Author's Latest Posts


Controlling Variability And Cost At 3nm And Beyond


Richard Gottscho, executive vice president and CTO of Lam Research, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about how to utilize more data from sensors in manufacturing equipment, the migration to new process nodes, and advancements in ALE and materials that could have a big impact on controlling costs. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: As more sensors are added int... » read more

VivaTech: Reporter’s Notebook


What makes a successful startup in Silicon Valley or Europe is very different from what defines success in other parts of the world. While much of the mainstream tech industry focuses on markets such as automotive, 5G and AI, there is a less-obvious boom in startups with a much narrower focus. All of this was readily apparent at last week's Viva Technology Conference in Paris, a gathering of... » read more

Bottlenecks For Edge Processors


New processor architectures are being developed that can provide two to three orders of magnitude improvement in performance. The question now is whether the performance in systems will be anything close to the processor benchmarks. Most of these processors doing one thing very well. They handle specific data types and can accelerate the multiply-accumulate functions for algorithms by distri... » read more

Latency Under Load: HBM2 vs. GDDR6


Steven Woo, Rambus fellow and distinguished inventor, explains why data traffic and bandwidth are critical to choosing the type of DRAM, options for improving traffic flow in different memory types, and how this works with multiple memory types.   Related Video GDDR6 - HBM2 Tradeoffs Why designers choose one memory type over another. Applications for each were clearly delineate... » read more

New Challenges For Data Centers


Rita Horner, senior technical marketing manager in Synopsys’ Solutions Group, looks at the impact of a significant rise in data, why this often leads to big cost increases, and where the bottlenecks are occurring. » read more

Here Come The Economists


Big data is undergoing some big changes. For years, the challenge was getting enough good data to create models for everything from Wall Street trends to traffic routing. But with an influx of data from billions of sensors and electronic transactions, data is no longer in short supply. In fact, there is so much data pouring in that companies need to figure out what to do with it. That requi... » read more

Gaps Emerge In Automotive Test


Demands by automakers for zero defects over 18 years are colliding with real-world limitations of testing complex circuitry and interactions, and they are exposing a fundamental disconnect between mechanical and electronic expectations that could be very expensive to fix. This is especially apparent at leading-edge nodes, where much of the logic is being developed for AI systems and image se... » read more

Making AI More Dependable


Ira Leventhal, vice president of Advantest’s new concept product initiative, looks at why AI has taken so long to get going, what role it will play in improving the reliability of all chips, and how to use AI to improve the reliability of AI chips themselves. » read more

Automotive System Design


Burkhard Huhnke, vice president of automotive at Synopsys, looks at how to build and update chips in increasingly sophisticated vehicles, where the problem spots are, and what comes next. » read more

Road Not Fully Constructed


There is a growing consensus in the semiconductor industry that SAE Level 3 and Level 4 autonomy will be full of unexpected hazards. At a number of recent conferences in Silicon Valley, experts from all parts of the semiconductor industry have voiced concern about those middle steps between assisted driving and full autonomy. This isn't the public position taken by carmakers and Tier 1s.... » read more

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