Manufacturing Bits: March 20
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Giant thermometer The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has devised a new way to take the temperature of a material at the nanoscale—the organization has developed a giant thermometer. The technology, dubbed electron energy gain spectroscopy, enables researchers to take the temperature of a material from an area at about a billionth of a meter wide. Developed by Nion, t... » read more

System Bits: March 20
By Ann Mutschler - 20 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Design has consequences Carnegie Mellon University design students are exploring ways to enhance interactions with new technologies and the power of artificial intelligence. Assistant Professor Dan Lockton teaches the course, "Environments Studio IV: Designing Environments for Social Systems" in CMU's School of Design and leads the school's new Imaginaries Lab. “We want the designers of ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Mar. 20
By Jesse Allen - 20 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Proton battery prototype A team at RMIT University built a prototype rechargeable proton battery combining hydrogen fuel cells and battery-based electrical power that has the potential, with further development, to store more energy than currently-available lithium ion batteries. The working prototype proton battery uses an activated carbon electrode for solid-state storage of hydrogen with... » read more

EUV’s New Problem Areas
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 2

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is moving closer to production, but problematic variations—also known as stochastic effects—are resurfacing and creating more challenges for the long-overdue technology. GlobalFoundries, Intel, Samsung and TSMC hope to insert [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"] lithography into production at 7nm and/or 5nm. But as before, EUV consists of several compo... » read more

Xceler Systems: Graph Architecture
By Kevin Fogarty - 19 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

An inventor who made foundational contributions to three key ways we move data through complex systems is developing a new type of neuromorphic chip to accelerate AI applications. Rather than try to build a computer that looks like a brain, Gautam Kavipurapu and Xceler Systems are building smaller bits that act like synapses. When the design is advanced enough and there are enough of them, t... » read more

Wafer Demand: Under Pressure But Still Growing
By Joanne Itow - 19 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 1

Wafer demand grew 10.7% in 2017 while total semiconductor units grew 13.4%. Due to the tight supply of silicon wafers and increased prices, most manufactures placed an even higher priority on improving yields. The industry’s focus on yield improvements is relentless but especially important when the cost of key input materials is on the rise. In 2017 the semiconductor products that con... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus - 16 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers and OEMs Last month, Arizona approved Google’s Waymo unit to begin testing a commercial self-driving vehicle program. And recently, Waymo released a video showing its first autonomous ride-hailing service. “This development inches us closer than ever to a ‘first-man-on-the-moon’ landmark for Level 5 autonomous transport,” said Derek Viita, an analyst from Strategy Analytic... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT
By Jeff Dorsch - 16 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Cybersecurity The United Kingdom government issued a policy report, Secure by Design, calling on Internet of Things device manufacturers to eliminate default passwords, to provide greater transparency in vulnerability disclosure, and to secure credential storage. The report urges shifting cybersecurity responsibility to IoT device vendors, rather than end-users, and protecting the privacy righ... » read more

Thermal Issues And Modern SoCs: How Hot Is Hot?
By Ramsay Allen - 16 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

A Q&A with Moortec CTO Oliver King. What are the thermal issues of modern SoCs? Gate density has been increasing with each node and that pushes up power per unit area, and I think that has become an even bigger issue with FinFET processes where the channels are more thermally isolated than the planar processes before them. In the last few planar nodes, leakage was an issue which led ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design
By Jesse Allen - 16 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Tools Synopsys debuted new versions of its circuit simulation and custom design products. FineSim SPICE provides 2X faster simulation and Monte Carlo analysis speed, CustomSim FastSPICE offers 2X speed-up for post-layout SRAM simulation and maintains multi-core scalability by providing additional 2X speed-up on four cores, and HSPICE delivers 1.5X speed-up for large post-layout designs, accord... » read more

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