Arteris

Arteris, Inc. is a multinational technology firm headquartered in Campbell, California. It develops the Network-on-Chip (NoC) on-chip interconnect IP and System-on-Chip (SoC) integration automation software used to create semiconductor designs for a variety of devices, particularly in automotive electronics, artificial intelligence/machine learning and consumer markets. The company specializes in the development and distribution of Network-on-Chip (NoC) interconnect Intellectual Property (IP) and SoC integration automation products used in the development of systems-on-chip.

It is best known for its flagship product, Arteris FlexNoC, which by 2022 has shipped in over 3 billion devices. The company offers a cache coherent interconnect IP product line called Ncore as well as a last level cache called CodaCache. As a result of its acquisition of Magillem Design Services and Semifore, the company also offers a suite of IEEE-1685 IP-XACT and SystemRDL standards-based SoC Integration automation software products.

History
Arteris was founded in 2004 by Philippe Boucard and two other engineering executives who had worked together at T.Sqware, a startup that was acquired by Globespan. Company executives wished to address problems with existing monolithic bus and crossbar interconnect technologies, such as wire and routing congestion, increased heat and power consumption, failed timing closure, and increased die area. The firm’s leadership sought and received venture capital totaling $44.1 million for the creation of its new technology from investors, including ARM Holdings, Crescendo Ventures, DoCoMo Capital, Qualcomm, Synopsys, TVM Capital, and Ventech.

By 2006, Arteris developed the first commercially available NoC IP product, called NoC Solution, followed in 2009 by a more advanced product, FlexNoC. The products used “packetization and a distributed network of small interconnect elements to address congestion, timing, power and performance issues.” Arteris marketed FlexNoC as an improvement on traditional SoCs interconnect fabrics, citing its reduction in gate count by 30 percent, reduction of wires by 50 percent, and a more compact chip floor as compared to a functionally equivalent hybrid bus or crossbar.

Designers of SoCs began to take advantage of the technology’s increased design efficiency, flexibility, and a significant reduction in production costs. By 2012, the company had over 40 semiconductor customers, including Qualcomm, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and LG Electronics, with 200 million SoCs being produced with Arteris IP. The company’s volume is projected to grow to over 1 billion units per year by 2015.

In October 2013, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. acquired the FlexNoC network-on-chip product portfolio, but Arteris retained existing customer contracts and to continue licensing FlexNoC and modifying the source code for customer support. Qualcomm will provide engineering deliverables for the FlexNoC product line and updates to Arteris. Qualcomm does not maintain any ownership interest in Arteris.

In September 2014, Arteris launched the Arteris FlexNoC Resilience Package, which added functional safety mechanisms to the FlexNoC interconnect IP useful for ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 standards compliance.

In May 2016, Arteris released its first version of the Ncore Cache Coherent Interconnect IP product with optional support for functional safety.

Arteris presented the Ncore Cache Coherent Interconnect IP version 3 and the optional Ncore Resilience Package for functional safety at the Linley Processor Conference in October 2017.

In 2020, Arteris acquired Magillem Design Services, adding a suite of IP-XACT-based products for automating the creation of systems-on-chip and their associated software and firmware, verification and simulation platforms, and specifications and customer documentation.

In 2021, Arteris announced the pricing of its initial public offering (IPO), listing under Nasdaq:AIP.

In 2023, Arteris acquired Semifore, a provider of Hardware-Software Interface technology, to accelerate system-on-chip development and integration automation.

Licensees
Arteris claims to have had 200 licensees of its products since its inception in 2004 with over 600 chip designs created with its IP products, with deployments in over 3 billion chips.

These licensees include top-20 semiconductor makers Samsung Electronics, NXP, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Renesas Electronics, and multiple divisions of Intel composed of acquired companies Mobileye, Altera, and Movidius.

Arteris has also signed many licensees creating electronics for autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles. Arteris IP is in multiple generations of Intel Mobileye's EyeQ series of Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) as well as automotive systems from Bosch, NXP, STMicroelectronics and many others. Other publicly announced licensees of Arteris products include Baidu, SK Telecom, Canaan Creative, Bitmain, Aeva, Hailo, Black Sesame Technologies, Kyocera, Displaylink, Hailo, Hyundai Mobis, Microchip, SiMa.ai, Socionext, Tenstorrent.

Products
Arteris offers system IP for the acceleration of system-on-chip (SoC) development. Their network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP and SoC integration automation software enable higher product performance with lower power consumption.

Semiconductor IP
IP products based on Network-on-chip technology include: Optional packages for the above products include:
 * FlexNoC Network-on-Chip (NoC) Interconnect IP
 * Ncore Cache-Coherent Interconnect IP
 * CodaCache Last-Level Cache IP
 * Safety Option- for functional safety and Reliability Option for FlexNoC and Ncore IP
 * FlexNoC XL Option- for very large designs

SoC Integration Automation
Software products to accelerated system-on-chip integration, based on the IEEE 1685 IP-XACT standard include:
 * Magillem Connectivity - accelerate integration of IP blocks making up complex SoCs
 * Magillem Registers - for system memory map
 * CSRCompiler - hardware-software interface (HSI) technology
 * Harmony Trace - traceability for automotive safety