Author's Latest Posts


Upcoming Hurdles For The Semiconductor Industry


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss upcoming challenges and hurdles to overcome for the semiconductor industry with Vic Kulkarni, senior vice president and general manager, RTL Power Business at Ansys; Chris Rowen, Fellow and CTO, IP Group at Cadence; Subramani Kengeri, vice president, Global Design Solutions at GLOBALFOUNDRIES; Simon Davidmann, CEO of Imperas Software; Michael Buehle... » read more

System Bits: Nov. 10


Wrapping silver nanowires While they hold promise for applications including flexible displays and solar cells, silver nanowires are also susceptible to damage from highly energetic UV radiation and harsh environmental conditions has limited their commercialization, according to Purdue University researchers. However, new research suggests wrapping the nanowires with an ultrathin layer of c... » read more

Making Cars Smarter


The fuel injection control unit has come a long way since 1983 when Ford Motor Co. first included a 16-bit Intel microcontroller-based fuel injection system in its 4-cylinder Escort. Today, some high end vehicles contain more than 100 microprocessors, which is mind boggling in comparison to that Escort that contained just one. To be sure, the automotive industry is a unique animal. Compared ... » read more

The Automotive V-Cycle


During the research for my article on making cars smarter, I learned from Andrew Patterson at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"] that when it comes to the [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] side, one well-established practice in the automotive industry is the use of the V-Cycle design methodology (also known as the V-Model) and that carmakers tend to follow that. He explain... » read more

System Bits: Nov. 3


Quantum computer architecture Providing a blueprint to build the long-awaited, large-scale quantum computer, University of New South Wales (UNSW) and University of Melbourne researchers have designed a 3D silicon chip architecture based on single atom quantum bits that they said is compatible with atomic-scale fabrication techniques. Headquartered at UNSW, researchers from the Australian R... » read more

Making IP Secure


[getkc id="43" comment="IP"] security is coming under increasing scrutiny as concerns about system and hardware security escalate. For IP, this is particularly critical because commercially available IP touches many players in the semiconductor and software ecosystem. IP users want to ensure they are using the IP as the provider intended and that they are protected against malicious code. IP... » read more

Culture Clash In Analog


The analog/mixed signal world is being shaken up by a mix of new tools, an influx of younger engineers with new and broader approaches, and an emphasis on changing methodologies to improve time to market. Analog and digital engineers have never quite seen eye-to-eye. Analog teams leverage techniques that have been around, in some cases, for decades, while digital teams rely heavily on the la... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 27


Uncovering a novel phase of matter In a finding that could have implications for high-temperature superconductivity, a team of physicists led by David Hsieh, assistant professor of physics at Caltech has discovered an unusual phase of matter that is characterized by an unusual ordering of electrons. The researchers said this finding offers possibilities for new electronic device functionali... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 20


Automating big-data analysis Until now, big-data analysis consisted of searching for buried patterns that had some kind of predictive power but picking which “features” of the data to analyze usually required some human intuition. Now, however, MIT researchers are aiming to take the human element out of big-data analysis with a new system that they say not only searches for patterns but... » read more

Power Requires Holistic Perspective


With the move to smaller manufacturing nodes, power must be looked at from a holistic perspective. Instead of just optimizing a device or devising next generation power gating, power must be considered in the context of the whole system, Aveek Sarkar, vice president of product engineering and support at Ansys/Apache mentioned during a recent discussion about 5nm. In fact, he said, this c... » read more

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