Author's Latest Posts


Power Integrity And Voltage Issues Get Harder To Detect And Solve


Voltage and power integrity are becoming increasingly critical and challenging for chip designers and architects, regardless of which process technology they are using or which market they are targeting. An explosion of features vying unevenly for current is increasing the number of constraints and possible interactions that engineers need to sort through to ensure reliability. These include... » read more

Moving AI Workloads To The Edge


Experts At The Table: Semiconductor Engineering gathered a group of experts to discuss how some AI workloads are better suited for on-device processing to achieve consistent performance, avoid network connectivity issues, reduce cloud computing costs, and ensure privacy. The panel included Frank Ferro, group director in the Silicon Solutions Group at Cadence; Eduardo Montanez, vice president an... » read more

Thermal, Mechanical, And Material Stresses Grow With Die Stacking


Managing thermal and mechanical stress in multi-die assemblies will require a detailed knowledge of how and where a device will be used, how it will be packaged, and where stresses could cause problems at any point during its expected lifetime. This includes everything from workload-dependent thermal gradients to mechanical and electrical stress, which may become more pronounced over time wi... » read more

Multiple Challenges Emerge With Physical AI System Design


Physical AI holds the promise of making everything from robots to a slew of mobile edge devices much more interactive and useful, but it will significantly alter how systems are designed, verified, and monitored. Physical AI systems need to work both independently and together. They need the ability to make decisions quickly and locally, typically using much less power than other types of AI... » read more

New Approaches To Limit Cyberattacks On Hardware


The number and value of cyberattacks on semiconductors is rising, but new approaches to designing and packaging chips could put a significant dent in those figures. Semiconductor-related cybersecurity attacks have multiplied more than six times since 2022, according to a report by cyber intelligence firm CloudSEK. These attacks have cost the semiconductor industry an estimated $1.05 billion ... » read more

Silicon IP Continues Steady Growth Path


EDA and silicon IP revenue increased 8.6% to $5.089 billion in Q2 2025, up from $4.6855 billion in Q2 2024, according to the ESD Alliance. Total EDA revenue growth was assisted by impressive results in the CAE category, the largest tool sector, which showed 17.2% growth over Q2 2024. “It was another good quarter overall," said Walden C. Rhines, executive sponsor of the SEMI Electronic Desi... » read more

Balancing Workloads In AI Processor Designs


A growing number of AI processors are being designed around specific workloads rather than standardized benchmarks, optimizing performance and power efficiency, but often with enough flexibility to adapt to future changes. While the fundamentals of matrix multiplication and software optimization still apply, those alone are no longer sufficient. Designs need to address specific data types, w... » read more

Silicon Lifecycle Management Gains Traction, But It’s Complicated


Silicon lifecycle management (SLM) is gaining ground in semiconductor design and test by leveraging specialized on-die sensors and analytics engines to improve power, performance, yield, and reliability. Most modern SoCs mitigate the guesswork by leveraging DFT, which includes adding memory built-in self-test (BiST) or improving functional coverage, but these tests were meant for verifying c... » read more

Physical Access Control Raises New Security Concerns


Experts At The Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss hardware security challenges, including fundamental security of GenAI, with Nicole Fern, principal security analyst at Keysight; Serge Leef, AI-For-Silicon strategist at Microsoft; Scott Best, senior director for silicon security products at Rambus; Lee Harrison, director of Tessent Automotive IC Solutions at Siemens EDA; Mohit... » read more

Reliable Training Data Paramount To AI Model Success


AI systems are increasingly being integrated into safety- and mission-critical applications ranging from automotive to health care and industrial IoT, stepping up the need for training data that is reliable, secure, and which is generated from trusted sources. AI activity is growing exponentially, as everybody tries to figure out how to apply it to their domain, application, or workload. In ... » read more

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