Bryon Moyer

  (all posts)
Bryon Moyer is a technology editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

The Case For FPGAs In Cars
By Bryon Moyer - 03 Jun, 2021 - Comments: 0

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) thrive in rapidly evolving new markets before being replaced by hard-wired ASICs, but in automotive that crossover is likely to happen significantly later than in the past. Historically, FPGAs have held temporary positions until volumes increased enough to cost-reduce the FPGAs out in favor of a hardened version. With automobiles, there are so many chan... » read more

11 Ways To Reduce AI Energy Consumption
By Bryon Moyer - 13 May, 2021 - Comments: 1

As the machine-learning industry evolves, the focus has expanded from merely solving the problem to solving the problem better. “Better” often has meant accuracy or speed, but as data-center energy budgets explode and machine learning moves to the edge, energy consumption has taken its place alongside accuracy and speed as a critical issue. There are a number of approaches to neural netw... » read more

Chip Monitoring And Test Collaborate
By Bryon Moyer - 11 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

As on-chip monitoring becomes more prevalent in complex advanced-node ICs, it’s easy to question whether or not it conflicts with conventional silicon testing. It might even supplant such testing in the future. Or alternatively, they could interact, with each supporting the other. “On-chip monitors provide fine-grained observability into effects and issues that are otherwise difficult or... » read more

Developers Turn To Analog For Neural Nets
By Bryon Moyer - 06 May, 2021 - Comments: 1

Machine-learning (ML) solutions are proliferating across a wide variety of industries, but the overwhelming majority of the commercial implementations still rely on digital logic for their solution. With the exception of in-memory computing, analog solutions mostly have been restricted to universities and attempts at neuromorphic computing. However, that’s starting to change. “Everyon... » read more

Battle Brewing Over Automotive Display Protocols
By Bryon Moyer - 06 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

Displays are multiplying in new and future automobiles. That means a lot more display data moving around the vehicle and traveling some distance between sensor and processor. While existing protocols can handle some of the new duties, new protocols also are being developed specifically for this application. “Automotive displays are proliferating, increasing in numbers and in pixel densi... » read more

Tapping Into Non-Volatile Logic
By Bryon Moyer - 21 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 0

Research is underway to develop a new type of logic device, called non-volatile logic (NVL), based on ferroelectric FETs. FeFETs have been a topic of high interest at recent industry conferences, but the overwhelming focus has been using them in memory arrays. The memory bit cell, however, is simply a transistor that can store a state. That can be leveraged in other applications. “Non-v... » read more

Energy Harvesting Shows New Signs of Life
By Bryon Moyer - 08 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 1

Energy harvesting is seeing renewed activity in select markets, years after some high-profile attempts to build this into consumer electronics stalled out. Costs, manufacturing challenges, and market resistance kept this technology from moving forward, more than a decade after it was being touted as the best way forward for consumer electronics and devices that were hard to access. While sol... » read more

Monitoring Chips On Many Levels
By Bryon Moyer - 06 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 1

Monitoring is an important trend for optimizing yield, performance, and uptime in systems that use complex integrated circuits, but not all monitoring is the same. In fact, there are multiple levels of monitors. In many cases, they can be used together to help solve problems when something is amiss. They also can be used to help identify who in the supply chain owns the fix. “If the sys... » read more

How To Measure ML Model Accuracy
By Bryon Moyer - 01 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 0

Machine learning (ML) is about making predictions about new data based on old data. The quality of any machine-learning algorithm is ultimately determined by the quality of those predictions. However, there is no one universal way to measure that quality across all ML applications, and that has broad implications for the value and usefulness of machine learning. “Every industry, every d... » read more

MRAM Evolves In Multiple Directions
By Bryon Moyer - 11 Mar, 2021 - Comments: 1

Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) is one of several new non-volatile memory technologies targeting broad commercial availability, but designing MRAM into chips and systems isn't as simple as adding other types of memory. MRAM isn’t an all-things-for-all-applications technology. It needs to be tuned for its intended purpose. MRAMs targeting flash will not do as well targeting SRAMs, and vice vers... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2025 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy