Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Pervasive computing, IoT and 5G Infineon added to its NFC (near-field communications) IP by acquiring NFC patent portfolios from France Brevets and Verimatrix. “With this acquisition, Infineon further strengthens its IP and technology portfolio, specifically in our leadership markets for security and connectivity for the IoT,” said Thomas Rosteck, president of Infineon’s Connected Secure... » read more

What Will Be The Killer App For 5G? Time To Place Your Bets


5G is here. But where will its capabilities soar first? Here are my guesses for where the breakthroughs could occur along with factors that might hold it back. 1. Supply Chain. The world’s 5,300+ plus cargo ships carry 90% of the world’s freight and can collectively hold 1.97 billion deadweight tons of cargo. 5G—delivered through private networks or secure slices of public networks—c... » read more

CFD Playing Increasing Role In Design


With thermal issues and constraints increasing becoming integral concerns of electronics design, computational fluid dynamics technology is gaining traction as a way to model, analyze, predict, and ideally prevent thermal problems from materializing. From cooling a board to cooling a chip with a fan and heat sinks, all of this relies on air flow for the cooling, or the flow of liquid in some... » read more

Enhancing Datasets For Artificial Intelligence Through Model-Based Methods


By Dirk Mayer and Ulf Wetzker Industrial plants and processes are now digitized and networked, and AI can be used to evaluate the data generated by those facilities to increase productivity and quality. Machine learning (ML) methods can be applied to: Product quality classification in complex production processes. Condition monitoring of technical systems, which is used, for examp... » read more

Context-Aware SPICE Simulation Improves The Fidelity Of ESD Analysis


Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a major reliability concern for integrated circuit (IC) designs. ESD verification is proving to be a significant challenge at advanced nodes, due to growing IC design complexity and transistor counts. Traditional ESD verification approaches using parasitic extraction followed by SPICE simulation are deficient in providing simulation results in a practical runtim... » read more

Why Data Center Power Will Never Come Down


Data centers have become significant consumers of energy. In order to deal with the proliferation of data centers and the servers within them, there is a big push to reduce the energy consumption of all data center components. With all that effort, will data center power really come down? The answer is no, despite huge improvements in energy efficiency. “Keeping data center power consum... » read more

AI Everywhere: Accelerating Chip Design At Every Node


Over the last few years, artificial Intelligence (AI) has increasingly played a significant role in the chip development process. But, when people talk about AI-designed chips, it is usually in the context of the latest, cutting-edge designs manufactured at advanced process nodes (7/5nm and smaller) and for good reason. Such designs constantly push the bounds of power, performance, and area (PP... » read more

It’s Official: HBM3 Dons The Crown Of Bandwidth King


With the publishing of the HBM3 update to the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) standard, a new king of bandwidth is crowned. The torrid performance demands of advanced workloads, with AI/ML training leading the pack, drive the need for ever faster delivery of bits. Memory bandwidth is a critical enabler of computing performance, thus the need for the accelerated evolution of the standard with HBM3 r... » read more

Spreadsheets: Still Valuable, But More Limited


Spreadsheets have been an invaluable engineering tool for many aspects of semiconductor design and verification, but their inability to handle complexity is squeezing them out of an increasing number of applications. This is raising questions about whether they still have a role, and if so, how large that role will be. There are two sides to this issue. On one side are the users who see them... » read more

Behold The Dawning Of The Era Of Bespoke Silicon


The great chip shortage of 2021, which accounted for billions of dollars in revenue loss, hit the auto industry especially hard. What caused the shortage is clear: auto companies miscalculated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While automakers were canceling their chip orders, strong electronics sales continued, leaving automakers at the back of the line for chips when demand for cars reboun... » read more

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