CAST, a Small Company with a Large Impact on Many Growth Markets #61DAC

Semiconductor IP has continued to grow as a market, and it was clearly a star performer at #61DAC.  We all know the large suppliers of IP for semiconductors, but the market is actually quite diverse, with many players supporting many applications.  I had a chance to meet with two executives from CAST, a company with a remarkably diverse product line, a unique business model, and incredibly long staying power. I’d like to share some of what I learned during my meeting with CAST, a small company with a large impact on many markets.

History and Strategy

My meeting was with Nikos Zervas, CEO and Paul Lindemann, a marketing consultant at CAST.  Nikos has been with CAST for 24 years. Prior to joining CAST, he founded Alma Technologies after receiving his Ph.D. in low power VLSI from the University of Patras in Greece. Paul has been consulting with CAST for over 30 years. His prior experience includes GTE Laboratories, Silc Technologies as a co-founder and Racal-Redac. The knowledge of semiconductors and IP design possessed by these two gentlemen is substantial.

CAST was founded in 1993, so the company has been selling IP well before the IP market really existed. The collective experience of the company in general and the leadership team in particular is one of the things that sets CAST apart.

Another thing that makes CAST unique is its business model. You can learn all the details in this interview with Dr. Zervas on SemiWiki here. I will summarize the key points:

• CAST has a relatively small direct team – less than 30 people.
• CAST sells and supports IP developed by its own engineers as well as that developed by several close partners. The collective staff of its partner network is over 100.
• The partners bring technical expertise in specific areas while CAST adds quality standards and assurance, marketing, sales, and front-line support.
• Partner IP is treated the same as CAST IP. All must pass rigorous quality checks and have extensive documentation.
• CAST’s experienced front-line support team handles many issues directly, but the original IP developers are always available to help customers when needed.
• The support record for CAST is stellar – first response is typically under 24 hours and resolution is typically under three days.
• The support team for CAST has a worldwide footprint, which helps to deliver the statistics cited.

The above list is what makes CAST such a potent IP supplier. Its unique approach to partnering with IP companies creates a vast catalog with a very personal and high touch feel from a support perspective.

The CAST IP Catalog – Spotlight on Automotive

CAST has developed an extensive IP catalog over the past 30 years. Nikos and Paul mentioned automotive, compression and processors (e.g., RISC-V) as key areas. They went on to point out CAST also serves many customers in the defense & mission critical, industrial automation, and consumer markets. The company footprint is much larger than this, with over 15 major IP categories and many titles within each category.

Let’s look at some of the support for automotive applications.

Processor IP

EMSA5-FS – 32-bit embedded RISC-V Functional Safety Processor. This Harvard architecture processor implements a single-issue, in-order, 5-stage execution pipeline, supporting the RISC-V 32-bit base integer instruction set (RV32I), or the 32-bit base embedded instructions set (RV32E).

The part is ISO 26262 ASIL-D ready and includes a complete certification package with FMEDA and SAM documents. Fail-safe features include modular redundancy, ECC, reset and safety manager modules. It also contains a memory protection unit with up to 16 regions of configurable size.

Automotive Bus Controllers

CAST has led the market with very early CAN and recently TSN Ethernet IP cores. The company’s automotive interconnect offerings today include the following:

CAN-CTRL (CAN CC, CAN FD, and CAN XL Bus Controller). The CAN-CTRL implements a highly featured and reliable Controller Area Network (CAN) bus controller that performs serial communication according to the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol.

CAN-SEC (CANsec Acceleration Engine). The CAN-SEC IP core implements a hardware accelerator for the CANsec extension of the CAN-XL protocol, as defined in CiA’s 613-2 specification.

CSENT (SENT/SAE J2716 Controller). The CSENT core implements a controller for the Single Edge Nibble Transmission (SENT) protocol. It complies with the SAE J2716 standard and is capable of driving pulses to trigger synchronous Sensor type. It can be used for conveying data from one or multiple sensors to a centralized controller using a single SENT line.

LIN-CTRL (LIN Bus Master/Slave Controller). This IP implements a communication controller that transmits and receives complete Local Interconnect Network (LIN) frames to perform serial communication according to the LIN Protocol Specification.

TSN-EP (TSN Ethernet Endpoint Controller). The TSN-EP implements a configurable controller meant to ease the implementation of endpoints for networks complying to the Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards.

TSN-SE (TSN Ethernet Switched Endpoint Controller). The TSN-SE implements a configurable controller meant to ease the implementation of switched endpoints for Time Sensitive Net-working (TSN) Ethernet networks.

TSN-SW (Multiport TSN Ethernet Switch). The TSN-SW implements a highly flexible, low-latency, multiport TSN Ethernet switch. It supports the hardware functionality for Ethernet bridging according to the IEEE 802.1Q standard and implements the essential TSN timing synchronization and traffic-shaping protocols (i.e. IEEE 802.1AS-2020, 802.1Qav, 802.1Qbv, and 802.1Qbu, 802.1br).

To Learn More

The list above just scratches the surface of what CAST has to offer for automotive design. There are many other markets served by the company, including processors and compression as mentioned, plus encryption and security, and most popular interfaces and peripherals.

You can get a broad overview of the CAST IP catalog here.  You can also access a recent white paper entitled Popular CAN Bus Controller Core Passes Another Rigorous Plugfest here. And that’s some of what I learned at #61DAC about CAST, a small company with a large impact on many markets.