Advancing Autonomous Fabs

By SEMI - 16 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is entering a critical transition phase toward Autonomous Semiconductor Fabs, driven by escalating process complexity, increasing equipment costs, and heightened demands for operational stability. In this environment, preventive maintenance (PM) is no longer a peripheral operational function but a central determinant of equipment availability, productivity, and manufa... » read more

The Thermal And Power Realities Of The AI Era

By Rafael Tudela - 16 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

The rapid growth of AI has created a surge in the global energy consumption at a rate never seen before. Today, data centers account for approximately 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity globally. To put this into perspective, the annual energy consumption of the United Kingdom in 2023 measured at 309 TWh. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects data centers’ energy consumption wil... » read more

Why More CPUs Are Needed For Agentic AI

By Ed Sperling - 15 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

The shift from generative AI to agentic AI will significantly increase the amount of compute power needed in data centers. Queries to search for and analyze data from multiple sources will be performed simultaneously by agents and without human intervention, rather than a single request from a live person. Jeff Defilippi, senior director of product management at Arm, talks about the impact of r... » read more

Blog Review: Apr. 15

By Jesse Allen - 15 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

Cadence's Wilson Kobalkar shares why eUSB2‑V2 represents a major evolutionary step for the USB 2.0 ecosystem, including how it achieves multi‑gigabit HSx operation and why symmetric/asymmetric modes unlock new design possibilities. Synopsys' Akanksha Soni explains the difference between metal-oxide-metal, metal-insulator-metal, and metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors, identifying the ad... » read more

AI Growing Impact On Chip Design And EDA Tools

By Ed Sperling - 15 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

Key Takeaways Many workflows in the data center are customer-specific, which is part of the reason there is so much interest in agentic AI-enabled tools. Large systems companies are pressing EDA vendors for performance improvements to keep pace with their AI workflows. The makeup of design teams is changing as AI infiltrates more of the chip design process. Experts at the Ta... » read more

The Smart Advantage: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Inspection And Metrology In Semiconductor Manufacturing

By Charlie Zhu - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

There is no doubt that the semiconductor industry is in an era of rapid and profound transformation, driven by an increasing demand for smaller, faster, and more powerful chips. As the speed of innovation continues to advance, so does the pressure on semiconductor manufacturers to detect and address defects and inconsistencies with near-perfect accuracy to keep pace with this demand. Manual ... » read more

Heterogeneous NPU Data Movement: What The Execution Flow Shows

By Steve Roddy - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

Heterogeneous NPU designs bring together multiple specialized compute engines to support the range of operators required by modern AI models. This approach enables coverage across diverse workloads, but it also introduces a structural consequence: intermediate data must move between those engines. That movement consumes power, adds latency, and requires additional silicon resources, with effect... » read more

Research Bits: Apr. 14

By Jesse Allen - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

Authentication for edge devices Researchers from the University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, and the Southern University of Science and Technology designed a privacy-preserving system for edge devices that combines physically unclonable functions and compute-in-memory. The Co-Located Authentication and Processing (CLAP) system integrates authentication and processing functions within ... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: Apr. 14

By Linda Christensen - 14 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: Technical Paper Research Organizations Device/circuit simulations of silicon spin qubits based on a gate-all-around transistor 🔗 Teikyo University, RIKEN Causal AI For AMS Circuit Design: Interpretable Parameter Effects Analysis 🔗 University of Florida Reliability of Wide B... » read more

EDA And IP Numbers Up Again, But Numbers Are More Nuanced

By Ed Sperling - 13 Apr, 2026 - Comments: 0

EDA and Semiconductor IP revenue grew 10.3% in Q4 2025 to $5.466 billion, up from $4.955 billion in the same period in 2024, continuing the double-digit run for the tools and IP business that has been underway for the past few years. CAE, the largest EDA category, rose 9.4% to $2.083 billion in Q4, versus $1.761 billion in Q4 2024. Non-reporting IP companies — a segment dominated by Arm �... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →