Bryon Moyer

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Bryon Moyer is a technology editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

What’s After PAM-4?
By Bryon Moyer - 23 Jun, 2020 - Comments: 1

[This is part 2 of a 2-part series. Part 1 can be found here.] The future of high-speed physical signaling is uncertain. While PAM-4 remains one of the key standards today, there is widespread debate about whether PAM-8 will succeed it. This has an impact on everything from where the next bottlenecks are likely to emerge and the best approaches to solving them, to how chips, systems and p... » read more

High-Speed Signaling Drill-Down
By Bryon Moyer - 17 Jun, 2020 - Comments: 0

Chip interconnect standards have received a lot of attention lately, with parallel versions proliferating for chiplets and serial versions moving to higher speeds. The lowliest characteristic of these interconnect schemes is the physical signaling format. Having been static at NRZ (non-return-to-zero) for decades, change is underway. “Multiple approaches are likely to emerge,” said Brig ... » read more

ESD Requirements Are Changing
By Bryon Moyer - 11 Jun, 2020 - Comments: 1

Standards for specifying a chip’s ability to withstand electrostatic discharge (ESD) are changing – in some cases, getting tougher, and in others, easing up. ESD protection has been on a path from a one-size-fits-all approach to one where a signal’s usage helps to determine what kind of protection it should get. Protecting chips from ESD damage has been a longstanding part of IC design... » read more

What Makes A Chip Tamper-Proof?
By Bryon Moyer - 04 Jun, 2020 - Comments: 5

The cyber world is the next major battlefield, and attackers are busily looking for ways to disrupt critical infrastructure. There is widespread proof this is happening. “Twenty-six percent of the U.S. power grid was found to be hosting Trojans," said Haydn Povey, IAR Systems' general manager of embedded security solutions. "In a cyber-warfare situation, that's the first thing that would b... » read more

Spiking Neural Networks: Research Projects or Commercial Products?
By Bryon Moyer - 18 May, 2020 - Comments: 2

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) often are touted as a way to get close to the power efficiency of the brain, but there is widespread confusion about what exactly that means. In fact, there is disagreement about how the brain actually works. Some SNN implementations are less brain-like than others. Depending on whom you talk to, SNNs are either a long way away or close to commercialization. Th... » read more

Auto Power Becoming Much More Complex
By Bryon Moyer - 14 May, 2020 - Comments: 0

Rising electronics content in automobiles is putting increased focus on automotive power delivery networks (PDNs). Safety implications mean that thorough power design and verification, along with novel power isolation techniques, are needed at the vehicle level, involving both electrical and mechanical considerations. The electronic takeover can be measured by the percentage that electronic ... » read more

Inference Moves To The Network
By Bryon Moyer - 07 May, 2020 - Comments: 0

Machine-learning inference started out as a data-center activity, but tremendous effort is being put into inference at the edge. At this point, the “edge” is not a well-defined concept, and future inference capabilities will reside not only at the extremes of the data center and a data-gathering device, but at multiple points in between. “Inference isn't a function that has to resid... » read more

Making Sense Of PUFs
By Bryon Moyer - 07 May, 2020 - Comments: 3

As security becomes a principal design consideration, physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are seeing renewed interest as new players emerge onto the market. PUFs can play a central role in hardware roots of trust (HRoTs), but the messaging in the market can make it confusing to understand the different types of PUF as well as their pros and cons. PUFs leverage some uncertain aspect of som... » read more

Full-Duplex Wireless Remains A Promise And A Challenge
By Bryon Moyer - 27 Apr, 2020 - Comments: 0

Wireless bandwidth capacity could double if we could use full-duplex communication. Unfortunately, that’s not as easy as it sounds. People are working hard on it, but we’re mostly not there yet. Full duplex seems easy. In fact, so easy that it was possible with the first basic telephones. There was one loop between each phone and the central office, and that one loop carried conversation... » read more

NVM Reliability Challenges And Tradeoffs
By Bryon Moyer - 13 Apr, 2020 - Comments: 0

This second of two parts looks at different memories and possible solutions. Part one can be found here. While various NVM technologies, such as PCRAM, MRAM, ReRAM and NRAM share similar high-level traits, their physical renderings are quite different. That provides each with its own set of challenges and solutions. PCRAM has had a fraught history. Initially released by Samsung, Micron, a... » read more

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