The Synopsys Verification family accelerates architecture exploration, software development and verification throughput for Arm SoCs containing Arm Cortex-X4, Cortex-A720 and Cortex-A520 CPUs and Immortalis-G720 and Mali-G720 GPUs.

Early adopters of TCS23 are using Synopsys virtual prototypes with Arm Fast Models, Synopsys hardware-assisted verification and verification IP for the latest Arm AMBA interconnect to deliver SoCs to market faster.

Synopsys Interface and Security IP for PCI Express 6.0 with Integrity and Data Encryption (IDE), CXL 3.0 with IDE, DDR5 with Inline Memory Encryption (IME) and UCIe, are all optimised for performance with Arm-specific features and for pre-silicon interoperability with Arm cores to minimise risk and to accelerate time to market.

The Synopsys Silicon Lifecycle Management Family PVT monitor IP can be integrated into Arm cores to monitor chip health from development to the field to measure and optimise performance.

Synopsys Fusion QuickStart Implementation Kits (QIKs) are tuned to extract maximum entitlement from the latest five, four and 3nm process technologies. They provide the most efficient path to realising optimally scaled compute architectures for the most demanding end-user applications, said the company.

Synopsys QIKs include implementation scripts and reference guides that enable early adopters of the newest Armv9.2 cores to accelerate time to market and achieve their demanding performance per Watt targets. These QIKs are available today by request through the Arm support hub or from Synopsys SolvNet.

Synopsys also incorporates the latest Arm Fast Models for virtual prototypes and delivers verification IP for the latest Arm AMBA interconnect, emulation and prototyping hardware to accelerate hardware-software bring-up and power and performance validation, resulting in shorter time to market.

Synopsys IP for PCI Express 6.0 with IDE, CXL 3.0 with IDE, DDR5 with IME and UCIe are available now.

http://www.synopsys.com

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Imagination says IMG CXM is the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces

Wed, May 24, 2023

Seamless visual experiences for cost-sensitive consumer devices are assured with the IMG CXM GPU of RISC-V compatible cores, said Imagination Technologies. The range includes what is claimed to be the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces natively.

The IMG CXM cores can lower the cost of DTV and other consumer devices in smart homes, for example, said Imagination. Another driver is content providers seeking to integrate 4K and HDR features to enrich content, continued the company.

There are three new configurations which extend the range of performance options already available in Imagination’s GPU family of products for the consumer space. Imagination has released the CXM-2-64, claimed to be the smallest GPU to support native HDR applications. It is suitable for wearable devices, SmartHubs or mainstream set-top boxes.

The CXM-4-64 is suitable for integrating into SmartHubs, set-top boxes or mainstream DTVs and the CXM-4-128 is a performance dense option for premium DTVs, advised Imagination.

The company has boosted the performance density of the IMG BXE and BXM range of GPUs for the CXM GPUs and added native support for HDR.

The CXM GPUs support 10bits RGBA / YUV to deliver a HDR graphical user interface with images with less visible banding. To smooth the outline of texts and images, they employ 4xMSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility, an application programming interface (API) for user interface accessibility).

TFBCv2, the new generation of Imagination’s Tiny Frame Buffer Compression, delivers higher quality lossy / lossless compression and an additional compression level (37.5%) for improved design flexibility.

The IMG CXM GPU range boasts nearly a 50 per cent uplift in performance density compared to the IMG BXM range.

The IMG CXM is supported by software that supports APIs, including Vulkan 1.3, and has been optimised for leading CPU architectures including Arm and RISC-V application processors.

Dr. Charlie Su, CTO and president of Andes Technology said: “The RISC-V ecosystem is growing rapidly. To continue its growth and showcase the many possible ways it can be deployed, we partnered with Imagination to provide a quick and easy path to validated GPU and CPU IP blocks that can reduce SoC design time, risk, and cost for our customers. With Imagination’s flexibly designed GPU, and our AndesCore high performance, low power RISC-V CPU, we are able to satisfy the requirements for display-oriented SoC in a short time and generate the optimum configuration.”

James Chapman, chief product officer, Imagination Technologies commented the CXM GPUs will “transform user experiences” and he expects to see the GPUs deployed in a diverse range of applications from wearables to premium 8K DTVs.

Imagination will be demonstrating TFBCv2 at the 2023 RISC-V Con Shanghai and 2023 RISC-V Con Beijing events, hosted by Andes Technology.

https://www.imaginationtech.com/

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Cellular-to-cloud dev kits connect to Microsoft Azure cloud services

Tue, Apr 11, 2023

Development kits that are Azure-certified are available from Renesas Electronics, powered by the company’s 32-bit microcontrollers. Renesas offers two versions of the kits, the CK-RA6M5 and CK-RX65N.

The kits also include the RYZ014A Cat-M1 Pmod, six on-board sensors, and a set of peripherals, including a USB FS connector, USB-to-UART serial converter, two Pmod connectors and a battery connector. For additional layers of security, Renesas collaborated with Crypto Quantique to implement a software-based IoT cryptography platform that securely connects IoT devices to server-hosted applications on-premises or in the cloud. Hardware-based security, such as the Renesas Secure Crypto Engine 9 (SCE9) and Trusted Secure IP (TSIP) driver has been incorporated on the RA6M5 and RX65N MCUs respectively.

Both development kits enable users to connect and manage wireless IoT devices via the cloud and IoT device developers to exploit features and services available through the cloud computing platform.

Both cloud development kits incorporate Renesas’ LTE CAT-M1 module, which wirelessly connects MCUs to cloud services without a gateway. The kits have Microsoft’s new Embedded Wireless Framework, which provides a simplified link to the Azure cloud platform. It lets any network adapter connect securely to the cloud, providing greater flexibility and better lifecycle management of cloud-based products, said Renesas. As a result the kits can be used in asset tracking, building automation, medical data management, voice command and industrial control applications.

Both the CK-RA6M5 and CK-RX65N kits have been certified by Microsoft Azure and are therefore validated to connect with Azure IoT hub and can be securely provisioned through the device provisioning service. According to Renesas, both can be integrated using pre-defined device models which eliminates the need to manually configure hardware.

The CK-RA6M5 and CK-RX65N cloud kits allow users to collect data from onboard sensors, upload them to the cloud for AI / machine learning processing and tools, and download the model back to the end point. Simplified development software available includes Reality AI tools and Edge Impulse Studio. Reality AI Tools provide a true endpoint AI for a range of applications, including anomaly detection and voice recognition. The Edge Impulse Studio integrated cloud environment enables end-to-end AI / ML development using the kits’ accelerometer for asset and package tracking use cases.

Both the CK-RA6M5 and CK-RX65N are available today.

http://www.renesas.com

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Alliance Memory combines NAND flash and eMMC controller in FPGA package

Synopsys and Arm push on with next-gen mobile SoC designs

Imagination says IMG CXM is the smallest GPU to support HDR user interfaces

Cellular-to-cloud dev kits connect to Microsoft Azure cloud services

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