September 2014 - Semiconductor Engineering


Manufacturing Bits: Sept. 30


Muscle-on-a-chip Harvard University has developed a human airway muscle-on-a-chip as a means to test new drugs for the treatment of asthma. There is an urgent need for a new breakthrough in this arena. The majority of drugs used to treat asthma have not changed in 50 years, according to researchers at Harvard. Asthma affects nearly 25 million people in the United States alone. Asthma, ac... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 30


Airway muscle-on-a-chip mimics asthma A Harvard University research team has developed a human airway muscle-on-a-chip that could be used to test new drugs as it accurately mimics the way smooth muscle contracts in the human airway, under normal circumstances and when exposed to asthma triggers. The chip also gives a window into the cellular and even subcellular responses within the tissue ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 30


A “perfect” solar absorber According to researchers at MIT, the key to creating a material that would be ideal for converting solar energy to heat is tuning the material’s spectrum of absorption just right: It should absorb virtually all wavelengths of light that reach Earth’s surface from the sun — but not much of the rest of the spectrum, since that would increase the energy that i... » read more

Where Do We Stand With CDC


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss where the industry stands on clock domain crossing with Charlie Janac, CEO of [getentity id="22674" e_name="Arteris"]; Shaker Sarwary, VP of Formal Verification Products at [getentity id="22026" e_name="Atrenta"]; Pranav Ashar, CTO at [getentity id="22416" e_name="Real Intent"]; and Namit Gupta, CAE, Verification Group at [getentity id="22035" e_nam... » read more

Tech Talk: IP Integration


Sonics CTO Drew Wingard talks about the challenges of integrating IP into SoCs and what typically goes wrong. [youtube vid=T1FAPDqIJK8] » read more

We Are Getting Serious


This week we have our in-person Executive Committee meeting in beautiful Portland, Oregon. I know I’m biased but I really believe that Portland is worth a visit. It’s a very walkable city with some hidden gems downtown such as the Lan Su Chinese Garden, an oasis in our small but vibrant Chinatown, and Waterfront Park down by the Willamette River. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the we... » read more

The Real Numbers: Redefining NRE


Developing ICs at the most advanced nodes is getting more expensive, but exactly how much more expensive is the subject of debate across the semiconductor industry. There are a number of reasons for this discrepancy. Among them: As design flows shift from serial to parallel, it's hard to determine which groups within companies should be saddled with different portions of the bill. The re... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Is the sky falling on the ATE market? The ATE market is expected to hit $2.8 billion in 2014, up from $2.28 billion in 2013, according to Pacific Crest Securities. “Overall, we are now modeling overall semiconductor test demand to decline by 2% in 2015, a significant change from our previous estimate of up 10%,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, in a report. “Te... » read more

‘Hardening’ SoCs For Automotive Market Challenges


The semiconductor is enamored with the automotive, industrial and medical markets, and many companies are now shifting their focus there. But many mainstream vendors will face challenges entering this market. For those who have traditionally participated in the smart phone or mobility market, I will outline some changes they need to consider to successfully compete in these emerging spaces. ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Synopsys rolled out a hybrid verification platform, which it said can shave months off design time. The platform acts like a bridge between emulation, FPGA prototyping, simulation, static and formal verification and debug. Mentor Graphics uncorked a new version of its embedded hypervisor, which includes better system configuration, debugging and hardware support. The hypervisor is aim... » read more

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