Bryon Moyer

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Bryon Moyer is a technology editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Will New Processor Architectures Raise Energy Efficiency?
By Bryon Moyer - 14 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 1

Data centers continue to heat up as new processors consume more energy than ever before. Cooling is the primary weapon against the heat these processors generate, but it won’t be able to keep up forever with traditional processor architectures. New ones may be necessary. There are opportunities today to make well-known architectures more energy-efficient, but the number of options for subs... » read more

Can Cheaper Lasers Handle Short Distances?
By Bryon Moyer - 04 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 0

Optical technology is well established for long-haul communications, but the distances it serves are shrinking — especially in the data center. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) already drive short fiber links. But efforts are underway to further scale them down to provide more connections through waveguides than fiber can provide. “We have seen the transition from long... » read more

On-Die And In-Package Interconnects: eBook
By Bryon Moyer - 28 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 0

We live in the Information Age, but if information cannot get to where it's intended to go, it does no good. And the way information gets from here to there is through interconnects. This report focuses on different interconnect structures, such as lines, vias, buses, and networks-on-chip, and how they’re constructed. As always, we consider the design, test, reliability, and security impli... » read more

Can Today’s Processor Architectures Be More Efficient?
By Bryon Moyer - 17 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 3

For years, processors focused on performance, and that performance had little accountability to anything else. Performance still matters, but now it must be accountable to power. If small gains in performance result in disproportionate power gains, designers may need to discard such improvements in favor of more power-efficient ones. Although current architectures undergo a steady cadence of... » read more

Physics Limits Interposer Line Lengths
By Bryon Moyer - 19 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 1

Electrical interposers provide a convenient surface for mounting multiple chips within a single package, but even though interposer lines theoretically can be routed anywhere, insertion losses limit their practical length. Lines on interposers — and on silicon interposers in particular — can be exceedingly narrow. Having a small cross-section makes such lines resistive, degrading signals... » read more

The Best DRAMs For Artificial Intelligence
By Bryon Moyer - 12 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Artificial intelligence (AI) involves intense computing and tons of data. The computing may be performed by CPUs, GPUs, or dedicated accelerators, and while the data travels through DRAM on its way to the processor, the best DRAM type for this purpose depends on the type of system that is performing the training or inference. The memory challenge facing engineering teams today is how to keep... » read more

Cooling Chips Still A Top Challenge
By Bryon Moyer - 22 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Increasing levels of semiconductor integration means more work needs to be done in smaller spaces, which in turn generates more heat that needs to be dissipated. Managing heat dissipation in advanced node dies and in multi-die assemblies is critical to their functionality and their longevity. And while much of the focus has been on improving power efficiency, which reduces the rate of power ... » read more

Die-to-die Interconnect Standards In Flux
By Bryon Moyer - 15 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

UCIe, a standard for die-to-die interconnect in advanced packages, has drawn concern about being too heavyweight with its 2.0 release. But the fact that many of the new features are optional seems to have been lost in much of the public discussion. In fact, new capabilities that support a possible future chiplet marketplace are not required for designs that don’t target that marketplace. ... » read more

Can Chiplets Serve Cost-Conscious Apps?
By Bryon Moyer - 17 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

Chiplets are emerging as a significant new phase in the evolution of the semiconductor market, providing a way to continue scaling performance well beyond the size limitations of a reticle. But that improvement comes with a high price tag and a lot more complexity, which so far has limited adoption. One of the main reasons for the cost increase is the need for advanced packaging when employi... » read more

Advanced Packaging Fundamentals for Semiconductor Engineers: eBook
By Bryon Moyer - 14 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 4

Advanced packaging is inevitable. Large systems companies and processing vendors already are working with various types of highly engineered packaging. The rest of the semiconductor industry will follow at some point, whether they're designing their own packages, developing the tools, processes, materials, and methodologies to create them, or developing components that will be used inside of th... » read more

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