BlackPepper Technologies Acquires SiMASK Technologies

BlackPepper Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Acquires Bangalore-based SiMASK Technologies, an Analog Design Company. The announcement comes as an exciting factor because SiMASK Technologies is a leading player in the Analog Design arena. The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) association says the global semiconductor market is mounting to be a US$347 billion by 2017. Interesting point is that Analog Design segment constitutes a major percentage of this market.

Jei Narayanan, Chief Operating Officer, BlackPepper is happy with this acquisition as over the years BlackPepper has created a core expertise in Design, Verification, Synthesis/ STA, DFT, PD, Package Design, AMS, IP Vendoring and Post Silicon Validation (PSV). With the addition of SiMASK team into theirs will add a humongous strength in their offerings in the Analog & Mixed Signal space especially in their key stronghold area of complete turnkey implementations.

BlackPepper is a known name in VLSI design service providers segment with a significant presence in the semiconductor industry as reported by Manivannan M, Founder & CEO of SiMASK. The company has its key expertise in the Analog and RF (Radio Frequency) domains are all set to complement and extend BlackPepper's reach in turnkey silicon business. He further added that the key purpose together is to gain a high amount of customer satisfaction and further depth in innovative techniques to align values and purpose thus achieving higher penetration in the market in this segment. With this handshake, the expertise level of SiMASK will not only broaden but there will also be a substantial expansion in their client base thus helping in the enhancement of their research and development capacity. Hopefully, the two will sustain their exciting journey for a long run in order to achieve their primary goals together.

BlackPepper Technologies is considered to be a new generation, Silicon to System Design Company that is well focused on providing differentiated product engineering capabilities across the horizon of worldwide semiconductor companies. It's unique EYWA technology platform is known for delivering complete turnkey solutions from Architecture to implementation to high volume manufacturing with near to accurate prediction of cost, TAT and reliability.

SiMASK Technologies has its core strengths in Analog Design, Layout and automation. It has proven record in successful implementations that include blocks like PLL, ADC, USB, DAC, and SERDES on technology nodes down to 14 FinFET. Some of the prominent customers are Mediatek, Avago, IBM, and E-Silicon.

Landmine Defusing Challenge at ICRA Sweden selects Sastra Robotics for Finals

In Landmine Defusing Challenge, "Team Autobots" got selected into the finals of HRATC conducted by ICRA in Sweden. Sastra Robotics & QBotics Labs, two separate robotic startups from Kerala who joined hands to build the Team Autobots. Indian team has thus landed into the finals of the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC). The team that is participating on behalf of the Indian startup is named Autobots. ICRA is the reputed robotics conference. HRATC is a competition conducted by ICRA in association with SIGHT (Special Interest Group for Humanitraian Technology) under IEEE.

The International Conference of Robotics and Automation (ICRA) aims to bring together the top scientists and researchers engaged in cutting edge robotic technologies. ICRA 2016 is organized to take place in Stockholm, Sweden from May 16^th to 21^st. As reported by the UN Mine Action Service, landmines are responsible for killing at least 15,000 to 20,000 people every year having a majority of children in this count. Minesweeping is quite dangerous in terms of being time intensive and abrupt. A large number of landmines that have been left behind by soldiers continue to increase terror and destruction of human lives long after the wars have been called off or finished.

Landmine casualties, in fact, bring an additional and substantial burden on war-stricken countries. For instance, if a mother gets killed or mutilated by a landmine makes her entire family at risk of disease and malnutrition. This, in fact, impacts on generations to come, in such cases. Similarly, a child when gets mutilated by a landmine creates a burden on its family, society, and health services of the country thereby impounding impact on the nation as a whole.

The Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC) aims to search and diffuse hidden unexploded landmines with the use of robotics and without human interventions so as to increase efficiency and decrease risks. Autobots, the team created by Sastra Robotics & QBotics Labs, from Kerala, to accept this challenge has been rated among the top 4 teams participating globally. The final 4 teams that made to the finals of the challenge will now be competing further for the top position. Autobots currently is with the leading score among the 4 finalists. The team consists of robotics experts from QBotics Labs and Sastra Robotics. QBotics Labs specializes in robotics research and Sastra Robotics specializes in robotic arms for testing of high-end devices. The members of Autobots team include Lentin Joseph (CEO/ Founder of QBotics Labs) who is also leading the team, Achu Wilson (CTO/ Co-Founder of Sastra Robotics), and Chandykunju Alex (Robotics Engineer, Sastra Robotics).

The Solution designed by Autobots team is to detect the presence of landmines with accurate position (latitude, longitude) using all-terrain robot, Husky. Husky is not developed by the Team Autobots or any of the contestants. It is developed and manufactured by some company under the guidance of SIGHT. The first half of Husky is the hardware, and that is taken up by SIGHT. The second half of Husky is the software application that makes it do landmine detection and being autonomous at doing it; this is done by the contesting teams. Team Autobots and the other teams made the software half of Husky, not the hardware half. Accuracy and efficiency are the keys that define Husky's work style.

This is definitely a proud moment for Indian Robotics to get such recognition at the  global level. The final round is on May 17^th.

Update as of June 1st: Team Autobots has won 1st prize in HRATC at ICRA-2016.

2D3DFloorPlanCompany Offers Interactive 3D Floor Plans

Floor plan of the first floor of the White House. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone having a connection with real estate industry understands the importance of 2D and 3D floor plans. 2D3DFloorPlanCompany.com brings high quality and interactive 3D floor plans. The importance of these floor plans is quite important as the photo-realistic plan caters to the requirement of having interactive apartments and properties in real estate industry. The 2D3DFloorPlanCompany.com is offering high quality, creative and interactive 2D and 3D floor plan services at the most affordable prices. These plans are created by highly experienced and talented 3D floor plan designers at par with the expectations of customers. The 3D interactive plans produced by these professionals have been well appreciated by customers who acknowledged that these plans were created as per their imagination which they wanted and what they think about their dream home or office.

Floor plan of the ground floor of the White House. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To make these 3D plans more appealing, the designers put interior decorations for the apartment like wall colors furniture, doors, windows, bathroom, kitchen, and living room setup just in the way that matches with a real apartment. This is achieved with the help of latest software and designing technologies. Definitely, emerging technologies are helping industries like never before. The professionally trained designers are proficient in completing over 800 3D floor plan projects including several home areas like bedroom, windows, living room, interior walls, doors, larger closet, bathroom, shower, sink, kitchen area, electrical appliances, and so on.

On the customer front, a customer is quite happy to show photo-realistic and interactive 3D view of his home in the form of a small model with the help of 2D and 3D floor plans. It helps customers to convince their renters to project the full setting of the apartment without visiting the site. That saves a lot of logistics hassles including time and money.

Additionally, if a customer wants to build a home on a self-designing concept, he can ask 2D3DFloorPlanCompany to build a 3D floor plan before beginning the actual construction. With the help of photo-realistic and interactive 3D floor plans, buyers or renters are getting aligned in a smoother manner by getting more accurate view of an apartment or property without visiting the site physically. And when you have 3D plan available visually, there is no requirement of describing it in words and building imaginary pictures about the location.

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