Qualcomm announced the acquisition of leading IoT and cloud development security services provider http://Foundries.io, whose flagship product FoundriesFactory has been well-received in the industry. Microchip Technology acquired Neuronix AI Labs to enhance its capability in developing efficient AI edge solutions on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). TMAH developer Runjun Chemicals announced the acquisition of two factories in China from Sumitomo Chemical, aiming to enhance its competitiveness in the wet electronic chemical market in China.
Runjun Acquires Two Sumitomo Chemical Factories
On April 16, Runjun Chemicals announced the acquisition of two factories in China from Sumitomo Chemical.
Runjun revealed that agreements had been reached for the full acquisition of Sumitomo Chemical's subsidiaries, Sumitomo Chemical Electronic Materials (Hefei) Co., Ltd., and Sumitomo Chemical Electronic Materials (Chongqing) Co., Ltd., and both parties had completed the signing of the equity transfer contract.
Upon meeting the relevant terms of the equity transfer contract, Hefei Sumitomo Chemical and Chongqing Sumitomo Chemical will become wholly-owned subsidiaries of Runjun.
Established in 1913, Sumitomo Chemical has been engaged in the production of flat panel display (FPD) process chemicals in China since 2009. The two acquired subsidiaries focus on providing downstream customers with quality etchants, developers, and strippers.
Founded in 2008, Runjun Chemicals is a manufacturer of TMAH developers, supplying products to major global panel manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, BOE, HKC, China Star Optoelectronics, and Tianma. In 2020, Runjun Technology established Xinkai Electronic Materials in Hefei, producing high-purity semiconductor-grade products such as hydrogen peroxide, ammonia water, and isopropanol, which have commenced production in its 12-inch factory.
Runjun stated that through this acquisition, it would inherit Sumitomo Chemical's technological advantages and business networks, enabling it to rapidly expand its product portfolio (etchants, strippers, CF developers, etc.) and provide customers with a variety of comprehensive solutions, thereby enhancing Runjun's competitiveness in the wet electronic chemical market in China.
Qualcomm Acquires http://Foundries.io
Qualcomm recently disclosed its acquisition of http://Foundries.io in a press release about the launch of a new WiFi product. http://Foundries.io is known as an open-source cloud-native platform provider dedicated to simplifying the development and updating of Linux-based IoT and edge devices.
http://Foundries.io was co-founded by executives and engineers and is headquartered in Cambridge, UK, recognized as a leader in the field. The company's cloud-native DevOps products for interconnected embedded security devices can accelerate time to market and reduce costs for OEMs in various industries.
According to reports, http://Foundries.io has established close relationships with ARM and its chip partners, adopting ARM SystemReady technology. It has developed the first fully integrated Cassini project and provides commercial support for it. The Cassini project is an open, collaborative, and standards-based initiative by ARM.
Microchip Acquires Neuronix AI Labs
Microchip Technology recently acquired Neuronix AI Labs to enhance its capability in developing efficient, AI-supported edge systems on FPGA. Neuronix AI Labs provides neural network sparse optimization technology, which reduces power consumption, size, and computational load for tasks such as image classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation, while maintaining high accuracy.
Microchip's mid-range PolarFire FPGA and SoC (System on Chip) are industry leaders in low power, reliability, and security features. Obtaining this neural network sparse optimization technology will enable Microchip to develop large-scale edge deployment components that are cost-effective and efficient, designed specifically for computer vision applications on systems requiring low cost, small size, and low power consumption, thus exponentially increasing AI ML processing capabilities on mid-range to low-end FPGA.
This acquisition also allows traditional Microchip MCU (Microcontroller Unit) and MPU (Micro Processing Unit) customers to use FPGA as accelerators through easy-to-use compilers, significantly improving their design efficiency and system performance, while reducing time to market.
Bruce Weyer, Vice President of Microchip FPGA Business Unit, said, "This acquisition will enhance our efficiency in deploying FPGA and SoC for intelligent edge systems utilizing AI/ML algorithms." He added, "The Neuronix technology, combined with our VectorBlox design flow, can improve neural network performance efficiency and provide excellent GOPS/Watt performance at low power consumption in our PolarFire FPGA and SoC. System designers can now build and deploy small hardware, which was previously difficult due to limitations in size, heat, or power."
Neural network sparse optimization technology will allow non-FPGA designers to leverage the powerful parallel processing capabilities of industry-standard AI frameworks without the need for in-depth knowledge of FPGA design processes.
Combining Neuronix AI intellectual property with Microchip's existing compilers and software PDK (Process Design Kit) allows AI/ML algorithms to be implemented on customizable FPGA logic without the need for specialized knowledge of register transfer level (RTL) or deep understanding of underlying FPGA architectures. It also allows for dynamic updates and upgrades of CNN (Convolutional Neural Networks) without reprogramming the hardware.