The Good Old Days Of EDA


Nostalgia is wonderful, but there is something about being involved in the formative years of an industry. Few people ever get to experience it, and it was probably one of the most fortuitous events to have happened in my life. Back in the early '80s, little in the way of design automation existed. There were a few gate- and transistor-level simulators, primarily for test and a few 'calculators... » read more

Designing for Data Flow


Movement and management of data inside and outside of chips is becoming a central theme for a growing number of electronic systems, and a huge challenge for all of them. Entirely new architectures and techniques are being developed to reduce the movement of data and to accomplish more per compute cycle, and to speed the transfer of data between various components on a chip and between chips ... » read more

More Data Drives Focus On IC Energy Efficiency


Computing workloads are becoming increasingly interdependent, raising the complexity level for chip architects as they work out exactly where that computing should be done and how to optimize it for shrinking energy margins. At a fundamental level, there is now more data to compute and more urgency in getting results. This situation has forced a rethinking of how much data should be moved, w... » read more

SVT: Six Stacked Vertical Transistors


This paper presents a new design architecture for advanced logic SRAM cells using six vertical transistors (with carrier transport along the Z direction), stacked one on top of each other. Virtual fabrication technology was used to identify different process integration schemes to enable the fabrication of this architecture with a competitive XY footprint at an advanced logic node: a unit cell ... » read more

Designing Low Energy Chips And Systems


Energy optimization is beginning to shift left as design teams begin examining new ways to boost the performance of devices without impacting battery life or ratcheting up electricity costs. Unlike power optimization, where a skilled engineering team may reduce power by 1% to 5%, energy efficiency may be able to cut effective power in half. But those gains require a significant rethinking of... » read more

Von Neumann Is Struggling


In an era dominated by machine learning, the von Neumann architecture is struggling to stay relevant. The world has changed from being control-centric to one that is data-centric, pushing processor architectures to evolve. Venture money is flooding into domain-specific architectures (DSA), but traditional processors also are evolving. For many markets, they continue to provide an effective s... » read more

Custom Designs, Custom Problems


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

Challenges At 3/2nm


David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, talks about issues at upcoming process nodes, the move to EUV lithography and nanosheet transistors, and how process variation can affect yield and device performance. » read more

Power And Performance Optimization At 7/5/3nm


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

The Criticality Of The E/E Architecture


Modern vehicles are highly sophisticated systems incorporating electrical, electronic, software and mechanical components. Mechanical systems are giving way to advanced software and electronic devices, driving automakers to innovate and differentiate their vehicles via the electric and electronic (E/E) architecture. Future architectures need to be scalable across vehicle platforms, flexible to ... » read more

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