Blog Review: Feb. 23

Synopsys’ Varun Agrawal looks at four new technologies have emerged to support the demands on 5G networks and applications, the challenges in validating all of those technologies together, and what’s needed to perform end-to-end testing effectively for 5G O-RAN SoCs.

Siemens EDA’s Ray Salemi points to how FPGA retargeting could help address supply chain difficulties and some of the challenges in ensuring the design doesn’t change its behavior.

Cadence’s Veena Parthan examines the challenges in accurately simulating wind turbine blade aerodynamics and generating high-quality meshes.

Ansys’ Shawn Carpenter points to new developments in the standoff between aviation companies and telecom companies over the impact of 5G C-Band towers on the radar altimeter systems of some aircraft and how simulation can offer a cost-effective and repeatable way to test and validate combinations of radar altimeters, host aircraft, C-Band 5G base station combinations and parameters, and airport locations.

Coventor’s QingPeng Wang explains how virtual process models and virtual Design of Experiments can help explore a large potential solution space while reducing the cost of experimental wafer runs, and presents an example of how virtual DOE can be used.

In a video, Arm’s Robert Wolff chats with Martin Woolley of Bluetooth to find out what’s new in Bluetooth, including sensor data acquisition, mesh networks, angle of arrival direction finding, and more.

In a blog for SEMI, EMD Electronics’ Philip Matthes finds that diversity and inclusion efforts as well as courting non-traditional groups, such as high school graduates, is needed to expand the talent pool for the semiconductor industry.

Memory analyst Jim Handy makes the case for why memory chips should be considered commodities and the exceptions that make specialty memories and other types of chips differentiated products instead.

Nvidia’s Tiffany Yeung checks out the innovations that have enabled edge AI, example use cases such as energy forecasting and AI-enabled healthcare devices, and the role that cloud computing still has to play in edge deployments.

Plus, check out the blogs featured in the latest Manufacturing, Packaging & Materials newsletter:

Executive editor Mark LaPedus talks with Semico CEO Jim Feldhan about what’s ahead for 2022.

Amkor’s Cameron Nelson explains why packaging is playing an increasingly important role in cooling down HPC systems.

Calibra’s Jan Willis lays out the challenges and opportunities for deploying machine learning in mask making.

Ansys’ John Lee explains how 3D-ICs blur the lines between the traditionally separate worlds of chip, package, and board design.

Lam Research’s Tim Archer spells out why gate-all-around structures need ultra-high selective etch with atomic-level precision.