Tech Talk: Better Coverage


Atrenta's Yuan Lu talks about code coverage, functional coverage and the use of assertions in debugging designs. [youtube vid=Hpm-l1z8HTo] » read more

Blog Review: April 8


No other human endeavor has seen such sustained exponential growth. But it's the end of an era for Moore's Law, says Cadence's Axel Scherer—and only the beginning of one for Moore's Law 2.0. Synopsys' Amit Sharma tackles the cache coherency extensions of the ARM Advanced eXtensible Interface (AXI) and points out that the infrastructure required for their verification needs to scale up in s... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 7


Liquid metal for Terminator robots The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University have devised a robot-like, self-fueled liquid metal mollusk. The liquid metal alloy within the system can move by itself and change form like the shape-shifting T-1000 robot in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The system consists of a liquid metal motor. The liquid metal is a mix of gallium, i... » read more

System Bits: April 7


Ultra-efficient magnetic-field detector In a development that could lead to miniaturized, battery-powered devices for medical and materials imaging, contraband detection, and even geological exploration, MIT researchers have developed a new, ultrasensitive magnetic-field detector they say is 1,000 times more energy-efficient than its predecessors. Magnetic-field detectors, or magnetometers,... » read more

Ecosystem Changes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss changes in the semiconductor ecosystem with Kelvin Low, senior director of foundry marketing at [getentity id="22865" e_name="Samsung Semiconductor"]; John Costello, vice president of product planning at [getentity id="22849" e_name="Altera"]; Randy Smith, vice president of marketing at [getentity id="22605" e_name="Sonics"], and Michiel Ligthart, p... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 7


Hybrid supercapacitors Researchers at UCLA combined the best qualities of batteries and supercapacitors in a new 3-D hybrid supercapacitor. Based on laser-scribed graphene and manganese dioxide, the new component stores large amounts of energy, recharges quickly and can last for more than 10,000 recharge cycles. The team also created a microsupercapacitor small enough to fit in wearable o... » read more

Challenges Mount For Patterning And Masks


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss [getkc id="80" comment="lithography"] and photomask trends with Uday Mitra, vice president and chief technology officer for the Etch Business Unit at [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"]; Pawitter Mangat, senior manager and deputy director for EUV lithography at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; Aki Fujimura, chief execu... » read more

DSA Defects Continue Downward Trend


As previously discussed, the majority of defects in early directed self-assembly (DSA) processes were due to particles and other contaminants, and could be attributed to the immaturity of the process and materials. As manufacturers consider whether to incorporate DSA into specific technology nodes, they need to assure themselves that production-worthy yields can be achieved. Recent research at ... » read more

Week 43: Get Ready For A Sizzling DAC Pavilion


We are having some fantastic spring weather here in Oregon. Check out the little video clip of my crazy dog Diesel at the Oregon Coast shot a few weeks back. Mind you, there is no ball in that chucker he’s dancing around for. That’s because, Kismet, my other dog you can see in the foreground, caught the ball and is bringing it to me, occasionally looking back over her shoulder at her somewh... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Suppliers in the automotive semiconductor market experienced exceptional growth in 2014, according to IHS. Based on final analysis of the 2014 results, Renesas maintained its leadership position as the number one supplier in 2014, according to the rankings. “For 2015, IHS expects to see a shift among the leading suppliers in this category, given the recent merger of Freescale and NXP, two lar... » read more

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