Intel Foundry highlights progress from ecosystem partners

Intel Foundry reported progress from several ecosystem partners on its Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) technology, which is designed used to connect multiple silicon dies within a single package, allowing for high-bandwidth communication between them without the need for traditional interposers. EMIB enables the integration of different types of dies, such as CPUs, GPUs, and other specialized processors, in a compact and efficient manner, improving performance and reducing latency. It is particularly useful in creating advanced multi-die systems that require high data transfer rates and efficient power usage.

Intel's EMIB technology has already been proven in Intel’s own microprocessors, including the Intel GPU Max Series (code-named Ponte Vecchio), 4th Gen Intel Xeon and Xeon 6 processors, and Intel Stratix 10 FPGAs. 

The company now reports that key EDA and IP partners are making progress with  EMIB packaging technology for their projects. Announcements from  ecosystem partners this week include:

•  Ansys is collaborating with Intel Foundry to deliver signoff verification of thermal and power integrity and mechanical reliability of Intel’s EMIB technology spanning advanced silicon process nodes to various heterogenous packaging platforms.
• Cadence announced the availability of a complete EMIB 2.5D packaging flow, digital and custom/analog flows for Intel 18A, and design IP for Intel 18A.
• Siemens also announced the availability of an EMIB reference flow for Intel Foundry’s customers. This is in addition to their announcement of Solido Simulation Suite certification for custom IC verification on Intel 16, Intel 3, and Intel 18A nodes.
• Synopsys announced the availability of its AI-driven multi-die reference flow for Intel Foundry’s EMIB advanced packaging technology, accelerating the development of multi-die designs. 

“Today’s news shows how Intel Foundry continues to combine the best of Intel with the best of our ecosystem to help our customers realize their AI systems ambitions,” stated Suk Lee, vice president for Ecosystem Development, Intel Foundry.

Read More

AST SpaceMobile appoints AT&T exec to its board

AST SpaceMobile has appointed Chris Sambar to its Board of Directors. 

Sambar, currently AT&T's Head of Network, brings extensive experience in network infrastructure and global markets to AST SpaceMobile as the company prepares to launch its first commercial satellites this summer. His appointment comes at a crucial time for the company, which aims to provide cellular broadband service from space. Sambar, a former Navy SEAL with over two decades of experience at AT&T, will also serve on the company's Network Planning and Spectrum Committee. 

In May 2024, AT&T and AST SpaceMobile entered a commercial agreement to provide space-based broadband network direct to everyday cell phones. The deal runs through 2030.

This summer, AST SpaceMobile plans to deliver its first commercial satellites to Cape Canaveral for launch into low Earth orbit. These initial five satellites will enable commercial service that was previously demonstrated with several key milestones. 

Key Takeaways :

• AT&T and AST SpaceMobile announce a commercial agreement to provide their first space-based broadband network direct to everyday cell phones.
• The two companies have been on this path together since 2018. This agreement is another key step to providing even more expansive connectivity.
• Chris Sambar, Head of Network for AT&T, will soon be appointed to AST SpaceMobile’s board of directors. AT&T will continue to work directly with AST SpaceMobile on developing, testing, and troubleshooting this technology to help make continental U.S. satellite coverage possible.
• On target for July or August delivery of 5 Block 1 satellites to Cape Canaveral
• First 5 satellites allow U.S. nationwide non-continuous service with 5,600+ cells in premium low-band spectrum
• Activities and discussions with government regulatory bodies, including FCC, are advancing as expected
• Continue to advance discussions with additional strategic partners, following the blueprint of commercial payments alongside commercial agreements

Read More

Adtran and Iridium launch Advanced Synchronization solutions

Adtran, in collaboration with Iridium Communications, has announced the launch of its advanced synchronization solutions featuring Iridium Satellite Time and Location (STL) technology in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. This move addresses the growing threats to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) by providing enhanced resilience and reliability for critical infrastructure, including 5G networks and defense systems. The OSA 5405-S PTP compact grandmaster clock with STL capabilities and the OSA 5400 STL module are now available to timing network operators in Western Europe, major countries in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and parts of Asia-Pacific, including the majority of Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea. Leveraging low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, these solutions deliver precise and secure positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services, ensuring continuous synchronization even in compromised GNSS environments.

Iridium STL services utilize LEO satellites to transmit encrypted signals that are significantly stronger than those of GNSS, enhancing their ability to penetrate urban canyons and indoor areas without rooftop antennas. Now a key feature of Adtran’s Oscilloquartz product lineup, the versatile OSA 5405-S PTP grandmaster clock supports STL time services, multi-constellation GNSS, and various other timing sources within a zero-trust architecture. This architecture leverages multiple diverse timing sources for enhanced resilience. Additionally, the OSA 5400 STL module extends these advanced STL/GNSS receiver capabilities to third-party equipment requiring timing, enabling precise, robust synchronization for a wide range of applications.

Highlights:

• Adtran and Iridium launch synchronization solutions featuring Iridium® STL technology in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
• Solutions enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure, such as 5G networks and defense systems.
• Iridium STL services utilize LEO satellites to provide stronger, encrypted signals that penetrate challenging environments.
• The OSA 5405-S PTP grandmaster clock and OSA 5400 STL module support multiple timing sources within a zero-trust architecture.
• Available purchasing options include an annual service license or bundled equipment for long-term financial planning.

“We partnered with Iridium to bring the benefits of its STL services to critical timing infrastructure around the world because we share a common goal. We’re committed to making PNT networks as resilient and secure as possible. STL is a powerful solution for fortifying zero-trust architecture and ensuring reliable PNT even when GPS signals fail, making it ideal for both indoor and challenging outdoor locations. By empowering operators of mission-critical networks to access reliable timing in the most demanding environments, we’re also eliminating the need to install outdoor antennas and core through concrete, significantly reducing expenses,” commented Gil Biran, GM of Oscilloquartz, Adtran. “We’re excited to bring these advantages to so many more customers across Europe and APAC. Today’s announcement marks a significant advancement for the network operators and people of these regions, whose daily lives increasingly depend on robust PNT.”

“The weakness of GNSS signals is increasingly being exploited to create serious problems. As Europe, APAC and the rest of the world have become more dependent on PNT data, attacks on GNSS have only escalated, creating an urgent need to pivot away from the exclusive use of these satellites,” said Michael O’Connor, executive vice president of PNT at Iridium. “By integrating our STL service into Adtran Oscilloquartz devices and making it available across much of Europe and key areas of APAC, we’re providing network operators with valuable new options. They can choose to use our solution as a primary source of timing data in indoor environments, or they can leverage our secure, high-strength LEO signals as a backup source of PNT information when GNSS is unavailable. This offers the strongest ever safeguard against the threats that compromise so many aspects of our daily lives.”

https://www.adtran.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20240624-adtran-and-iridium-strengthen-pnt-resilience-in-europe-and-asia-pacific-with-stl-technology

Read More

Samsung builds CXL infrastructure certified by Red Hat

Samsung Electronics has built a Compute Express Link (CXL) infrastructure certified by Red Hat.

 Elements that configure servers, from CXL-related products to software, can now be directly verified at the Samsung Memory Research Center (SMRC) located in Hwaseong, South Korea. Once CXL products are verified by Samsung, they can be requested for product registration to Red Hat, enabling faster product development.

“We’re very pleased that our partnership with Red Hat is able to deliver CXL memory products with enhanced reliability to our customers,” said Taeksang Song, Vice President and Head of the New DRAM Solution Development Team at Samsung Electronics. 

Kyeong Sang Kim, Red Hat Korea GM said, “The optimization of Samsung’s hardware for Red Hat’s software underscores the value of open source technology as an imperative when it comes to expanding next-generation memory solutions such as CMM-D. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Samsung to further extend CXL solutions to the market.”

Compute Express Link (CXL) is an open industry-standard interconnect technology designed to address the growing need for high-speed, low-latency communication between processors, accelerators, and memory devices in data centers and high-performance computing environments. CXL is designed to work alongside and complement other interconnect technologies like PCIe.

Key features of CXL include:

• High bandwidth and low latency communication
• Cache coherency between CPUs and accelerators
• Memory sharing and expansion capabilities
• Compatibility with the PCIe physical and electrical interface
• The CXL standard is being developed by the CXL Consortium, which was founded in 2019, and which includes Samsung and others.

Read More

Ceva expands Edge AI NPU family with Ceva-NeuPro-Nano

Ceva has extended its Ceva-NeuPro family of Edge AI NPUs by introducing the Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPUs. These highly-efficient, self-sufficient NPUs are designed to deliver the power, performance, and cost efficiencies required for semiconductor companies and OEMs to integrate TinyML models into their SoCs for consumer, industrial, and general-purpose AIoT products. TinyML refers to deploying machine learning models on low-power, resource-constrained devices, bringing the power of AI to the Internet of Things (IoT).

Driven by the increasing demand for efficient and specialized AI solutions in IoT devices, the market for TinyML is rapidly growing. According to ABI Research, by 2030, over 40% of TinyML shipments will be powered by dedicated TinyML hardware rather than all-purpose MCUs. The Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPUs address the specific performance challenges of TinyML, aiming to make AI ubiquitous, economical, and practical for a wide range of use cases, including voice, vision, predictive maintenance, and health sensing in consumer and industrial IoT applications.

The new Ceva-NeuPro-Nano Embedded AI NPU architecture is fully programmable and efficiently executes neural networks, feature extraction, control code, and DSP code. It supports advanced machine learning data types and operators, including native transformer computation, sparsity acceleration, and fast quantization. The optimized, self-sufficient architecture enables superior power efficiency, a smaller silicon footprint, and optimal performance compared to existing processor solutions for TinyML workloads. Additionally, Ceva-NetSqueeze AI compression technology processes compressed model weights directly, achieving up to 80% memory footprint reduction, addressing a key bottleneck in the adoption of AIoT processors.

Key Features of Ceva-NeuPro-Nano NPUs:

• Fully programmable for neural networks, feature extraction, control code, and DSP code.
• Scalable performance with configurations up to 64 int8 MACs per cycle.
• Supports advanced ML data types and operators, including 4-bit to 32-bit integers and native transformer computation.
• Advanced mechanisms like sparsity acceleration, non-linear activation acceleration, and fast quantization.
• Single-core design eliminates the need for a companion MCU for computational tasks.
• Ceva-NetSqueeze technology reduces memory footprint by up to 80%.
• Innovative energy optimization techniques, including automatic on-the-fly energy tuning and weight-sparsity acceleration.
• Ceva-NeuPro Studio provides a unified AI stack and supports open AI frameworks like TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers and microTVM.
• Fast time to market with a Model Zoo of pretrained and optimized TinyML models.
• Optimized runtime libraries and application-specific software.

Read More

AMS-IX Hong Kong and Taiwan's TPIX sign interexchange agreement

Chief Telecom, which operates Taiwan’s largest Internet Exchange (TPIX), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with AMS-IX and HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC) for providing a seamless traffic exchange between the Taipei Internet Exchange (TPIX) and AMS-IX Hong Kong. 

Through this strategic partnership, TPIX members will be able to expand their network resources and enhance content sharing and localization, not only within Hong Kong but also across HGC’s diversified global network. This connectivity allows access to other AMS-IX exchanges in Asia, including Singapore, Bangkok, and Manila, as well as globally in locations such as Amsterdam, the Bay Area, and Chicago. The reliable remote peering solution will significantly enhance end-user experiences by providing seamless and efficient network access.

• TPIX members can now utilize HGC’s global network, facilitating content sharing and localization.

• The partnership enables access to AMS-IX exchanges across Asia and globally, enhancing the peering ecosystem.

• AMS-IX Hong Kong members gain additional network connections and access to the Taiwan user base, driving more traffic exchange.

Read More

Telstra Ventures rebrands as Titanium Ventures

Telstra Ventures has changed its name to Titanium Ventures, reflecting the continued evolution of Telstra Ventures’ relationship with Telstra since its successful spin-out in 2018 and Telstra’s strategic decision to explore selling its current investments in Telstra Ventures’ funds as part of its focus on capital discipline and active portfolio management.

The firm’s team and investment thesis remain the same. Titanium Ventures will continue to identify and scale the most promising companies across a variety of AI, digital and software sectors by complementing its strong, experienced team with proprietary Data Science insights and its Revenue Acceleration platform. The firm, which has almost US$1B funds under management, has invested in 99 portfolio companies during which there have been 12 IPOs, 17 unicorns, 42 liquidity events which have returned US$678M cash to investors.

“Our journey over the past 13 years has been remarkable and this is a significant milestone for us as we approach 100 investments in our portfolio,” said Mark Sherman, San Francisco-based Managing Partner. “We are grateful for Telstra’s support since our inception in 2011. Our new brand is a natural progression as the team has been operating as an independent, global VC firm since 2018. Today we have more than 50 LPs and we have refined our identity and what we represent. We look forward to continuing to work with Telstra on a commercial basis to generate more revenue for our portfolio companies. It’s business as usual.”

“Consistent with our focus on capital discipline and active portfolio management, we are exploring options to sell our current investments in Telstra Ventures’ funds. We believe that through the relationships we have fostered over the years, we can continue working together and Telstra will be able to access leading edge technologies in the portfolio companies of Titanium Ventures.”

Mr. Koertge added, “This is an exciting next chapter in our story. Titanium Ventures will accelerate the extraordinary, fueling the growth of standout disruptors, that’s what we have done for over a decade and that’s what our investors and founders expect us to do in the decades to come."

https://www.ti.vc

Read More

Coherent ships 300-millionth optical transceiver from Malaysia

Coherent Corp. announced a significant milestone with the shipment of its 300-millionth optical transceiver from its manufacturing facility in Ipoh, Malaysia.  Established in 2001, the Ipoh facility spans 640,000 square feet and employs 3,600 workers. It plays a critical role in producing next-generation 800G optical transceivers and is preparing for future advancements such as 1.6T and 3.2T. Strategically located between Kuala Lumpur and Penang, the site benefits from access to a vast talent pool from nearby universities and technical colleges. 

Highlights:

• Coherent Corp. ships its 300-millionth optical transceiver from Ipoh, Malaysia.
• The facility, established in 2001, spans 640,000 square feet and employs 3,600 workers.
• It produces next-generation 800G transceivers and is preparing for 1.6T and 3.2T.
• Strategic location and robust infrastructure provide a competitive edge.

https://www.coherent.com/news/press-releases/manufacturing-milestone-300-million-transceiveres-shipped

Read More