Press release: Antmicro and zGlue release rapid turnaround chiplet-based GEM ASIC

SAN JOSE, CA – December 10th, 2019 – Today, edge AI technology expert company and RISC-V leader Antmicro, and zGlue, a Silicon Valley startup democratizing the procedure of custom chip creation using their innovative chiplet technology, have announced the release of Antmicro’s first chiplet-based ASIC in a series called GEM. Together, the companies want to drive the emerging market of optimized-for-purpose, software-driven, affordable and rapid turnaround chip design.

“With the company’s steady movement towards a compelling and complete offering of truly open digital design services, Antmicro’s miniature GEM ASIC is a bold Proof-of-Concept representing that rapid turnaround chips are the future of the RISC-V developer community, and indeed the future of all computing systems,” said Michael Gielda, VP Business Development at Antmicro.

Antmicro’s GEM developed in collaboration with zGlue and other partners is a series of chiplet-based ASICs that is meant to encapsulate the design complexity of a custom chip in a small form factor within a practical, quick-prototyping / quick-tape-out process. Thanks to zGlue’s technology, customers will be able to use Antmicro’s services to miniaturize their multi-component design into a 6x9 mm chip much faster than using traditional methods, and will be free to combine RISC-V and ARM CPUs, FPGAs, sensors, radios and other functional elements for their specific applications.

“Antmicro and zGlue share a common vision and value proposition to accelerate time-to-market for hardware innovation,” said Ming Zhang, Co-founder and CEO, zGlue, “Our partnership is centered on enabling all stages of the value chain to quickly realize the business benefits that RISC-V technology has been promising.”

With experience in open architectures such as RISC-V and associated emerging technologies, Antmicro offers custom engineering services to build software-driven ASICs, matching PCBs as well as the complete software based on modern and open solutions such as the Zephyr RTOS or Linux, tooling and testing suites, as well as AI functionalities.

The chip presented for the first time today at the annual RISC-V Summit will be on display at Antmicro’s booth #202 and zGlue’s booth #100 in the exhibitor area throughout the event. The current demonstrator is a GEM1 chip featuring two Lattice iCE40 FPGAs with a MIPI CSI-2 switch. A hard RISC-V and Lattice iCE40 FPGA version, named the GEM2 and developed in collaboration with efabless, has also been manufactured and will be released soon.

For more information contact Antmicro at contact@antmicro.com or zGlue at info@zglue.com.

About Antmicro

Antmicro is a software-driven tech company developing modern edge AI systems for various branches of industry. Antmicro provides applied R&D for customers worldwide, offering assistance in prototyping, new product development and adoption of modern embedded technologies, both in the hardware and software areas. Antmicro’s projects involve a broad range of open source technologies such as RISC-V, Renode, Zephyr, TensorFlow, ROS, Linux and Android. Antmicro is a Platinum Founding Member of the RISC-V Foundation, as well as a member of the Linux Foundation, Zephyr Project and CHIPS Alliance.

About zGlue

zGlue enables the best-in-class system security for connected things, with the additional benefits of IP and supply chain security, miniaturization, and fast time to market. Empowered by zGlue’s proprietary silicon-based heterogeneous integration technology, zGlue customers enjoy a seamless path from development and prototype to mass production and deployment with identical chip and board footprints.