IP COREspondence June 2021

CAST COREspondence – RISC-V Functional Safety, TSN, Customer Care
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CAST COREspondence
The IP Newsletter from CAST, Inc. — June 18, 2021

Too many small IP companies came and went the past twenty years after discovering that even genius IP products aren’t enough: ultimately, customers have to be successful using that IP. 

We learned this early on. IP designed for easy integration and use; comprehensive, well-written documentation; and customer assistance that goes beyond the norm before and after the sale are long-time hallmarks of the CAST IP experience.

Read below about our customer support philosophy and a significant customer success story. In the “genius products” category, we’ve introduced our first RISC-V embedded processor—this one specialized for functional safety—and we note improvements and tips on using our TSN Ethernet IP.

If you’ve ever experienced inadequate customer support or just need IP cores for a new project, send me an email or contact Sales, and we’ll help you out.
--  Nikos, Zervas, CEO, [email protected], +1 201.391.8300
 

CAST Customer Care is More than Just Support

CAST's meredith Lucky discussion IP cores with a customerOver two decades of providing IP cores, we’ve learned that helping customers choose the right IP then use it successfully is a top priority. Our customer care approach goes beyond ordinary high-tech customer support — which primarily deals with just post-sales problem solving — to encompass the customer’s whole experience with CAST IP.

CAST customer care begins before the sale, as our technical sales team draws on their extensive experience with both IP and various application domains to help each customer select the best cores for their specific needs. We deliver that IP with extensive documentation that’s comprehensive and focused on answering most questions a designer might have in integrating and using the core, with a style and content evolved over thousands of interactions with reusable IP customers.


“We had an excellent experience with CAST’s pre-sales and post-sales business and technical teams.”
Srivi Dhruvanarayan, VP Hardware, SiMa.ai

We are also frequently consulted as part of the customer’s design team. Our design engineers — including the original developers of the IP — know the product inside and out and can, for example, help fine-tune parameter settings for optimal project performance. We even exceed industry norms for traditional customer support, assisting customers with their toolchains and other aspects beyond our IP itself.


“CAST is very responsive to our needs and collaborated with us to come up with the best technical solution. “
Brad Kashani, CEO, Bigstream Solutions, Inc.
Our approach seems to satisfy most users, as one-third of our sales are to repeat customers. Read more about CAST customer care in this recent blog post, then peruse our product offerings and contact Sales to start getting this level of IP care for your own development projects.

“I am glad that I chose CAST's IP from among several candidates at that time."
Yusuke Awano, DTS Insight Corp

New IP: Functional Safety Processor for RISC-V

CAST new IP Core: Functional Safety RISC-V ProcessorAfter we began introducing IP supporting functional safety as defined by ISO 26262 — e.g., the CAN Bus Controller and Low-Latency Ethernet MAC cores — customers started to ask us for a processor that also supports functional safety.

We’re pleased to now offer this, in the EMSA5-FS Embedded Functional Safety RISC-V Processor. EMSA5-FS is a 32-bit, five-stage pipeline, fault-tolerant embedded processor that supports the RISC-V ISA. (Yes, it is the first RISC-V processor we’ve offered, with all the ecosystem and other benefits of this open-source ISA.) 
EMSA5-FS Functional Safety RISC-V Processor IP Core from CAST
The new processor is designed with double or triple redundancy, ECC bus protection, Reset and Safety Manager modules, and more, and comes with everything you need to achieve ASIL-D, the most stringent level of automotive safety certification.

Developed by our partners Fraunhofer IPMS, the EMSA5-FS Functional Safety Processor is already shipping; see more technical details on its product page.

TSN IP Update and Low-Latency Design Webinar

Building TSN Ethernet networks with CAST IP is now even easier.

CAST TSN Switch IP Core block diagramWe recently expanded the TSN-SW TSN Ethernet Switch with a multi-port capability to facilitate its use in a star topology connecting potentially many endpoints or devices. The original four-port feature is still the default, but now you can configure the switch to provide as many external TSN ports (and one internal port) as your technology and target speed can handle. Each external port is full-duplex and can operate at 10, 100, or 1000 Mbps Ethernet speeds (speeds of 2.5 or 10+ Gbps are available on request). 

As designing TSN networks is relatively new for many engineers, we recently partnered with our TSN IP developer to offer a live webinar on Ultra-Low TSN Networks: Latency Sources and Optimization.

Watch videos of CAST's TSN Latency WebinarFraunhofer IPMS’ Marcus Pietzsch dove deep into the causes of latency in a TSN network and provided practical tips for reducing unwanted timing delays. A fascinating Q and A session followed, with further tips coming out of this discussion. Watch a recording of the entire webinar on YouTube, or view each section individually: Let us know if you find this helpful or have suggestions for additional topics you’d like us to cover. 

IP for Many Applications

CAST has a broad line of proven IP coresYou may know of CAST because of our stand-out IP products in your particular domain, such as our growing automotive interfaces and Functional Safety line or industry-leading GZIP data compression cores. 

But we actually offer a wide variety of great IP, made possible through our unique long-term partnership approach. This allows us to offer IP from brilliant, application-specific developers whether they are CAST employees or not.

Our IP products thus include Processors, Compression, Interfaces, Peripherals, and Security. Highlights include: CAST IP Core - GZIP compression web page imageLearn more on our About Us web page, or jump right into the technical datasheets and other information freely available throughout our website.

When you're ready, we're prepared to help you find the optimum IP for your particular project's goals and requirements, from any of the several application areas we cover. 

Company Info

Upcoming Events 

CAST Ip in the AST booth at ChipEx 2021
ChipEx Semiconductor Conference & Exhibition
June 21–22, 2021
Tel Aviv Convention Center 
Visit our partner AST's booth.
CAST at the RISC-V World Conference in China
RISC-V World Conference China
June 22 – 24, 2021
ShanghaiTech University 

Downloads

Brochure & Product List (A4)

Overview Presentation

  


CAST IP cores at DAC 2021  
Design Automation Conference:
DAC 58

Dec. 6 – 8, 2021
Moscone Conventions Center
San Francisco, Booth 1508
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