Disturbances in the AI Force

By SemiWiki

January 7, 2019

In the normal evolution of specialized hardware IP functions, initial implementations start in academic research or R&D in big semiconductor companies, motivating new ventures specializing in functions of that type, who then either build critical mass to make it as a chip or IP supplier (such as Mobileye - intially) or get sucked into a larger chip or IP supplier (such as Intel or ARM or Synopsys). That was where hardware functions ultimately settled, and many still do.

But recently the gravitational pull of mega-companies has distorted this normally straightforward evolution. In cloud services this list includes Amazon, Microsoft, Baidu and others. In smartphones you have Samsung, Huawei and Apple – yep, Huawei is ahead of Apple in smartphone shipments and is gunning to be #1. These companies, neither semiconductor nor IP, are big enough to do whatever they want to grab market share. What they do to further their goals in competition with the other giants can have major impact on the evolution path for IP suppliers.

Talking to Kurt Shuler, VP Marketing at Arteris IP, I got some insight into how this is changing for AI IP.

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