Comcores expands China and Taiwan Ethernet IP support

Comcores has appointed AVANT Technology to provide local sales and application-engineering support for its Ethernet, Time-Sensitive Networking, switching, and security IP across China and Taiwan. The agreement gives semiconductor developers in the region a local route into Comcores’ portfolio, with implementation support rather than a new silicon device forming the core of the announcement.

AVANT is headquartered in Hsinchu and has worked in EDA tools and semiconductor IP distribution for almost three decades. Under the agreement, its engineers will support customers evaluating and integrating Comcores technology across automotive and industrial applications. Licensable IP adoption extends well beyond delivery of RTL because interface selection, configuration, verification, timing closure, interoperability, security requirements, and software integration can all affect whether a core reaches production silicon on schedule.

Comcores’ portfolio spans Ethernet end stations, switches, bridge and zonal-controller subsystems, MACsec security, and high-speed PCS functions. Its TSN-capable end-station controllers scale from 10Mbit/s implementations to 2.5Gbit/s designs, while larger bridge and zonal-controller architectures support multiple physical interfaces and deterministic networking functions. The company also supplies high-speed Ethernet and MACsec IP for data-centre and communications applications, extending the portfolio beyond embedded automotive networks.

Automotive Ethernet is a particularly relevant target for the regional partnership. Zonal electrical architectures consolidate many vehicle functions into fewer computing nodes, replacing large numbers of point-to-point links with higher-bandwidth network backbones. TSN adds mechanisms for deterministic timing and traffic handling, while MACsec provides Layer 2 authentication, confidentiality, and integrity; those functions have to be implemented consistently across end nodes, switches, gateways, and central compute when the same network carries conventional data and time-critical control traffic.

Comcores has already been applying related technology in Europe’s RIGOLETTO automotive RISC-V programme, where it is contributing scalable MACsec and root-of-trust IP for future domain and zonal controllers. The AVANT agreement takes a different route to market, adding local engineering support around the same broader class of Ethernet and security technology in two of Asia’s most important semiconductor and automotive electronics markets.

Taiwan’s concentration of chip design and manufacturing makes it a natural location for IP evaluation and integration, while China’s electric-vehicle industry creates a large downstream market for automotive networking silicon. Suppliers need IP that can be configured for different port counts, data rates, safety architectures, and security requirements without forcing every SoC team to build network functions from scratch. Local application engineers can also work through device-specific questions before those choices are locked into an implementation.

The breadth of the underlying IP makes that support technically substantial. Comcores’ bridge implementations can combine TSN switching, DMA, IEEE 802.1AS time synchronisation, and hardware security while supporting interfaces from low-speed single-pair Ethernet through multi-gigabit links. Integrating those functions into an SoC or FPGA requires choices about port mix, bus interfaces, clocking, buffering, and security partitioning before verification begins, particularly where automotive programmes impose long validation cycles and tight interoperability requirements across several silicon and software suppliers.

TSN itself is not a single function but a collection of IEEE 802.1 mechanisms covering time synchronisation, scheduled traffic, shaping, and reliability. Device teams therefore have to decide which features are required by a particular network profile and how those features interact with the switch architecture and software stack. Regional application support can reduce integration friction where an SoC must interoperate with existing automotive or industrial Ethernet ecosystems rather than operate as a standalone endpoint.

The partnership does not announce a new tape-out, production device, or customer design win. Its commercial value will be visible only when local evaluation work converts into licensed IP, verified implementations, and production programmes. Comcores and AVANT now have a regional support structure in place; the next useful evidence will be customer projects showing how effectively that structure turns Ethernet, TSN, and security IP into deployed silicon.