Technologies ASICs

Technologies at Fraunhofer IMS

Modern electronic solutions are based on a bundle of innovative technologies. Often, the state of the art is shifted for a known application – e.g. in increasingly efficient sensor systems or in interfaces with increasing speeds.

In other cases entirely new technologies are needed to fulfill requirements like the manipulation and data security (cyber security) or local machine learning processes.

At Fraunhofer IMS we develop technologies for the areas of sensor systems, trustworthy electronics and artificial intelligence as a development partner of our customers or of our own accord to open up new fields of technology.

On the basis of these technologies we offer ready to use chip solutions, partially from our own production process, and offer IP blocks for the relevant foundry processes.

Open and reliable electronics

Reliable electronics require open hardware architecture without compromises in performance and ecosystem. At Fraunhofer IMS we put great emphasis on the open RISC-V architecture for the implementation of microcontrollers application-optimized microcontrollers.

Failure safety and cyber security

We offer solutions for the secure identification of components as well as the secure key memory in cryptographic applications and develop hardware accelerators for the integration into ASICs.

Inductive and time of flight based position sensor technology

For the inductive position sensors we develop robust, fail-safe integrated circuits, particularly for resolver replacement and an increased efficiency of electric drives.

In the area of linear track measurement we offer efficient chips and IPs for the travel-time measurement (Time-to-Digital-Converter) with adapted communication interfaces.

AI and machine learning

The realization and the training of neural networks on cost-effective microcontrollers is one of our key areas to bring modern processes of machine learning close to the sensor, where the relevant data originates from. For special performance requirements we develop efficient hardware accelerators and neuromorphic circuits for the integration into the RISC-V architecture and into other commercial controllers.

The whole spectrum of RFID

The wireless transmission of energy and data is important in the context of medical implants and especially for passive transponder solutions. We develop RFID chips with and without sensor systems for the area of NFC and long-range HF as well as for established and future standards in the UHF and SHF range.