January 2017 - Page 2 of 11 - Semiconductor Engineering

Bidding War On H-1B Visas?
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 3

Good help is hard to find. It's about to get harder—and more expensive. The U.S. tech industry's solution until now has been to leverage expertise from around the world, drawing top graduates and entry-level professionals under the H-1B visa program. Last year, there were 85,000 H-1B visas issued, of which 20,000 are required to hold a U.S. master's degree or higher. There are some exce... » read more

Ethics And The Singularity
By Brian Bailey - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled The Multiplier and the Singularity. That article has been well received and I thank those who have made some kind and interesting comments on it. Such articles can be difficult to write without inserting writer's bias. As a writer, I have many of my own thoughts and possibly even prejudices, but those are not meant to make their way into my wri... » read more

Not All Software Is Like Elvis
By Frank Schirrmeister - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

January is traditionally my look-back and outlook month. Five years ago my year-end wish had been a census of software developers, and it is fascinating how software in the context of verification has evolved since then (more on this below). Also, most years I go into my garage, dust off my collection of IEEE Spectrum print editions from January five, ten and 15 years back to assess which of th... » read more

2017: Tool And Methodology Shifts
By Brian Bailey - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

As the markets for semiconductor products evolve, so do the tools that enable automation, optimization and verification. While tools rarely go away, they do bend like plants toward light. Today, it is no longer the mobile phone industry that is defining the direction, but automotive and the Internet of Things (IoT). Both of these markets have very different requirements and each creates their o... » read more

Formal Verification Takes Safety-Critical Applications For A Drive
By Dave Kelf - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

The high reliability of safety-critical chips for automotive applications is a well-known imperative for today’s higher-end cars and as driverless cars move closer to reality. Uber, in fact, is testing autonomous cars in Boston of all places, where aggressive driving reigns supreme and honking the horn is considered an art form. As automotive manufacturers realize that their differentiatio... » read more

It Feels Like Magic
By Tom De Schutter - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

Over the holidays I visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles with my family. The entire park is full of high tech so-called 4D rides as they add motion and other effects, like spraying water when someone sneezes, to a 3D movie. We were, for example, able to experience what it would be like if a bus gets caught in between King Kong and a t-rex fighting with each other. Despite a wide range of... » read more

Hybrid Simulation Picks Up Steam
By Ann Mutschler - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

As electronic products shift from hardware-centric to software-directed, design teams are relying increasingly on a simulation approach that includes multiple engines—and different ways to use those engines—to encompass as much of the system as possible. How engineers go about using these approaches, and even how they define them, varies greatly from one company to the next. Sometimes it... » read more

Real-Time Performance Across The Factory Floor
By Andrew Caples - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

Next generation processors continue to push the performance envelope. It seems the price continues to drop while the processing speeds increase with each new processor release. I recall discussions not that long ago in which the future utility of real-time operating systems and middleware were being bantered about as if they were not going to be required going forward. After all, with each subs... » read more

Changing Direction In Chip Design
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 1

Andrzej Strojwas, chief technologist at PDF Solutions and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University—and the winner of this year's Phil Kaufman Award for distinguished contributions to EDA—sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about device scaling, why the semiconductor industry will begin to fragment around new architectures and packaging, and ... » read more

New Techniques To Analyze And Reduce Etch Variation
By Coventor - 25 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 1

Time division multiplex (TDM) plasma etch processes (commonly referred to as Deep Reactive ION Etching [“DRIE”]) use alternating deposition and etch steps cyclically to produce high aspect ratio structures on a silicon substrate. These etch processes have been widely applied in the manufacturing of silicon MEMS devices, and more recently in creating through silicon vias in 3D silicon struct... » read more

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