Arteris Articles

Based on press coverage and technical paper volume, you could be forgiven for thinking that Korea had decided to take a pass on AI mania, or maybe just to dabble a little here and there to stay abreast of trends. But you’d be wrong. Korea is very active in AI; they don’t feel a need to trumpet what they’re doing from the rooftops. If you dig around, there are plenty of hints. I talked with Kurt Shuler of Arteris IP to get a better understanding. I’m talking here about AI hardware, of course.

Why is on-chip interconnect important for SoC innovation?
System-on-chip architectures are rapidly changing because we are moving from “data processing” chips to SoCs able to execute “decision making” models. The on-chip interconnect is the logical and physical means to create the SoC architecture so the importance of the network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect has increased as the need for architectural innovation has grown.

What developments do you see that Arteris IP is able to address?
We’re at a very exciting time because an important ingredient for performant SoCs has clearly become the on-chip interconnect and all the SoC architectural changes by our customers are influencing our technology development.

To many of us, if we ever think about interconnect on an SoC, we may think delay, power consumption, congestion, that sort of thing. All important points from an implementation point of view, but what about the functional and system implications? In the early days, interconnect was very democratic, all wires more or less equal, connecting X to Y wherever needed. If you had a data bus, you’d route that more carefully to ensure roughly equal delays for each bit, which works pretty well when you don’t have a lot of on-chip functions. But there’s more to it than that. This blog is a quick introduction to interconnect basics.

Value chains can be very robust and seemingly unbreakable – until they’re not. One we’ve taken for granted for many years is the chain for electronics systems in cars. The auto OEM, e.g. Toyota, gets electronics module from a Tier-1 supplier such as Denso. They, in turn, build their modules using chips from a semiconductor chip maker such as Renesas, who produces their chips using pre-packaged functions from IP providers like Arm. Toyota could do the whole thing themselves, but it’s very expensive to set-up and maintain all of that infrastructure. Specialization makes it all more practical. Everyone makes money doing their bit well and cost-effectively and being able to sell to multiple customers (Toyota, GM, BMW, etc.). However, that cash flow can be upended when disruptive innovations are thrown into the supply chain, in this case, a lot more intelligence and autonomy. I talked to Kurt Shuler (VP Marketing at Arteris IP) to get his view. Kurt is an IP supplier and has a unique viewpoint because he works with semis, Tier-1s and OEMs, with standard designs as well as newer AI-based designs. He’s also an active member of the ISO 26262 committee.