Hailo’s AI chips to empower new chinese car models

Hailo, the pioneering chipmaker of edge artificial intelligence (AI) processors, today announced that leading autonomous driving solutions provider iMotion has selected the groundbreaking Hailo-8 AI accelerator and the Renesas R-Car V4H SoC (System-on-Chip) to power iMotion iDC High domain controller for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD).

The incorporation of Hailo-8 AI processors within iMotion iDC High domain controller is a giant step forward for the automotive industry, making applications such as Highway Pilot / Navigate on Autopilot (NoA), Automated Home Parking, and in the future also Urban Pilot / NoA, viable and cost-effective for mass market vehicles. A Chinese automaker is expected to begin mass production with iMotion iDC High domain controller in the second half of this year.

The high-performance iDC High enables Bird’s Eye View 3D perception for advanced automated driving applications and enhances safety and comfort with a 10V5R sensor configuration. Importantly, the low power consumption of the Hailo-8 accelerator enables passive cooling of the ECU, lowering the cost of the residual bill of materials (BoM) and simplifying the vehicle integration.

“The integration of Hailo’s groundbreaking Hailo-8 AI accelerator and the high-performance Renasas R-Car V4H SoC significantly improves the affordability of iMotion’s AD/ADAS domain controller while enabling best-in-class processing capabilities, an important development in our shared commitment to make advanced automated driving safer and more affordable for all vehicles,” said Orr Danon, Hailo CEO. “Partnering with iMotion represents another key milestone in our quest to make our AI technology foundational in the 21st century global automotive industry that needs high performance, cost-effective, robust and scalable AI solutions for automated driving and parking.”

“We chose to partner with Hailo for high performance AI in ADAS because of the advanced AI capabilities and efficiencies their Hailo-8 AI processor brings to the market for the benefit of all drivers. The Hailo-8 accelerator is unique in its ability to enable power-efficient AI acceleration of state-of-the-art Neural Networks with low energy consumption that greatly advances automotive innovation,” said iMotion CTO Calvin Lu.

Further amplifying that point, Takeshi Fuse, Vice President of Marketing, High Performance Computing Division of Renesas, noted: “The integration of the Renesas R-Car SoC with the Hailo-8 AI accelerator further enables unprecedented capabilities such as Bird’s-Eye-View 3D perception at an affordable cost for mass market vehicles. Together, we are bringing to life a new era in high performance, affordable automated driving that will benefit the Chinese automotive market specifically and the automotive industry at large.”

Innoviz Announced Operational Realignment

Photo above: Test cars in Innoviz’ lab. Credit: Techtime

Innoviz Technologies announced a strategic realignment of its operations to expand the Company’s cash runway and optimize its path towards cash flow generation. The realignment includes the reduction of the Company’s headcount by approximately 13%, the transition of InnovizOne LiDAR sensor into series production and the concentration of future investments on the InnovizTwo sensor and software platform. In late 2022, Innoviz employed approximately 470 employees. It means it reduces its workforce by 60 jobs.

As a result, Innoviz expects to reduce its 2024 planned cash outlays by $22-24 million on an annualized basis. Cash savings are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2024 with run rate savings expected to be achieved by the end of the second quarter of 2024.  Omer Keilaf, Innoviz Co-Founder and CEO, said there is a market capture window that will determine the market share of the LiDAR industry for the next decade.

“Today’s actions are the result of a thoughtful process to optimize the Company’s cost structure, increase our competitive positioning, and extend our cash runway through the expected remainder of the market capture window. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our long-term goals and become a market leader in automotive LiDAR.”

Innoviz is a Tier 1 supplier of LiDAR sensors and perception software for the automotive industry and works with partners cross the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The company is traded in NASDAQ in a valuation of $ 282 millions. Its stock price is very low compared with it orinigal valuation of $ 1.4 billion (December 2020), following delays in the adoption of LiDAR technology across the automotive industry.

During CES 2024 last month in Las Vegas, BMW Group brought the new BMW i7 with level 3 autonomous driving capabilities enabled by the InnovizOne LiDAR is now available to order in Germany with deliveries expected to begin March 2024. Volkswagen showd its light commercial vehicle program VW ID. Buzz, utilizing InnovizTwo LiDAR for level 4 autonomous capabilities.

SolarEdge to Cut Workforce by 16%

Photo above: Zvi Lando, Chief Executive Officer of SolarEdge

SolarEdge Technologies announced a restructuring plan designed to reduce operating expenses and align its cost structure to current market dynamics. The workforce reduction impacts approximately 16% of the SolarEdge global workforce, or approximately 900 employees, of which approximately 550 are from the Company’s offices and a manufacturing site in Israel. The reduction follows measures which the Company has already taken to align its operations, including discontinuation of manufacturing in Mexico, reduction of manufacturing capacity in China, and termination of the Company’s light commercial vehicle e-mobility activity in Italy.

SolarEdge creates smart energy solutions for solar power market, including intelligent Inverters and Optimizers for photovoltaic (PV) systems, Storage solutions, EV charging, Batteries and Grid Services solutions. During the third quarter 2023 the company witnessed sharp and unexpected decline: Q3 revenues dropped down by 27% compared with the prior quarter to $725.3 million, and down 13% from $836.7 million in the same quarter 2022.

“The results for the third quarter are reflecting a slow market environment,” said Zvi Lando, Chief Executive Officer of SolarEdge. “During the second part of the third quarter of 2023, we experienced substantial unexpected cancellations and pushouts of existing backlog from our European distributors. We attribute these cancellations and pushouts to higher than expected inventory in the channels and slower than expected installation rates.

“In particular, installation rates for the third quarter were much slower at the end of the summer and in September where traditionally there is a rise in installation rates.” Additionally, the Company anticipates significantly lower revenues in the fourth quarter of 2023 as the inventory destocking process continues. Following the announcement of the restructure plan, SolarEgde stock in NASDAQ rose by approximately 3% and the company is traded in a evaluation of $3.9 billion.

Cardumen Raised $120M for Israeli’s Deep Tech

Photo above: The Cardumen Capital team

Israeli-European venture capital firm Cardumen Capital has raised $120M for its second Deep Tech Fund focused on early-stage Israeli startups. Up to now, Cardumen Capital has invested in 32 Israeli companies in AI, Cybersecurity, Big Data, and Information Communication Technologies (ICT). It said it will continue investing in pre-seed and seed Israeli software and hardware companies.

Cardumen Capital supports and works closely with entrepreneurs in anything from business development to fundraising. It’s portfolio of exceptional entrepreneurs has a strong co-investor base such us as SaaS cybersecurity platform DoControl (backed by Insight Partners and Crowdstrike), Big Data B2G platform IVIX (backed by Insight Partners and Citi Ventures) or NeuReality (backed by Samsung and SK Hynix).

“Israeli entrepreneurs rise to the occasion under adversity”, said Cardumen’s Co-Founder and General Partner, Gonzalo Martínez de Azagra. “It’s in tough times when great companies are built. Our commitment to Israeli tech is stronger than ever. As a team of Israelis and Europeans, heavily connected with the US and Asian markets, we are well-positioned to give our startups access to worldwide markets.”

Cardumen Capital is a Venture Capital firm with offices in Tel Aviv and Madrid. Chaired by Gil Gidron and founded in 2018 together with Gonzalo Martínez de Azagra and Igor de la Sota, the company invests in early-stage DeepTech companies. Cardumen Capital has more than $225M under management and a team of professionals with a solid track record and more than a decade of experience investing in tech companies worldwide.

One of its portfolio companies, Nagish, which uses AI to make communication accessible for deaf and hard of hearing individuals, has been lately certified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to provide telecommunication relay services. The certification makes Nagish one of the very few certified providers. Nagish provides speech-to-text and text-to-speech solutions via a real-time captioning engine that makes calls more accessible for people who are deaf or hard of hearing while keeping calls private and secure.

Coilcraft New eBook: The Fundamentals of RF Inductors

Coilcrafr, The US-based designer and manufacturer of high-performance magnetic components (including RF chip inductors, power magnetics and filters), has published a new eBook: The Fundamentals of RF Inductors. This eBook covers the fundamental of RF inductors – from the basic question of, “what is an inductor” up through specific applications and different types of RF inductors. It includes guides and technical articles on the major technologies and RF applications of inductors.

Following basic introduction about inductors, and how these components are used in electronic devices, the eBook includes a variety of technical articles that address topics such as solving RF isolation issues with RF inductors, what is a Conical Inductor and how to use it, understanding Inductors as RF Chokes, comparing the benefits of wirewound ferrite beads to traditional chip ferrite beads, and designing LC filters with Coilcraft reference designs and software.

For free download, click: The Fundamentals of RF Inductors

             

 

Coilcraft is represented and supported in Israel by Elina Electronic Engineering Group.

For more information contact Eng. Avi Elia, tel: +972-54-7532262

 

ZutaCore is back, and expects a breakthrough 2024

Photo above: Erez Freibach Co-founder and CEO (left), and Nahshon Eadelson, Co-founder and CTO of ZutaCore

Despite the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, ZutaCore, located in the city of Sderot (2 miles from the Gaza strip), continued to operate and even resumed a fundraising round for the next generation of its groundbreaking datacenter’s cooling technology. Co-founder and CEO of ZutaCore, Erez Freibach, told Techtime that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) had already joined the capital raising, and also signed a distribution agreement. “A week and a half before the outbreak of war, Mitsubishi made the first investment of its commitment, and now we are preparing to complete additional fundraising in 2024.” 

The company was founded in 2016 by Chief Technology Officer Nahshon Eadelson and by Erez Freibach based on an invention by Eadelson that optimized the use of dielectric liquid for cooling processors and servers. Its technology, HyperCool, has been certified for cooling both Intel and AMD processors. ZutaCore systems can be implemented in all data centers that operate these processors.

During Supercomputing (SC) conference in December 2023, ZutaCore demonstrated how it can handle very hot 1500 Watts processors, such as Dell’s 16G and Pegatron servers with 4th Generation Intel Xeon Processors and powerful SuperMicro Servers, being demonstrated by Boston Limited. Today, the company is in the process of receiving approval from one of the largest AI manufacturers in the world.

Security cameras recorded the attack

ZutaCore employs approximately 50 employees, including 40 in the R&D center operating from Sderot, and another 10 employees in its offices in California, Amsterdam and Taiwan. The staff in Israel are mostly residents of the Gaza envelope region such as Kfar Gaza, Be’eri, Sderot and the surrounding areas. Freibach, who was planning to celebrate his 60th birthday on October 7, discovered that the company’s offices and most of its employees were suddenly under attack. “Our office was hit by gunfire and our security cameras recorded the Hamas vehicles in the parking lot,” he said.

ZutaCore's HyperCool dielectric cold plate cooling system
ZutaCore’s HyperCool dielectric cold plate cooling system

For the first two weeks, we were not allowed to enter the building. After two weeks I joined a force of 12 fighters that cleared the area to make sure there were no terrorists. After the building was cleared, our team arrived and got back to work at the laboratories, yet heavy rocket barrages prevented a return to regular work. Half of our employees were evacuated from their homes and 10% of our employees were recruited into the military reserves, so we switched to working from home as we did during the Covid period.

“While our operations continued globally, only at the end of November did we return to full work in the offices in Israel. We have employees who survived the horrible attack and they were the first to return to work. The residents of the south are people with a special DNA. The company gives them an anchor of stability and hope. As early as the fourth day of the war, we initiated a weekly Zoom meeting with all our employees to share information, experiences, and expectations with each other and to discuss the issues related to work.”

How do investors and customers react to the situation?

“We received enormous support from them, including from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which issued a public statement of support for the company. We have been getting encouragement from all our investors and empathy and understanding from all of our customers. In the second week of the war, I went on a global journey around the world to physically meet all the customers and personally tell them that we were continuing to work and were fully committed to all the agreements signed with us. We received a great appreciation from them for our ability to function under these conditions. In fact, there were no order cancellations following the war.”

ZutaCore is at the core of one of the hottest markets in the industry today: cooling processors and servers in order to reduce the power consumption of data centers. This problem is getting worse every day due to the development of Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, which push the processors to reach very large capacities. For example, air cooling is suitable for use in processors working with powers of several tens of watts, while water cooling is suitable for processors with power of up to 600W. However, the industry currently requires power of up to 1500W which is driving the need for better, more sustainable cooling solutions.  Freibach: “For every dollar they invest in processing, data centers spend another dollar on cooling.”

The vision: data centers without wasting energy

Eadelson has developed a unicque system based on a dielectric coolant which is safe to use and is attached to the processor through a cold plate that cools it directly. Through a special design of the cold plate, he was able to achieve a cooling efficiency that allows the liquid to boil at 34-35°C, thereby reducing the cost of cooling by 96%. ZutaCore condenses the liquid and produces hot water at a temperature of 70°C, which enables the reuse of energy. Today, there are many new markets looking to take advantage of this reuse of hot water such as homes, greenhouses, water desalination, electricity generation and more.  According to Erez, “With ZutaCore technology, data centers can reach a state of almost zero energy waste.”

ZutaCore systems are backed by 20 patents, some of which are already registered and others in the pending process. The systems are produced through subcontractors in Israel. One of the goals of the capital raised is to prepare for a Global production infrastructure needed to support rapid growth. “Our solution is designed for the core of the data center’s activity, so it is impossible to be a small supplier. Our goal is to be a global leading manufacture in this field.”

The company is currently installing systems with large strategic partners, and expect to reach and sales of several hundred million dollars by 2027. ZutaCore has started a recruitment campaign, with the aim of increasing the number of employees by about 30% in the first phase during 2024. In the coming weeks, ZutaCore will start to recruit about 15 additional employees. Recently it has signed a cooperation agreement with ASUS for the integration of the ZutaCore cooling system in the servers of the Taiwanese company.

Intel to upgrade Fab38 with $15b Investment

Photo above: Simulation of the future Fab38 in Kiryat Gat, Israel

Israel’s Government and Intel have reached an agreement to expand Intel’s Fab38 in Kiryat Gat, approximately 40 Km from Gaza, where it has an existing chip plant (Fab28). Intel Israel announced an expantion plan of $15 billion in Fab38 planned to be completed within 4-5 years. It will bring the total investment in this fab to $25 billion and enable it to produce advanced semiconductors based on Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography process.

The government of Israel will grant Intel with $3.2 billion worth of incentives. The new fab is expected to create thousands new jobs and to have a major role Intel’s global IDM 2.0 strategy. Intel Israel was founded in 1974 in Haifa, as Intel’s first development center outside the USA, and in 1981 the first factory outside the USA was established in Jerusalem. Today, Intel Israel is the largest private employer in the Israeli hi-tech sector with 11,700 direct employees plus additional 42,000 in indirect employment.

Along with its leading manufacturing facility In Kiryat Gat, Intel operates  three development centers in Haifa, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, focused mainly on the development of new Processors, Connectivity and Networking technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security solutions. During 2022 Intel Israel’s export totalled $8.7 billion representing 5.5% of the hi-tech exports from Israel.

In an interview with Fox Business last week,  Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, talked about Intel’s employees during the current Israel-Hamas war. He said: “Many Intel employees in Israel died on October 7, some are being held hostage still in Gaza, and a great many are on reserve duty. But Israelis are the most resilient people on earth. They have not missed a single commitment despite the conflict. That’s why we believe so deeply in them.”