Samplify founder forms next compression startup
Anacode plans to offer two products for license as well as engineering services. Wegener said that "Cobra" and "Viper" mentioned on the company website are placeholders for Anacode’s software and hardware products, respectively.
"Anacode customers regularly ask us for two solutions: Cobra, decent compression with maximal throughput using software on existing CPUs or Viper, the best possible compression using Anacode’s efficient and tiny hardware IP at multi-Gbps rates, to minimize power consumption. Importantly, Anacode’s hardware IP is scalable to 40 and 100 Gbps data rates for datacenters, with a lightweight gate count," Wegener told eeNews Europe.
Anacode’s business model is to license compression products in both software and hardware form and the software and hardware are compatible.
In addition Anacode offers compression-related services such as assessing the compressability of datasets; determining how Anacode products should be configured to maximize compression or to maximize throughput; determining the effect of Anacode compression ratios on customers’ datasets; determining how Anacode compression can be combined with encryption and de-duplication.
The target customers for the software approach include big data and system storage suppliers such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Rackspace; EMC, Seagate, Pure Storage, and Western Digital (HGST). The Anacode hardware IP blocks would benefit CPU companies such as Intel, AMD, Qualcomm Mediatek, ARM, and Apple; and flash controller developers/integrators such as Sandisk, Samsung, Toshiba, Micron, and Silicon Motion, Wegener said.
Wegener was the founder and CTO of Samplify Systems, which operated from 2006 until 2014. Samplify specialized in adding data compression technology to analog-to-digital converters to reduce power consumption in high-channel density applications. Such applications incuded ultrasound front-ends, 4G wireless base stations, wireless repeaters, automated test equipment and rada and sonar receivers. Samplify sold its patents to Altera in 2014, said Wegener.
In between his time at Samplify and forming Anacode, in April 2015, Wegener spent just over a year working for Amazon Lab126 as a principal hardware architect working on the next-generation Kindle with a focus on machine learning, object recognition, signal processing, wireless communications, and hardware accelerators.
Related links and articles:
News articles:
Analog offers 256-channel converter for CT scanners
Samplify introduces ultrasound beamformer IC
Making medical image quality mobile