TekStart and Pico Computing Partner to Deliver Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) Intellectual Property (IP) Solutions for Networking, Computing, and Processing Markets

HMC IP provides customers with broad benefits addressing bandwidth issues for networking and memory-bound applications

PALO ALTO, Calif. & SEATTLE-- July 31, 2014 --Pico Computing Inc., a technology leader in high-performance computing, and TekStart LLC, a semiconductor adventure capital company, today announced the availability of Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) Controller Intellectual Property (IP). HMC technology brings greatly expanded bandwidth (up to 240GB/s) to image processing, packet processing, video processing, and other high-performance computing applications. The new HMC Controller offering is essential to unlocking the breakthrough capabilities of HMC technology, which in turn overcomes traditional memory constraints.

“Pico Computing’s innovative HMC controller IP, originally designed specifically for Micron, provides tremendous benefits to memory-bound applications, and particularly those that require high bandwidth and fast random access,” said Jaime Cummins, CEO, Pico Computing. “The combination of our IP with TekStart’s deep IP integration and solutions expertise will provide a solid platform for advances in the HMC space.”

Led by semiconductor industry veterans, the TekStart team has played an integral role in building, defining and growing the memory semiconductor and IP business. By working with nearly a dozen memory IP companies as founders, executives, managers, and engineering professionals, as well as being part of steering committees and associations, the TekStart team will add tremendous value to the joint venture and to the industry.

“TekStart has watched the HMC market develop over the last two years and is thrilled to be working with Pico Computing to develop and deliver this IP to customers and to the industry,” said Howard Pakosh, CEO, TekStart. “Pico Computing, with its modular approach to FPGA-based high-performance computing, has successfully addressed the issues surrounding CPU-based limitations, and is now, with HMC, turning its attention to knocking down the memory wall. With our IP experience and background, we will be able to further HMC advances with ASIC design starts as well, and bring this technology to full fruition.”

Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) HMC devices use advanced through-silicon vias (TSVs)—vertical conduits that electrically connect a stack of individual memory chips—to combine high-performance logic with Micron's state-of-the-art DRAM technology. HMC is recognized by the high-performance computing industry as the long-awaited answer to the growing gap between the performance improvement rate of DRAM and ever-expanding processor data consumption demands.

Scott Graham, Micron’s general manager for Hybrid Memory Cube, added, “Pico Computing’s technical expertise and experience coupled with HMC’s performance and efficiency will enable users to overcome their most challenging requirements for next-generation systems.”

The Hybrid Memory Cube Controller IP is available now. For more information contact TekStart at sales@tekstart.com or +1-650-461-9194.

About Pico Computing

Pico Computing is the technology leader in high-performance computing. Our modular, highly scalable HPC and embedded systems solve the biggest of the big data computing challenges—from the edge to the data center to the desktop. Whether targeted to PCI Express-based HPC or standalone embedded applications, Pico Computing's massively-scalable architecture, built upon FPGA technologies, brings orders-of-magnitude performance gains, greatly reduced energy costs, the industry's smallest form factors, and simplified application design. To learn more about Pico Computing, visit www.picocomputing.com.

About TekStart LLC

TekStart is an adventure capital company providing sales, marketing and business development capital exclusively to hi-tech entrepreneurs during major stages of their new business adventure including funding and developing new concepts, generating models and revenue for new products and services, and promoting and growing venture funded companies requiring scalability. TekStart focuses exclusively on new and emerging high-tech ventures. The TekStart client portfolio includes startups in Enterprise Software, IT Services, Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Semiconductor, and Internet (security/infrastructure/b2b) industries, among others.