It has been an exciting couple of days for the semiconductor industry, particularly for companies and engineers focused artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). We've learned that an NVIDIA-Arm deal is in the works, MaxLinear recently acquired NanoSemi, and Altair acquired of Univa, which develops workload management software solutions for AI and HPC. Here is this week’s electronics industry news brief. 

 

NVIDIA-Arm Deal

With an eye on the future of AI, Santa Clara-based NVIDIA announced on Sunday it intends to acquire Arm for $40 billion from SoftBank, which purchased Arm in 2016 for $31.4 billion. "Uniting NVIDIA’s AI computing capabilities with the vast ecosystem of Arm’s CPU, we can advance computing from the cloud, smartphones, PCs, self-driving cars and robotics, to edge IoT, and expand AI computing to every corner of the globe," the company announced. In an interview with CNCB Television on Monday, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huag said "we want to build a computing company for the age of AI."

2020 MPU Sales Look Positive

Microprocessor (MPU) sales for 2020 and beyond are looking strong, according to a new report by IC Insights. The firm predicts that 2020 MPU sales should reach about $73.9 billion, which is a 1.4% improvement over 2019. Interestingly, it is likely that the increased use of mobile devices and Internet-based applications during the COVID-19 crisis is leading to improvement in sales figures. “Sales of central processing units (CPUs) used in traditional PCs, tablets, servers, supercomputers, and all other types of computers are benefitting from increased Internet usage during the global Covid-19 virus health crisis,” IC Insights reports.

Altair Acquires Univa

Altair recently announced the acquisition of Univa, which is a Chicago-based developer of workload management software solutions. The company said, “Altair and Univa's solutions optimize throughput and performance of applications, containers, and services to help hundreds of companies manage thousands of applications and run billions of tasks every day to obtain actionable insights and achieve faster time-to-results.” We'll keep you updated on any new developments, as well as additional news about news products from the companies. 

MaxLinear Acquires NanoSemi

MaxLinear announced Monday the acquisition of NanoSemi, which is a Boston-based IP developer that uses machine learning to improve signal integrity and power efficiency in system on chips (SoC), application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) used in AI and communication systems. NanoSemi, which spun out of MIT in 2014, develops technology that "enables higher throughput connections for 5G and Wi-Fi base stations and smartphones while simultaneously dramatically reducing energy consumption," MaxLinear said in a release.

Updates on the NVIDIA-Arm, MPU Sales, AI, and More

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