Author's Latest Posts


Moving Intelligence To The Edge


The buildout of the edge is driving a slew of new challenges and opportunities across the chip industry. Sailesh Chittipeddi, executive vice president at Renesas Electronics America, talks about the shift toward more AI-centric workloads rather than CPU-centric, why embedded computing is becoming the foundation of all intelligences, and the importance of software, security, and user experience ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Worldwide fab equipment spending for front-end manufacturing is expected to hit $107 billion this year, an 18% year-over-year increase, according to SEMI’s latest World Fab Forecast report. “Crossing the $100 billion mark in spending on global fab equipment for the first time is a historic milestone for the semiconductor industry,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. Investme... » read more

Planning EDA’s Next Steps


Anirudh Devgan, Cadence's new CEO, and the recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award in December, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what's next in EDA, the underlying technology and business challenges and changes, and new markets that are unfolding for floor-planning, verification, CFD, and advanced packaging. SE: Where does EDA need to improve? Devgan: We have made it much... » read more

Cataloging IP In The Enterprise


Many companies have no way of documenting where IP they license is actually used, which version of that IP is being utilized, and whether that license extends to other projects or even to their customers. Pedro Pires, applications engineer at ClioSoft, looks at how IP currently is cataloged, why it’s been so difficult to do this in the past, and how AI can be used to speed up and simplify thi... » read more

Fundamental Shifts In IC Manufacturing Processes


High chip value and 3D packaging are changing where and how tests are performed, tightening design-for-reliability and accelerating the shift of tools from lab to fab. Heterogeneous integration and more domain-specific designs are causing a string of disruptions for chip manufacturers, up-ending proven fab processes and methodologies, extending the time it takes to manufacture a chip, and ul... » read more

Technical Papers: Organized, Timely, And Relevant


Engineers and scientists from every discipline linked to semiconductors have been struggling for years to find good research papers about trends and topics they care about, and the situation is only getting worse as the technology becomes more complex and the supply chain becomes more diverse and distributed. There are a slew of new issues in manufacturing, packaging, and design, and there a... » read more

Next-Gen Transistors


Nanosheets, or more generally, gate-all-around FETs, mark the next big shift in transistor structures at the most advanced nodes. David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the advantages of using these new transistor types, along with myriad challenges at future nodes, particularly in the area of metrology. » read more

Why Traceability Matters


More heterogeneous and increasingly dense chip designs make it much harder to stay on track with initial specifications. Paul Graykowski, senior technical marketing manager at Arteris IP, talks about matching requirements to the design, the impact of ECOs and other last-minute changes, and best practices for managing revisions. » read more

The Ethernet Evolution


Ethernet was expected to be long gone by now, but predictions of its demise were decades premature. John Swanson, senior product marketing manager for high-performance computing digital IP at Synopsys, talks about how Ethernet has evolved over the past 45 or so years from a somewhat “boring” technology to one that is at the forefront of data center performance improvements, with more update... » read more

Which Processor Is Best?


Intel's embrace of RISC-V represents a landmark shift in the processor world. It's a recognition that no single company can own the data center anymore, upending a revenue model that has persisted since the earliest days of computing. Intel gained traction in that market in the early 1990s with the explosion of commodity servers, but its role is changing as processors become more customized and... » read more

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