CAST COREspondence The IP Newsletter from CAST, Inc. — October 22, 2024
CAST has an excellent reputation for mainstream IP cores, still offering a wide range that includes H.264, JPEG, 8051s, AES, UDP, and more. But, as you can see from the articles below, we are also on top of many new and emerging technologies and our customers are already employing these effectively.
Consider automotive interface controllers. Having introduced one of the first CAN FD controller cores years ago—and since licensing that and LIN to over 300 customers—we continue to advance the market with the fast CAN XL and its security extension CANsec, plus the even faster (and deterministic) TSN Ethernet. For RISC-V, we provide an award-winning Functional Safety embedded processor and a family of very competitive ultra-low-power processor cores.
We also continue to evolve new IP around established technologies, as evidenced by the clever combination of I2C and SPI in one serial communications controller as described below.
With these proven, low-risk IP products, CAST customers can also get royalty-free licensing and probably the best IP support you’ll find anywhere. If all this sounds beneficial for your next project, get in touch and let’s talk.
-- Nikos Zervas, CEO
IP Launch:
I2C/SPI Controller Core
Get two popular serial interface controllers—I2C and SPI—in one IP core with the new I2CSPI-CTRL I2C and SPI Controller/Target Controller.
Many systems use both of these protocols but rarely at the same time, so this core can save resources and simplify integration by letting you switch between I2C and SPI as needed. It delivers the flexible, multiple-peripherals simplicity of I2C and the faster, lower-latency communication of SPI in a single, efficient, easier-to-use IP core
Upcoming software-defined vehicles and their zonal architectures introduce new threats to automotive system security. One emerging solution is the CANsec protocol for protecting new CAN XL buses.
The emerging CAN XL protocol falls between signal-oriented CAN FD and service-oriented high-speed Ethernet networks. It is interoperable with CAN 2.0 and CAN FD but increases data payload size—to 2048 byte—and transmission bit rate—up to 10 Mbit.
In this white paper, researchers at our partner Fraunhofer IPMS describe why CANsec for CAN XL is important and, using the CAN-SEC and CAN-CTRL cores we offer, present a proof of concept. This shows that CANsec makes the encryption and authentication of CAN XL frames possible without latencies or loss of bandwidth.
Get a quick overview of their benefits in this presentation our Dr. Calliope-Louiza Sotiropoulou recently gave at several events, then email to discuss how these cores might be exactly what you’re looking for.
Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Ethernet offers deterministic, low-latency communication and is gaining traction for automotive and industrial applications. We began providing TSN IP cores relatively early, and through the past four years have helped many developers learn the advantages and uses of TSN and successfully deploy the TSN IP cores we offer.
From this experience, we have developed a handy TSN Reference Sheet with often-needed technical details for the TSN standard and a guide to TSN IP cores. Download it directly (PDF) or find it on the TSN Switch, Endpoint, or Switched Endpoint IP core pages.
New Partnerships:
Consult Red & KiviCore
Devices of all types are becoming smarter and getting interconnected. We’ve partnered with one of the leading consultancies for intelligent connected devices — Consult Red — to provide IP for the challenging systems they build.
"CAST and Consult Red are in perfect alignment in striving to give customers innovative, efficient, cost-effective solutions that satisfy real-world problems with high quality and low risk.”
— Rahul Mehra, CTO Consult Red
Another evolving tech advance is post-quantum computing (PQC). Because these powerful new machines can easily overcome traditional encryption methods, researchers are now developing new techniques for post-quantum cryptography. We have partnered with emerging firm KiviCore to market the PQC security cores they are developing.
"Our research is breaking new ground with PQC, and CAST is among the best at providing practical, reliable IP cores for exciting new technologies like this.”
— Frank Deicke, KiviCore co-founder.
Stay tuned for these exciting new products (and let us know if you need them soon.)
Blog Post:
Quantifying Better IP Support
Most IP companies promote their customer support as a reason to license IP from them. We do as well, but we have decades of experience and actual numbers to support our “industry-leading” claim. Consider:
It only takes an average of 1 hour and 35 minutes for an incoming support request to be reviewed and given to the most appropriate person for responding to it,
That “most appropriate” person is often the actual IP core developer, and
Our average time for a first response to the submitter is under 15 hours.
In recent months we've been catching up with partners, industry friends, and customers at several events in Europe and Asia. See some photos of the CAST team in action below. And thanks to our regional CAST ambassadors: Incusolution in Korea, Spinnaker Systems in Japan, and Pinnacle Design Systems in China.
We hope to catch up with you at our upcoming events (see the next article).
We’re among the RISC-V IP core leaders in two very critical areas: 32-bit Functional Safety and Ultra-Low-Power Embedded processors. Learn more about RISC-V, the evolving market, and our royalty-free processor core options at the RISC-V Summit this week in Santa Clara. (If you still need to register, use this code for a 20% discount: RVS24CAST20.)
Also, CAST has probably the widest, deepest, and longest set of FPGA vendor partnerships among all the IP providers. Customers have successfully used our technology-agnostic cores with nearly every FPGA device that’s out there. This December we’ll be participating with one of our partners in the Lattice Semiconductor Developer’s Conference. It's both in-person (in San Jose) and virtual, and we’ll be highlighting live demos of our TSN Ethernet cores. Learn more and register here.
CAST was a very early Design & Reuse partner and we continue to find their website and events helpful to our current and potential customers. We’re next participating in the D&R IP-SoC Day in Grenoble, France, on December 10–11, where our Dr. Sotiropoulou has submitted an intriguing presentation titled Battle of the Bits: Evaluating Lossless Data Compression Algorithms and Cores.
Upcoming software-defined vehicles and their zonal architectures introduce new threats to automotive system security. One emerging solution is the CANsec protocol for protecting new CAN XL buses. 
