Karen Heyman

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Karen Heyman is a technology editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

HW and SW Architecture Approaches For Running AI Models
By Karen Heyman - 31 Oct, 2024 - Comments: 0

How best to run AI inference models is a current topic of much debate as a wide breadth of systems companies look to add AI to a variety of systems, spurring both hardware innovation and the need to revamp models. Hardware developers are making progress with AI accelerators and SoCs. But on the model side, questions abound about whether the answer might come from revisiting older, less compl... » read more

Challenges In Reducing Wireless Latency
By Karen Heyman - 10 Oct, 2024 - Comments: 0

A new and much faster version of Wi-Fi is beginning to infiltrate the IoT market, reducing latency that has begun to creep up as more data is generated, processed, and moved wirelessly from one device to another. An estimated 20 billion connected devices are currently in use. Over the next several years, devices will start to include faster wireless connectivity, enabling more rapid transfer... » read more

RAG-Enabled AI Stops Hallucinations, Adds Sources
By Karen Heyman - 26 Sep, 2024 - Comments: 0

Many EDA companies have taken the first steps to incorporate generative AI into their tools, and in such tightly controlled environments GenAI appears to have great benefits. But its broader adoption has been delayed by its notorious inaccuracy, giving results that are often out of date, untrue, and unsourced. That's starting to change. GenAI is evolving so rapidly that these kinds of proble... » read more

CXL Thriving As Memory Link
By Karen Heyman - 16 Sep, 2024 - Comments: 0

CXL is emerging from a jumble of interconnect standards as a predictable way to connect memory to various processing elements, as well as to share memory resources within a data center. Compute Express Link is built on a PCI Express foundation and supported by nearly all the major chip companies. It is used to link CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and other purpose-built accelerators using serial communic... » read more

Photonics Could Reduce The Cost Of Lidar
By Karen Heyman - 05 Sep, 2024 - Comments: 0

Using light to move data over shorter distances is becoming more common, both because there is much more data to move around and because photons are faster and cooler than electrons. Using optical fiber for mission-critical communication is already well established. It has been the preferred PHY for long-haul communications for decades because it doesn’t suffer from the attenuation losses ... » read more

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups
By Karen Heyman - 29 Aug, 2024 - Comments: 0

Using AI in EDA is reinvigorating the whole tools industry, prompting established players to upgrade their tool offerings with AI/ML features, while drawing in startups trying to carve out differentiated approaches to fill unaddressed gaps with new tools and methodologies. Today’s new generation of entrepreneurs is comprised of both young post-grads with innovative ideas and industry veter... » read more

Voltage Drop Now Requires Dynamic Analysis
By Karen Heyman - 08 Aug, 2024 - Comments: 0

At one time a relatively infrequent occurrence, voltage drop is now a major impediment to reliability at advanced nodes. Decades ago, voltage drop was only an issue for very large and high-speed designs, where there was concern about supply lines delivering full voltage to transistors. As design margins have tightened in modern advanced designs, controlling voltage drop has become a requiremen... » read more

Post-Quantum Computing Threatens Fundamental Transport Protocols
By Karen Heyman - 01 Aug, 2024 - Comments: 0

The Transport Level Security (TLS) protocol is one of the few rock-steady spots in the rapidly changing computing industry, but that's about to change as quantum computers threaten traditional encryption schemes. Because TLS is fundamental to network communications, including allowing Internet of Things (IoT) devices to function properly, researchers already are exploring both hardware and s... » read more

Floor-Planning Evolves Into The Chiplet Era
By Karen Heyman - 25 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

3D-ICs and heterogeneous chiplets will require significant changes in physical layout tools, where the placement of chiplets and routing of signals can have a big impact on overall system performance and reliability. EDA vendors are well aware of the issues and working on solutions. Top on the list of challenges for 3D-ICs is thermal dissipation. Logic typically generates the most heat, and ... » read more

Data Center Thermal Management Improves
By Karen Heyman - 18 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

Thermal issues are plaguing semiconductor design at every level, from chips developed with single-digit nanometer processes to 100,000-square-foot data centers. The underlying cause is too many devices or services that require increasing amounts of power, and too few opportunities for the resulting heat to dissipate. “Everybody wants to try to do more in a small volume of space,” said St... » read more

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