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Imperas and RISC-V

Imperas and RISC-V
by Bernard Murphy on 12-06-2018 at 7:00 am
Categories: Automotive, EDA, RISC-V
1 Comment

I met Imperas at TechCon this year because I wanted to become a bit more knowledgeable about virtual modeling. That led me to become more interested in RISC-V and a talk given by Krste Asanovic of UCB and SiFive. My takeaway surprised me. I had thought this was an open-source David versus proprietary Goliaths (Intel and ARM) battle in the world of processors/controllers (or more exactly the instruction set architectures – ISAs – underlying those systems). With of course everyone rooting for the plucky newcomer.

I’m sure that remains an aspiration, but I took from Krste’s talk that RISC-V can still be very successful even if the Goliaths hold onto their primary roles. He talked about SoCs with 15-16 ISAs, from the core CPU (usually ARM) to graphics, image processing, radio and audio DSPs, power management, security management, etc, etc. Standard MCU solutions are likely to be sub-optimal for some of these functions, and custom solutions must seem compelling for IP vendors and in-house developers who need an embedded controller. Standardizing the ISA for some of these functions seems like a natural win given potential for healthy competition and hopefully a robust software ecosystem growing around the standard.

I’m not so sure about the DSP examples as a target; radio performance depends on some pretty carefully-crafted architecture support in the more demanding wireless standards. Doesn’t seem like a good fit for a general-purpose ISA, but maybe that’s just my lack of understanding. RISC-V allows you to tune the ISA, which might overcome objections of this kind. In fact this appears to be one of the real attractions in the standard.

But that raises a question – how much can you change before you become non-compliant? Change enough and what you are using is just a convenient starting point on your way to yet another proprietary ISA. So as you’re refining your architecture against your (hopefully) extensive software regression suites, you will want to assess performance and power, among other metrics, when making decision on ISA optimization. But you also want to know that you are staying inside the boundaries of RISC-V compliance. How do you do any of that when you don’t yet have even a hardware simulation model?

The answer is that you use an instruction set simulator (ISS) reflecting the RISC-V ISA, adapted with whatever changes you want to make. Unlike hardware simulators, these things can run at near real-time speed, so it is possible to run those extensive regression suites and compare and contrast performance, power etc between different ISA tweaks. Since the ISA is free, why would you want to pay for this simulator? You don’t have to. In the spirit of the standard, Imperas provides a free ISS for RISC-V; notably this is used by the RISC-V Foundation’s compliance working group in their compliance testing, a feather in Imperas’ cap.

Naturally Imperas offers a number of (presumably charged) options. After all they have to make money somewhere. This model isn’t noticeably different from RedHat or many “freemium” business models. So more power to them.

I talked with Kevin McDermott (VP Marketing at Imperas) while at TechCon to get a bit more insight into his view on the role of virtual prototyping in system design. He acknowledges they didn’t invent this concept but believes they offer a differentiated solution over similar products First, they focus exclusively on virtual prototyping and are not trying to extend down into implementation. Where connection to implementation is important, they partner with companies like Cadence to do hybrid prototyping. Imperas models the CPU/cluster part of an SoC running a software stack and the rest of the SoC runs on Palladium. This allows for software performance, communicating with hardware accuracy where needed.

Second they have an open approach to models. Generic models for many processors, platforms and peripherals are already available under OVP and you are free to adapt these to match what you intend to use/build. The Imperas ISS generated for your system based on these models can then be used for driver development, OS and hypervisor integration and application-level software development, allowing all of this to start before you’ve written your first line of RTL.

Another interesting capability Imperas support is safety analysis with fault injection. In this forum, we’re used to ISO 26262 safety analysis in the hardware domain. ISO 26262 safety analysis is just as important in software and requires, unsurprisingly, fault injection in the software. The Imperas solution has been adopted for safety coverage analysis in aspects of Audi design, which tells me this has to be competitive.

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Could China Conflict Curtail Chip Comeback?

Could China Conflict Curtail Chip Comeback?
by Robert Maire on 12-05-2018 at 7:00 am
Categories: Semiconductor Advisors, Semiconductor Services

At the recent trade talks in South America, the US and China both kicked the can down the road as neither one were obviously willing to do a deal nor had done any background work to get a deal done. Instead we have a bunch of empty promises and vague and conflicting descriptions of what was not really even agreed to.

Essentially worthless
However, the market was happy that nothing happened as stocks rallied based on hope that something might happen in the future as the alternative of continuing on to higher tariffs was an unpalatable alternative.

The semiconductor and tech industries remain at the core of the trade conflict and perhaps are the most critical and difficult trade issue to resolve. While selling soybeans may feed a few more people more food, chips and the technology infrastructure associated with them represents technological and therefore military dominance between the two superpowers who are locked in a new struggle with technology substituting for thermonuclear devices.

At some point we will likely no longer be able to kick the can further down the road and we will need to resolve trade issues. The longer the delay, the better off for China as they have the current advantage. Much as with North Korea, where a similar can has been kicked down the road with no agreements or resolution sooner or later there will be an explosion (figuratively or literally).

Even though there was talk of a 90 day timer, even that information was conflicted as it was unclear whether it was 90 days from the dinner or 90 days from January 1st (90 days or 120 days??). Our view is that by not addressing the issue it will come back some time in the spring.

The sword of Damocles gets frozen
From a stock perspective, the near term pressure is off so the stocks have popped. However we think that investors need to be aware that the sword hanging over tech stocks did not go away but is just delayed.

While tariffs are not going further up they are not going away and espionage is still ongoing.
We don’t see China/Xi as caving in over the next 3-4 months (much as Kim in North Korea hasn’t caved). In fact, it would appear the US was willing to kick the can down the road due to domestic issues and pressure and thus was more of a strategic win for China who benefits from a delay in further tariff increases.

Our view is that the ongoing trade issues will be an ongoing “discount” to many chip and tech stocks that will not fully go away until we get a real, permanent resolution. This discount will likely increase as we near the end of the 3-4 month period when people will start looking for an answer. We could easily find ourselves back where we started with no real progress. We also remain concerned that tech companies could get the short shrift in trade talks as California is not the political base of the administration which seems to care more about less strategic soybeans and their farmers.

An admission of the politicization of M&A – QCOM/NXP
Its obviously no surprise that the Chinese admitted that the QCOM/NXP deal was sunk for political reasons. We had clearly stated this in several of our previous notes. It shows, as we had suggested, that the Chinese will use all tools at its disposal, to get an advantage in the trade and technology wars. The US administration seems to think they have the upper hand as there are more Chinese imports than US exports and therefore more exposed to tariffs but tariffs are obviously only one lever that China has to respond.

M&A is likely more critical to US companies and thus may be more valuable than adding to tariffs. In blocking and burying the QCOM/NXP deal (which is not coming back from the dead), the Chinese blocked the US becoming even more dominant in semiconductor telecommunications technology.

Given that China has used M&A approval as a weapon in the past, its a safe bet they will use it in the future to get their way in tech, which they clearly care about.

KLAC/ORBK – What does the trade truce really mean?
The knee jerk reaction is that the current truce period is likely good for the KLAC/ORBK deal approval as the Chinese probably don’t want to take an offensive action during this ceasefire period.

You can add to that logic the fact that China has approved several deals recently that are much larger than the rounding error size of the KLAC/ORBK deal. UTX’s $30B purchase of Rockwell Collins was approved along with Disney’s $71B deal to buy Fox entertainment.

The UTX deal is more of a proxy for KLAC/ORBK as Rockwell Collins is a defense electronics manufacturer. While we think the KLAC/ORBK deal goes through and the trade truce is a good omen we remain concerned about the length of time for a relatively small deal as we are quickly approaching the self imposed end of year deadline for the deal. Could it be that the Chinese care more about a chip related deal?

What will it take to make you Capitulate?
(Apologies to Musk’s girlfriend Grimes for stealing lyrics- Appreciate Power)

In looking at AMAT’s recently announced quarter, we wonder if capitulation is what it will take for the semi equipment stocks to move on and up.

Applied had a very bad quarter with a big miss on guidance and the stock dropped sharply in the after market on the news. Yet the following day the stock seemingly recovered on no other news.

Some investors and industry participants suggested that Applied’s “capitulation” in admitting to the down cycle rather than fighting reality was the reason for the bounce in the stock in the face of otherwise ugly news.

On the call, Applied CFO, Dam Durn, had suggested that they didn’t know where the bottom of the cycle was and seemed to be capitulating to the fact that cyclicality still exists rather than trying to fight it and suggest otherwise.

Is capitulation of the chip/tech slowdown the “cathartic cleansing” we need to have the stocks get over it and move on? Perhaps so…

The stocks
We have had a nice bounce off the bottom here and have gotten another bounce from the trade truce. Our concern remains that these are more emotional reactions rather than hard facts that support a real recovery and thus could be short lived.

We are well past the peak season and holiday driven demand, of semiconductor sales and about to head into the weakest quarter of the year (Q1) for chips which is almost always a sort of postpartum period after the holidays and usually the low point for memory sales/pricing. Q1 also contains Chinese new year which also slows sales.
This suggests that we will not get positive data over the next few weeks/ months to support the bounce or a more extended recovery.

We might consider taking some short term gains off the table as we may get a chance to buy them back at a lower valuation.


Also Read: Could China Conflict Curtail Chip Comeback? Part 2

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Cadence Summit Highlights Automotive Market Dynamics and System Enablement

Cadence Summit Highlights Automotive Market Dynamics and System Enablement
by Camille Kokozaki on 12-04-2018 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Automotive, Cadence, EDA, Events

Cadence held a well-attended Automotive Summit where Cadence presented an overview of their solution and system enablement along with industry experts and established or startup companies sharing their perspective and product features from autonomous driving, LiDAR, Radar, thermal imaging, sensor imaging, and AI.

Continue reading “Cadence Summit Highlights Automotive Market Dynamics and System Enablement”

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Improving Library Characterization with Machine Learning!

Improving Library Characterization with Machine Learning!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-04-2018 at 7:00 am
Categories: EDA, Siemens EDA

For SOC designers that are waiting for library models the saying “give me liberty or give me death” is especially apropos. Without libraries to support the timing flow, SOC design progress can grind to a halt. As is often the case, more than just a few PVT corners are needed. Years ago, corners were what the term sounded like – the 4 corners of a square. In today’s designs, they are more like the many corners in a massive Parisian roundabout. Multiplied by the hundreds of cells in a typical library, the size of the library creation task has become an enormous undertaking.

In fact, Wei-Lii Tan, Product Manager in Mentor’s AMS Design and Verification group, estimates that it can take between 10 to 100 million simulation runs to create a usable library. This figure comes from their white paper on improving library characterization by using machine learning. If we have learned anything about machine learning in the last few years, it is its ability to revolutionize the tasks that is it applied to. It turns out that this is indeed the case for semiconductor design too.

Mentor’s MLChar Generator and MLChar Analytics address this problem by applying predictive machine learning to this difficult task. Mentor identifies five challenges that have hindered timely and accurate library development for SOC projects. They are: runtime and throughput, accuracy of results, incremental PVT corner characterization, library validation, and debugging and repairing. Each of these benefits greatly from the application of machine learning.

The value proposition for the acceleration machine learning provides really comes to light when teams are faced with the need for new corners that were not available in the initial library, or when the process for the cell library is relatively new and undergoing revisions. To see how it’s useful to look at the process Mentor’s MLChar uses.

The input to MLChar generator is a subset of the Liberty files for PVT corners, which are called anchor corners. With a properly selected set of anchor corners the number of corners that need to be generated by brute force simulation can be reduced by 30 to 70%. MLChar will even help select the optimal anchor corners. Using MLChar, new PVT corners can be produced in a fraction of the runtime that would be needed for full simulation.

An interesting side benefit is because MLChar does not need device models or simulator runs, new corners can be created easily if the need arises, without having to duplicate the initial library characterization setup.

Machine learning is also very good at finding anomalies in data, making it a great tool for validating libraries. It is useful for detecting outliers and ‘spikes’ that could indicate issues in the library characterization process. It comes with a suite of analytics and visualization tools to make debugging library issues much easier.

The net effect of using machine learning is a dramatic reduction in the time needed for library generation of standard cells or memories, with virtually no loss in accuracy. Additionally, the speed up for library validation not only improves library quality, but shortens the process. There is much more about the technology and how it works in the whitepaper. Mentor is making good use of its acquisitions, this whitepaper shows that they are continuing the technology and initiatives that Solido brought to the table, absolutely!

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Car Vandals Eschew Crowbars

Car Vandals Eschew Crowbars
by Tom Simon on 12-03-2018 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Automotive, IP, Security, Synopsys

It used to be that automotive theft and crime was perpetrated with a crowbar. Now with increased electronics content, car designer and owners need to worry about electronic threats. Anywhere there is a communication link or a processor, there are potential threats to the security of the car. The range of these threats covers everything from privacy, safety, malicious intent, damage or even vehicle theft. Automotive suppliers are taking these threats seriously and designing their products with security in mind up front.

On the privacy front, hackers could listen in as you speak inside your car, or they could track your location. Every automated system could be tampered with from door locks, to safety critical systems such as airbags and crash avoidance. Hacked motor and automotive control systems could be harmed by improper commands.

Cars are coming with more and more data connections to the outside world, ones that could be exploited by hackers or malicious actors. The question is, what can be done to minimize security vulnerabilities in connected cars? Synopsys has a technical bulletin that discusses the fundamental problem and ways to deal with it. The paper written by Mike Borza, Principle IP Security Technologist at Synopsys, is titled “Minimizing Security Vulnerabilities in Connected Cars Starts with Silicon”.

They posit that by 2023 there will be over 70 million connected cars on the road. Each one of them will have multiple connections that could be used to compromise their security. This can range from USB, SD, AUX connections to WiFi, Bluetooth, and embedded modem devices. With new smart car functionality, comes increasing pathways in and out of the vehicle. Prevention of these threats requires a ground up approach starting at the SOC level to ensure security.

Two significant types of breaches are installation of hacked software and intercepted or falsified communications. Synopsys asserts that the best way to protect software integrity is to build security into the silicon that it is running on. Using Hardware Root of Trust can enable the creation of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). Synopsys’ approach is to provide SOC developers an IP Hardware Security Module (HSM) that offers an isolated secure processing enclave that serves as the center of chip security.

The HSM contains a set of secure services to enable unique chip identification, encryption and application code validation. At startup, the HSM is the first unit that begins operating, it can then validate its own code and then ensure that any application code run on other processors in the system have not been tampered with. Once the SOC is up and running the HSM can provide encryption API’s that make possible secure and authorized communication within and outside of the vehicle.

Synopsys calls its hardware security module tRoot HSM. It offers complete IP for implementing a TEE and also is supported by software libraries and development tools that enable SOC designers to build a complete hardware/software solution and also perform debug and ensure post production test.

The Synopsys Technical Bulletin delves into the details of how tRoot HSM IP can contribute to making SOCs targeted for automotive use as secure as possible. One key take-away is that it’s important to have a complete system that includes all the components, from hardware IP to software, to ensure robust security.

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9 IoT Predictions for 2019

9 IoT Predictions for 2019
by Ahmed Banafa on 12-03-2018 at 7:00 am
Categories: IoT

By 2020, the Internet of Things (IoT) is predicted to generate an additional $344B in revenues, as well as to drive $177B in cost reductions. IoT and smart devices are already increasing performance metrics of major US-based factories. They are in the hands of employees, covering routine management issues and boosting their productivity by 40-60% [1].

The following list of predictions (Figure 1) explores the state of IoT in 2019 and covering IoT impact on many aspects business and technology including Digital Transformation, Blockchain, AI, and 5G.


Figure 1: IoT Predictions For 2019

IoT Prediction 1: Growth in Data and Devices
By the end of this year there will be are around 3.6 billion devices that are actively connected to the Internet and used for daily tasks according to IT Pro [8]. With the introduction of 5G that will open the door for more devices, and data traffic. You can add to this trend the increase adoption of edge computing which will make it easier for business to process data faster and close to the points of action [5].

IoT Prediction 2: IoT and Digital Transformation
IoT is a key driver of digital transformation in several industries. Sensors, RFID tags, and smart beacons have already started the next industrial revolution. Market analysts predict the number of connected devices in the manufacturing industry will double between 2018 and 2020.

These devices are a total game changer for the many industries, disrupting every part of the production process from development to supply chain management. Manufacturers will be able to prevent delays, improve production performance. Another example; in 2019; 87% of healthcare organizations will have adopted IoT technology. The possibilities are endless for healthcare organizations and the IoT—smart pills, smart home care, personal healthcare management, electronic health records, managing sensitive data, and an overall higher degree of patient care. This type of improvements can be applied to many sectors vertically and horizontally [6][9].

IoT Prediction 3: More Investments in IoT
IoT’s undisputable impact has and will continue to lure more startup venture capitalists towards highly innovative projects in hardware, software and services. Spending on IoT will hit 1.4 trillion dollars by 2021 according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) [7].

IoT is one of the few markets that have the interest of the emerging as well as the traditional venture capitalists. The spread of smart devices and the increase dependency of customers to do many of their daily tasks using them, will add to the excitement of investing in IoT startups. Customers will be waiting for the next big innovation in IoT—such as smart mirrors that will analysis your face and call your doctor if you look sick, smart ATM machine that will incorporate smart security cameras, smart forks that will tell you how to eat and what to eat, and smart beds that will turn off the lights when everyone is sleeping [5][14].

IoT Prediction 4: Expansion of Smart IoT
IoT is all about connectivity and processing, nothing will be a better example than smart cities , but smart cities have been in a bit of a holding pattern recently. Smart sensors around the neighborhood will record everything from walking routes, shared car use, building occupancy, sewage flow, and temperature choice 24/7 with the goal of creating a place that’s comfortable, convenient, safe, and clean for those who live there. Once the model is perfected, it could be the model for other smart neighborhoods and eventually smart cities [2].

Another area of spreading smart IoT is auto industry with self-driving cars become a normal occurrence in the next few years, today tons of vehicles have a connected app that shows up to date diagnostic information about the car. This is done with IoT technology, which is the heart of the connected vehicle. Diagnostic information is not the only IoT advancement that we will see in the next year or so. Connected apps, voice search, and current traffic information are a few other things that will change the way we drive [2].

IoT Prediction 5: Artificial Intelligence and IoT Data
Artificial intelligence is the fundamental ingredient needed to make sense of the vast amount of data collected these days, and increase its value for business. AI will help IoT data analysis in the following areas: data preparation, data discovery, visualization of streaming data, time series accuracy of data, predictive and advance analytics,andreal-time geospatial and location (logistical data). Here are a few examples.

  • Data Preparation: Defining pools of data and cleaning them, which will take us to concepts like Dark Data and Data Lakes.
  • Data Discovery: Finding useful data in defined pools of data.
  • Visualization of Streaming Data: On-the-fly dealing with streaming data by defining, discovering data, and visualizing it in smart ways to make it easy for the decision-making process to take place without delay.
  • Time Series Accuracy of Data: Keeping the level of confidence in data collected high with high accuracy and integrity of data
  • Predictive and Advance Analytics: Making decisions based on data collected, discovered and analyzed.
  • Real-Time Geospatial and Location (Logistical Data): Maintaining the flow of data smoothly and under control [3].

IoT Prediction 6: Fog Computing & IoT
Fog computing is a technology that distributed the load of processing and moved it closer to the edge of the network (sensors in case of IoT). The benefits of using fog computing are very attractive to IoT solution providers. Some of these benefits allow users minimize latency, conserve network bandwidth, operate reliably with quick decisions, collect and secure a wide range of data, and move data to the best place for processing with better analysis and insights of local data. Microsoft just announced a $5 billion investment in IoT, including fog/edge computing [3][4][5].

Hardware manufacturers like Cisco, HPE, Dell and more are building specific infrastructure for the edge deigned to be more physically rugged and secure, and security vendors will start to offer endpoint security solutions to their existing services to prevent data loss, give insights into network health and threat protection, include privileged user control and application whitelisting and control, that will help in the fast adoption and spread of edge/fog computing implementations by businesses [2].

IoT Prediction 7: IoT and Blockchain
The current centralized architecture of IoT is one of the main reasons for the vulnerability of IoT networks. With billions of devices connected and more to be added, IoT is a big target for cyber-attacks, which makes security extremely important.

Blockchain offers new hope for IoT security for several reasons. First, blockchain is public, everyone participating in the network of nodes of the blockchain network can see the blocks and the transactions stored and approves them, although users can still have private keys to control transactions. Second, blockchain is decentralized, so there is no single authority that can approve the transactions eliminating Single Point of Failure (SPOF) weakness. Third and most importantly, it’s secure—the database can only be extended and previous records cannot be changed.

In the coming years manufactures will recognize the benefits of having blockchain technology embedded in all devices and compete for labels like “Blockchain Certified”[3][5].

IoT Prediction 8: IoT and Standardization
Standardization is one of the biggest challenges facing growth of IoT—it’s a battle among industry leaders who would like to dominate the market at an early stage. Digital assistant devices, including HomePod, Alexa, and Google Assistant, are the future hubs for the next phase of smart devices, and companies are trying to establish “their hubs” with consumers, to make it easier for them to keep adding devices with less struggle and no frustrations [3][5].

But what we have now is a case of fragmentation. One possible solution is to have a limited number of vendors dominating the market, allowing customers to select one and stick to it for any additional connected devices, similar to the case of operating systems we have now have with Windows, Mac and Linux for example, where there are no cross-platform standards [3][5].

To understand the difficulty of standardization, we need to deal with all three categories in the standardization process: Platform, Connectivity, and Applications. In the case of platform, we deal with UX/UI and analytic tools, while connectivity deals with customer’s contact points with devices, and last, applications are the home of the applications which control, collect and analyze data. All three categories are inter-related and we need them all, missing one will break that model and stall the standardization process [3][5].

There is no way to solve the problem of fragmentation without a strong push by organizations like IEEE or government regulations to have common standards for IoT devices [3][5].

IoT Prediction 9: IoT Skills Shortage
While investment in the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to reach over $1 trillion by 2020, according to IDC, the need for IoT skills may just hamper this growth. In fact, according to a Canonical report, 68% of businesses still struggle to hire IoT experts [10]. The latest Tech Cities Job Watch report from Experis showed a 35% increase in the demand for technology skills since this time last year, as businesses look to harness the power of IoT [11][13].

The Tech Cities Job Watch report noted that IoT has massively increased the number of connected devices and has exploded the volumes of data businesses have to process and as a result, big data roles are important to delivering success on IoT. The report found that businesses were willing to pay for such skills, with big data professionals commanding by far the highest salaries and day rates of any other technology discipline analyzed [13].

Since connected devices also create many more vulnerabilities to cyber threats for businesses to contend with, security skills are also in demand, the report found. There has been a 24% increase (year-on-year) in the demand for IT Security contractors. Businesses are urgently plugging short term security gaps and using contractors to train up existing employees across the business and are shifting focus to this more flexible contractor model for IT security in response to the demands for IoT [13].

Universities cannot keep up with the demand, so to deal with such shortage, companies have established internal training programs to build their own teams, upgrading the skills of their own engineering teams and training new talents. This trend will continue, representing an opportunity for new engineers and a challenge for companies [3][5].

References

[LIST=1]

  • https://mobidev.biz/blog/iot-trends-for-business-2018-and-beyond
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2018/07/31/five-iot-predictions-for-2019/#5a73cf186edd
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/looking-ahead-whats-next-iot-ahmed-banafa/
  • https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2018/04/05/it-execs-see-promise-in-iot-reinforcing-microsofts-5b-investment/
  • https://www.amazon.com/Secure-Smart-Internet-Things-Iot/dp/8770220301/
  • https://www.i-scoop.eu/internet-of-things-guide/internet-things-healthcare/
  • https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/manufacturing/an-introduction-to-the-internet-of-things/
  • https://www.itproportal.com/features/next-big-things-in-iot-predictions-for-2020/
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iot-ai-blockchain-catalysts-digital-transformation-ahmed-banafa/
  • https://blog.ubuntu.com/2017/08/09/68-of-businesses-are-struggling-to-hire-talent-for-iot?_ga=2.150705918.931132101.1502305379-1356650044.1502305379
  • http://techcities.experis.co.uk/?utm_source=exp_insights&utm_medium=website&utm_term=none&utm_content=q42017&utm_campaign=techcities
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/08/23/so-you-want-a-job-in-iot-here-are-the-three-skills-every-iot-company-looks-for/#14a1f97c45b7
  • https://www.idgconnect.com/idgconnect/analysis-review/1003535/talent-shortage-hampering-iot-development
  • https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/8-trends-iot-2018-ahmed-banafa/


    This article appeared first on IEEE-IoT : https://iot.ieee.org/newsletter/november-2018/nine-iot-predictions-for-2019

    Ahmed Banafa, Author the Book: Secure and Smart Internet of Things (IoT) Using Blockchain and AI

    Read more articles at IoT Trends by Ahmed Banafa

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    Auto Cyber Security: From Ignorance to Compliance

    Auto Cyber Security: From Ignorance to Compliance
    by Roger C. Lanctot on 12-02-2018 at 7:00 am
    Categories: Automotive, Security

    Auto makers have long relied on security by obscurity to get away with not defining or adhering to proper cyber security hygiene. This rationalization had been embraced in the context of low levels of automotive hacking mainly carried out by enthusiasts or so-called “white hat” or ethical hackers.

    A new report from Strategy Analytics, highlighting the contributions of Argus Cyber Security, identifies the growing array of standards and regulations governing automotive security. The report points out that auto makers must confront and take responsibility for the vulnerability of their vehicles especially in the context of evolving autonomous vehicle tech.

    – Argus Helps Answer the Call for Automotive Cyber security Regulation

    In fact, the recent passage, and signing by President Trump, of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018, has established the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security. The Act and the Department recognize 16 critical infrastructure sectors, one of which is “Transportation Systems.”

    – Website of new CISA agency

    – Text of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act of 2018

    While the focus of the Act is infrastructure, it is the belief of cyber security professionals that it is only a matter of time before the onset of autonomous vehicles triggers the identification of connected vehicles as part of this critical infrastructure. This perspective was voiced just this week at the Security Summit held at the L.A. Auto Show. Bryson Bort, CEO and founder of Scythe, in particular, emphasized this point.

    Bort’s concerns were echoed at the Summit by John Gomez, CEO of Sensato, who focused on ransomware as the most immediate automotive cyber security concern. Gomez identified three types of threats including cyber criminals, cyber spies and cyber terrorists with the motivations being profit, intelligence, and ideology, respectively. Other speakers noted ongoing concerns with privacy and data ownership (Lauren Smith, Future of Privacy Forum) and the vulnerability of app-based car-sharing programs (Mikhail Savushkin, Kapsersky Labs).

    Automotive cyber security was long ignored because it had no constituency or business model. Consumers weren’t looking for “secure” cars and car makers weren’t required to make secure cars. That is rapidly changing – especially with the onset of new laws and regulations around the world.

    Before theses new laws and regulations, though, there was the famous “Jeep hack” of 2015. This hack, pulled off by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, embodied all of the shortcomings of the prevailing cyber security ignorance in the automotive industry at the time.

    Miller and Valasek identified a vulnerability in certain Jeep models from FCA. Miller and Valasek likely notified FCA of the problem. They were likely disappointed in FCA’s response – so they created a video demonstrating the potentially horrendous implications of the vulnerability: remote control of certain vulnerable Jeeps.

    FCA suffered a massive public relations blow along with absorbing the nine-figure cost of recalling millions of vehicles to correct the security flaw. Finally, the entire industry got the message. (Miller and Valasek now work directly for General Motors after briefly working at Uber.)

    The lessons learned:

    • Hackers can be helpful and must not be ignored
    • Car makers cannot rely on hackers to identify and fix vulnerabilities
    • Fixing vulnerabilities in the field is expensive (and embarrassing)
    • Connectivity is essential to identifying, preventing and correcting cyber security vulnerabilities
    • Cyber security must be addressed throughout vehicle design and system integration

    The automotive industry is not out of the cyber security woods. The good news is that General Motors has seen fit to elevate cyber security to a Board-level responsibility – a model for other car companies to emulate.

    Will there be more automotive hacks? No doubt. Do we have time to prepare for the day when cars are designated critical infrastructure? Yes. Will cars ever be certifiably secure? No

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    Webinar: Turnkey Bluetooth True Wireless Stereo Earbuds and Speakers

    Webinar: Turnkey Bluetooth True Wireless Stereo Earbuds and Speakers
    by Bernard Murphy on 12-01-2018 at 7:00 am
    Categories: Ceva, Events, IP, Mobile

    When we were first introduced to earbuds, in-ear speakers connected through thin wires to your phone (and earlier portable music devices), they seemed pretty convenient for private entertainment at work, while walking, exercising, doing almost anything. Until we started to realize those long dangly wires weren’t ideal. They’d snag easily, and pull out an earbud, they tie themselves into frustrating bundles of knots when stuffed in a pocket and those skinny wires aren’t very robust. When we’re surrounded by wireless technology, why do we still need wires for earbuds? The same point could be made for home speakers. While wireless communication races ahead, why are audio connections stuck in the dark ages?

    Register HERE for the CEVA Webinar at 10 AM CET on December 5[SUP]th[/SUP]. I’m guessing this is primarily for EMEA/Asia audiences. A bit early/late for the US but no matter where you are register anyway and you will get a link to the replay.

    Apple Airpods showed the way with truly wireless earbuds. Others quickly followed with pseudo wireless offerings which didn’t need a wired connection to your phone but did come with a strap between the earbuds, like the granny strap for your glasses. More than a few consumers decided they didn’t need that strap, so they cut it off. Oops. Turns out the strap wasn’t just a fashion statement. One earbud received an audio stream from the phone, played one of the stereo channels and forwarded the other channel to the other earbud through that strap. Truly wireless stereo earbuds are a bit harder, especially if you want them to be usable for several hours (there isn’t a lot of space in those tiny devices for big batteries).

    Similar concerns and more apply to home audio systems. When you want to outfit your man-cave/she-shack with surround-sound, having to run cables from speakers to the amplifier just seems so, well, 20[SUP]th[/SUP]-century. Sure you have to power the speakers, but audio streaming should be wireless. There’s another concern here too – synchronizing channels. In a typical room, there’s enough distance between speakers and the source for channel synchronization to become a concern; you don’t want what should be beautiful surround sound to become a confusing jumble. Listen to this webinar to understand how CEVA and Tempow provide a low power, truly wireless stereo experience scaling all the way from wireless earbuds to home audio.

    Abstract
    A recent market study from the Bluetooth SIG shows that shipments of Bluetooth audio devices are growing steadily, and set to exceed 1.2 billion units annually by 2022. This market is dominated by headsets shipments, with wireless earbuds as one of the hottest devices in the market today. And for wireless earbuds, true wireless stereo is the technology enabling this market. This webinar presents the various solutions available on the market for true wireless stereo, with particular focus on the Tempow – CEVA innovative solution.

    Join CEVA and Tempow experts to learn about:

    • Market trends in the Bluetooth audio market
    • Benefits of Bluetooth for audio streaming
    • Overview of existing proprietary true wireless stereo solutions for earbuds and speakers
    • The True Wireless Earbuds joint solution from Tempow & CEVA

    Target Audience
    Design, system and product engineers targeting Bluetooth SoC for true wireless stereo earbuds and speakers. Smartphone makers interested in designing their own earbuds products

    Speakers


    Franz Dugand
    Sales and Marketing Director, Connectivity BU, CEVA, Inc.


    Vincent Nallatamby
    CEO, Tempow

    Register HEREfor the CEVA Webinar at 10 AM CET on December 5[SUP]th[/SUP]

    Posted on

    RISC-V End to End Solutions for HPC and Networking

    RISC-V End to End Solutions for HPC and Networking
    by Daniel Nenni on 11-30-2018 at 12:00 pm
    Categories: FinFET, IP, OpenFive, RISC-V, Semiconductor Services

    Semiconductor IP is one of the more exciting and most viewed topics we cover on SemiWiki, it has been that way since we began in 2011 and that trend will continue indefinitely, my opinion.

    Semiconductor IP: Total Blogs: 640: Total Views: 3253751: Average: 5084

    Based on the design starts we track, Cloud Computing is a leading semiconductor driver so High Performance Computing (HPC) and Networking IP development and deployment will closely follow including High Bandwidth Memory (HMB2) and Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) IP.

    Specifically, higher memory bandwidth at lower power and technical capabilities (2.5D Interposer-based ASIC design in combination with the new JEDEC HBM Gen2 standard). It needs the integration of significant capacities of high-bandwidth (up-to 256GB/s for an 8-channel, 8Gb memory stack implementation) and low latency memory inside the ASIC package. Open-Silicon’s full IP subsystem solution includes an HBM2 controller, PHY and interposer I/O, and completes the critical components needed for the successful integration of HBM2 memory into ASIC system-in-package (SiP) designs.

    One of the more exciting emerging IP companies I have come across is Credo (meaning “I believe”). Credo delivers high-performance, mixed-signal semiconductor IP including SerDes and interconnect products for 25G, 50G, and 100G connectivity. Walden International led Credo’s first round of funding in 2015 and if you look at the management profiles you will see deep Marvell Semiconductor experience. I did get a chance to catch up with Jeff Twombly of Credo who is quoted below. Jeff is a long time Silicon Valley semiconductor guy, very approachable, and engaging. I highly recommend getting coffee with Jeff to get the latest on the SerDes business, absolutely.

    As you may know I am a big fan of the ASIC business and we have been working with Open-Silicon for the past two years on research, blogs, and we jointly published an eBook on Custom SoCs for IoT. Open-Silicon is now listed as a SiFive Company which we can discuss further in the comments section if you like. Which brings us to the recent announcement by Open-Silicon and Credo which is definitely worth a read:

    SiFive, Credo and Open-Silicon Showcase End-to-End Solutions for HPC and Networking Applications at SC18 in Dallas

    DALLAS, Texas – November 12, 2018 – SiFive, Credo and Open-Silicon will exhibit complete end-to-end solutions for HPC and networking applications at Supercomputing 2018 (SC18) in Dallas, TX. The co-demonstration illustrates the capabilities of SiFive’s highest performance RISC-V Core IP U7 Series, Open-Silicon’s HBM2 IP subsystem and Credo’s high performance, low power, mixed-signal 112Gbps PAM4 SerDes. Custom SoC solutions and critical IP cores, including Interlaken IP and Ethernet IP subsystems, will also be showcased.

    The SiFive Core IP U7 Series is a high-performance RISC-V applications processor featuring a dual-issue superscalar core with domain-specific customizations required for embedding intelligence from the edge to the cloud. The U7 series microarchitecture optimizes performance and power enabling high throughput systems for diverse compute workloads and form-factors. Credo’s 112G SerDes, silicon proven in advanced 7nm FinFET node, enables rapid build-out of next-generation 100G, 400G and 800G Ethernet cloud networks, and delivers higher bandwidth, lower power and optimum lane count configurations. Open-Silicon’s HBM2 IP subsystem solution, in FinFET technologies, includes an HBM2 controller, PHY and interposer I/O. It provides the highest performance and flexibility for integrating HBM directly into next-generation custom SoC 2.5D SiP solutions.

    “The SiFive Core IP U7 Series provides a compelling feature set that includes scalability, extensibility, 64-bit architectures, and a heterogenous coherent combination of real-time and application processors for next generation compute requiring embedded intelligence,” said Jack Kang, VP of Product Marketing, SiFive.

    “Credo’s silicon-proven 56G/112G SerDes IPs, combined with Open-Silicon’s SerDes Technology Center of Excellence, minimizes risk and time-to-market for developing next generation HPC and networking custom SoCs,” added Jeff Twombly, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Credo.

    “This collaborative demonstration with SiFive and Credo is an excellent opportunity to unveil the power of a complete end-to-end solution for next generation custom SoC solutions for high-performance and bandwidth applications,” said Shafy Eltoukhy, SVP of Operations and GM, Open-Silicon.

    About SiFive
    SiFive is the leading provider of market-ready processor core IP based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture. www.sifive.com

    About Credo
    Credo is a leading provider of advanced SerDes IP. www.credosemi.com

    About Open-Silicon
    Open-Silicon, a SiFive company, is a system-optimized custom SoC solution provider. www.open-silicon.com

    Posted on

    Security and RISC-V

    Security and RISC-V
    by Bernard Murphy on 11-30-2018 at 7:00 am
    Categories: Events, IP, RISC-V, Security, Tortuga Logic

    One of the challenges in the RISC-V bid for world domination may be security. That may seem like a silly statement, given that security weaknesses are invariably a function of implementation and RISC-V doesn’t define implementation, only the instruction-set architecture (ISA). But bear with me. RISC-V success depends heavily on implementors not yielding to the temptation of non-standard extensions in the pursuit of differentiation. It also depends heavily on a perception that, where it matters, implementations are at least as secure as equivalent ARM offerings.

    Whatever you may think of the ARM hegemony, you can’t deny that they are putting a lot of work into security, from the device-level all the way up to the total system. Especially in the IoT, wherever the security floodgates break (when we will really wake up to the importance of security) security-lite RISC solutions are not going to do well. Recognizing this, the RISC-V Foundation has formed a security standing committee, chaired by Dr. Helena Handschuh of Rambus.

    The technical goals of the standard continue to be in ISA refinement, so this committee will be considering extension to the privilege specification as well as extensions in support of cryptography. And of course they have a promotional goal to encourage adoption of and to further innovation around the RISC-V standard particularly with respect to security. About 25 companies are represented on the committee, from security specialists to IP vendors and large semiconductor vendors.

    One of these companies is Tortuga Logic, who I have written about before. I talked to Jason Oberg, CEO of Tortuga, about their role in this activity. Tortuga’s whole objective is security, particularly against side-channel attacks, so they should be able to add real value to the committee. Naturally they have a business interest. When they’re aligned with the standard, their tools and IP should become attractive in guiding design for anyone implementing or using RISC-V. Which should in turn provide objective measures of security and therefore build confidence around using these implementations. A virtuous cycle with Tortuga making some money along the way. (I asked Jason what they plan to do in the spirit of open support. He said they’re thinking of possibly releasing an open threat-model for RISC-V.)

    If you’re plugged into the RISC-V world, you’ll know that there is a summit next week, December 4th-5th at the Santa Clara convention center. Jason will be presenting in the afternoon of the 5th on a security verification framework for RISC-V, also Tortuga will have a booth in the exhibit hall. Their demo should be pretty interesting; they have applied their technology to analysis of the open Rocket core and will show a number of side-channel issues they found in that implementation. You might want to check out the demo if only to better understand how your current verification strategy will probably miss these kinds of problem and to realize that those deficiencies may not be easy to fix through better testbenches or more formal verification.

    You can register for the summit HERE and learn more about Tortuga Logic HERE.