Cadence Tensilica IP Powers Analog Devices’ Next-Generation DSP Architecture

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 15, 2026--

Cadence (Nasdaq: CDNS) today announced that its Tensilica IP Group and Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) worked together to develop the latest generation of SHARC® automotive audio processors, further strengthening ADI’s industry-leading position in premium in-vehicle audio solutions. The joint effort brings Cadence’s highly optimized Tensilica DSP architecture into the next-generation ADSP product family from ADI, enabling richer audio experiences, enhanced voice interactions, and greater system intelligence for future automotive platforms.

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For decades, ADI has been a leader in automotive audio processing, with its ADSP family powering many of the world's most advanced infotainment and premium audio systems. These processors enable a broad range of applications, including:

“As the complexity of automotive audio, acoustic and voice applications continues to grow, it became clear that we needed a DSP architecture capable of delivering significantly higher performance and on-chip AI capability while maintaining the deterministic real-time behavior our customers depend on,” said Andrew Lanfear, head of Automotive Audio & Networking, ADI. “Given their leadership in DSP IP, working with Cadence was the natural choice for ADI. The ability to create custom instructions using Tensilica Instruction Extension (TIE) technology allows us to accelerate proprietary audio and voice algorithms while providing dedicated DSP resources for real-time voice offload and next-generation automotive workloads.”

“ADI’s selection of Cadence’s Tensilica DSP technology for the next generation of ADSP processors underscores its focus on high-performance automotive audio and AI,” said Amol Borkar, group director, product management, Tensilica DSPs, Cadence. “The advanced architecture in the SHARC-FX core is optimized for on-chip AI/ML and signal-processing workloads, enabling applications such as music genre identification, music source separation (MSS), and real-time vocal removal to run efficiently on the DSP, while the host CPU remains dedicated to vehicle-domain and operating system functions.”

“DSP Concepts has been a long-time trusted partner of both Cadence Tensilica DSPs and ADI, enabling rich audio applications on both platforms,” said Chin Beckmann, CEO of DSP Concepts. “Through the integration of their technologies in our Audio Weaver (AWE) framework, we were able to witness and validate the winning, best-in-class results of this amazing collaboration between these industry pioneers.”

Building on the success of the ADSP-SC59x/2159x family, ADI is introducing the new ADSP-SC84x/2184x platform, featuring a next-generation architecture and a transition from 28nm to 16nm process technology, delivering significantly improved energy efficiency, higher operating frequencies, and increased integration for modern software-defined vehicles (SDV). Other benefits include an LPDDR4 memory interface, increased on-chip L2 memory, enhanced cybersecurity via a dedicated hardware security module (HSM), and two optional connectivity cores offering enhanced communication and mainline Linux support.

One of the ADSP-SC84x family’s key innovations is the introduction of the new SHARC-FX processor core, designed and built through a joint engagement with Cadence. The SHARC-FX features a custom DSP architecture, built on the same technology platform that delivers best-in-class Tensilica DSPs for audio, vision, and radar segments. As a result, the SHARC-FX delivers a substantial performance uplift, supporting a broader range of data types, enhanced VLIW SIMD architecture, efficient cache operations, and an expanded instruction set optimized for modern signal processing and AI workloads. Together, these improvements, coupled with the higher operating frequency of the SHARC-FX processor core, provide 5X higher performance compared to the previous generation SHARC+ processor used in the ADSP-SC59x family. This paves the way for an array of next-generation applications in the vehicle, including seat-specific in-cabin audio experiences, AI-enhanced noise cancellation, intelligent voice assistants, and generative AI audio.

As automotive audio and voice-enabled systems continue to evolve, many workloads are now transitioning from traditional signal-processing algorithms to AI-driven approaches that deliver higher accuracy, greater adaptability, and more personalized user experiences. The SHARC-FX core’s expanded instruction set enables it to efficiently implement these emerging AI models alongside conventional DSP workloads, providing the computational performance required for real-time neural-network-based audio inference at the edge. By supporting optimized NN kernel routines for popular AI/ML frameworks such as Google’s LiteRT™, the latest AI models can be easily offloaded to the SHARC-FX core for a high performance and energy-efficient implementation compared to running them on the host CPU.

Furthermore, ADI provides a rich toolset and ecosystem consisting of Cadence’s compiler and tools as well as ADI’s EZ-KIT® evaluation system, CrossCore® Embedded Studio, SigmaStudio+ TM, and other industry-leading frameworks, including DSP Concepts’ Audio Weaver.

The Cadence Tensilica IP Group is a leading provider of DSP IP, with widespread adoption across its full range of DSP product families. It also provides automotive-ready DSP IP, certified up to ISO 26262 ASIL-B, for ADAS and other safety-critical applications.

About Cadence

Cadence is a market leader in AI and digital twins, pioneering computational software that accelerates engineering innovation from silicon to systems. Based on Cadence’s Intelligent System Design™ strategy, our design solutions help the world’s leading semiconductor and systems companies build next-generation products—from chips to full electromechanical systems—for markets including hyperscale computing, mobile communications, automotive, aerospace, industrial, life sciences and robotics. In 2024, Cadence was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the world’s top 100 best-managed companies. Cadence solutions offer limitless opportunities—learn more at www.cadence.com.

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Category: Featured

The joint venture brings Cadence’s highly optimized Tensilica DSP architecture into ADSP product family from ADI, enabling richer audio experiences, enhanced voice interactions and greater system intelligence for future automotive platforms.

Oregon billionaires Phil and Penny Knight committed $1.1 billion to the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and the Providence Heart Institute to build Oregon’s first hospital dedicated to women’s health, the medical center announced Tuesday.

Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, and his wife, have supported the institute for more than a decade, previously giving it more than $200 million, including a $75 million gift earlier this year. Along with creating the new women’s hospital, their new donation will help the medical center expand cardiovascular care and clinical research and training programs for the heart institute’s medical personnel. It will also make it easier to integrate patient care across the medical center.

“Women’s health needs change throughout life, and too often patients are asked to navigate multiple specialties and care settings on their own,” Ray Moreno, the medical center’s CEO, said in a statement. “The Knights’ gift is an opportunity to bring these resources together, expanding access for women across Oregon and creating a strong foundation to bridge care gaps in women’s health.”

The donation is particularly significant because it comes at a moment when U.S. hospitals are seeing far more pregnant patients who are also managing chronic health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, addiction, and behavioral and mental health issues. It also lands at the same time healthcare organizations are struggling with the impact of government funding cuts.

“Resources are scarce, and healthcare is increasingly looking to philanthropy to fill in the gaps,” Dan Oseran, the heart institute’s executive medical director, told the Chronicle. “A gift like this reduces that friction a little bit and provides the ability to do things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.”

Medicine and medical research have been among the top causes capable of attracting mega-philanthropy ever since the birth of modern philanthropy in the late 19th century, said Benjamin Soskis, a historian whose work focuses on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

“They are some of the few institutions that can reliably absorb big-dollar donations,” Soskis said. “At a moment when there is more and more talk about the wealthy warehousing fortunes, the Knights have updated a standby of the traditional philanthropic playbook to provide a model of getting a lot of money out the door now.”

Counting pledges and direct gifts, the Knights’ latest commitment pushes their total charitable giving to more than $9 billion over the past two decades, with about $2.5 billion of that going to their family foundation and donor-advised funds. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors 12 times since 2006.

The Knights’ charitable giving is often the result of long-term relationships they have built with nonprofit leaders they have come to trust over time.

“These are very personal decisions based on their trust and belief in the institutions and the people that they work with,” said Oseran of Providence Heart Institute. “Each step along the way, when you can point to those achievements and successes, it engenders greater confidence that they have in your being good stewards of their philanthropy. That’s the dynamic of how we got to this ($1.1 billion) gift.”

The couple, whose net worth stands at about $25 billion, according to Forbes, have given huge sums to a range of Oregon nonprofits. They have given more than $2.7 billion to Oregon Health & Science University over the years, including a $2 billion donation for its Knight Cancer Institute last year. They launched the institute with a $100 million gift in 2008.

They have donated more than $2 billion to the University of Oregon, Phil Knight’s alma mater, to support scientific and related programs, including $500 million in 2016 to launch the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. They gave another $500 million in 2021 to expand research programs, build new facilities, and support students and faculty at the Knight Campus.

The couple also gave $400 million in 2023 to the 1803 Fund, a Portland, Oregon, nonprofit, for its Rebuild Albina project, an effort to revive the economic and cultural prosperity of a once-thriving Black neighborhood that fell into neglect in the 1970s.

The Knights have given at least $580 million to Stanford University, where Phil Knight earned an MBA. That includes $400 million in 2016 to establish Knight-Hennessy Scholars, a graduate program, and $105 million to Stanford’s business school to create the Knight Management Center. They also gave Stanford $75 million in 2022 to launch the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, an effort to learn what causes cognitive decline and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and how to delay and treat degenerative brain conditions.

The Knights have also supported college athletics, environmental programs, and sports and recreation activities for youth, among other causes.

Gifts like the Knights’ latest one prove that spending time with donors and educating them about an organization’s work is extremely important and can lead to surprising windfalls, said Erin Hall, a development consultant and former nonprofit CEO.

“I don’t think we can ever do enough of that because that is how donors find out everything about your organization and that is how donors feel good about where their investment is going,” Hall said. “What a great way to leave a legacy and to be able to watch your investment come to life. That’s a pretty cool thing for a donor, and that’s going to also keep the donor engaged for the next need that that organization has.”

Maria Di Mento is a senior editor at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

FILE - Phil Knight, right, and Penny Knight, watch the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in the Phil Knight Invitational tournament in Portland, Ore., on Nov. 26, 2017. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File)