Renesas Electronics Corporation, a leading provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, has entered into a definitive agreement with Reality Analytics, Inc., a provider of embedded AI solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, Renesas will acquire Reality AI in an all-cash transaction.
The transaction was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close by the end of 2022, subject to regulatory approval required by shareholders and other customary closing conditions.
The acquisition will significantly increase Renesas' endpoint AI capability, providing more flexibility and efficiency for systems developers to prepare their products for artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) and get to market faster.
The importance of incorporating AI into products has increased recently in the connected world as endpoint workload requirements have evolved. For industrial IoT, consumer, automotive and other embedded applications that require intelligent decision-making based on machine learning and physically closer to the source of the data, low latency and high security are essential.
In collaboration with its partners, Renesas has been offering development and software environments that enable AI to be embedded into its low-power, highly secure microcontrollers (MCUs) and microprocessors (MPUs). The acquisition of Reality AI allows Renesas to expand its internal capabilities to provide comprehensive and highly optimized endpoint solutions from both a hardware and software perspective. This enables system developers to gain endpoint intelligence across a wide range of IIoT, consumer and automotive applications.
Headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, USA, Reality AI offers a broad range of embedded AI and Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) solutions for advanced non-visual sensing in automotive, industrial and commercial products. They provide machine learning with advanced signal processing mathematics, providing fast and efficient machine learning inference that fits into the smallest MCUs.
“The importance and demand for endpoint data is increasing at an unprecedented scale. The acquisition of AI technology is an important milestone in meeting our customers' emerging needs for endpoint intelligence,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas. “The addition of Reality AI’s AI solutions to our existing embedded AI portfolios will further solidify our position as a leading provider of AIoT solutions.”
Reality AI's flagship Reality AI Tools, a software environment built to support the entire product development lifecycle, provides analytics on non-visual sensor data. Its inference-based AI solutions can be implemented across multiple endpoint AI applications. Good examples of the company's versatile expertise are industrial anomaly detection and automotive sound recognition using AI-built sensors.
Combining these technologies with Renesas' wide range of MCU and MPU portfolios, designed to provide best-in-class AI inference and signal processing capabilities, will help developers seamlessly apply advanced machine learning and signal processing to complex problems .
In addition to expanding embedded AI technologies, core IPs, software and tools, the acquisition will bring a center of AIoT excellence to Maryland by acquiring Reality AI experts. This move will expand Renesas' global software development talent base and lead its commitment to meeting the needs of customers eager to utilize AI.
“Customers are increasingly demanding highly customized solutions that involve integrated machine learning, signal processing, high-capacity processors, and assistance with hardware integration and solution development,” said Stuart Feffer, CEO of Reality AI. “Having collaborated with Renesas for some time now, we hope to be able to provide customers with more complete solutions – especially in the areas of IIoT, consumer products and automotive, where the use of machine learning is growing rapidly.”
