Manufacturing Bits: July 21

By Mark LaPedus - 21 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 1

Intel’s next-gen MRAM At the recent 2020 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, Intel presented a paper on a CMOS-compatible spin-orbit torque MRAM (SOT-MRAM) device. Still in R&D, SOT-MRAM is a next-generation MRAM designed to replace SRAM. Generally, processors integrate a CPU, SRAM and a variety of other functions. SRAM stores instructions that are rapidly needed by the processo... » read more

DAC 2020 Day One

By Ann Mutschler - 21 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

DAC 2020 is like no other Design Automation Conference. It is virtual for this year — and hopefully only this year. The COVID pandemic has proven that face-to-face meetings and conferences are invaluable for many reasons. But with none of the distractions of a traditional conference, focusing on the content was easy. And because the sessions have been pre-recorded, the speakers for each se... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 21

By Jesse Allen - 21 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

AI hardware Researchers at Purdue University, University of California San Diego, Argonne National Laboratory, University of Louisville, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and University of Iowa developed hardware that can learn skills, offloading some of the energy needed by AI software. "Software is taking on most of the challenges in AI. If you could incorporate intelligence into the circui... » read more

3 Types Of AI Hardware

By Ed Sperling - 20 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 1

As AI chips become more pervasive, three primary approaches are moving to the forefront. Bradley Geden, director of product marketing at Synopsys, looks at how to take advantage of repeatability, what the different flavors look like, the difference between flat and hierarchical design, and what impact black-box arrays have on programmability. » read more

What’s After 5G

By Bryon Moyer - 20 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 1

This year’s IEEE Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits (VLSI 2020) included a presentation by NTT Docomo that looked far into the future of cellular communications, setting the stage for a broad industry shift in communication. This is far from trivial. 5G only just recently entered the commercial world, and — especially with the higher millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies — it has ... » read more

EDA Strong, M&A Activity Up

By Ed Sperling - 20 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 3

The EDA industry is faring well in an era of COVID-19 and global uncertainty, and the numbers prove it. But the question being asked privately by a number of executives across the industry is whether growth will hold up beyond the first quarter of next year if a vaccine or treatment isn't ready. There are a lot of financial models based upon a variety of developments, and so far there is lit... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test

By Mark LaPedus - 17 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers TSMC posted mixed results in the quarter, although the news was generally positive. The foundry giant raised its capital spending plans. “Our second quarter business was sequentially flat, as the continued 5G infrastructure deployment and HPC-related product launches offset weaknesses in other platforms,” said Wendell Huang, vice president and CFO at TSMC. “Moving into third q... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power

By Jesse Allen - 17 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

Siemens will acquire Avatar Integrated Systems. The company's place-and-route tools, which will become part of Mentor's Xcelerator portfolio, include a netlist-to-GDS full-function block-level physical implementation tool and a complete top-level prototyping, floor-planning and chip assembly tool. Based in Santa Clara, CA, Avatar was formed in 2017 from the acquired assets of ATopTech. ATopTech... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing

By SE Staff - 17 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

Arm's parent company, Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank, reportedly is considering a sale or IPO of its Arm subsidiary, which it purchased in 2016 for $32 billion in cash. Considering that Arm chips are in most smart phones, as well as an increasing number of computers and IoT and edge devices, this development is being closely followed by most of the tech world. Last week, Softbank directed ... » read more

Make Way For Flexible ICs

By Ed Sperling - 16 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

The push to develop intelligent sensors everywhere does not require everything to be on a silicon substrate. In fact, a growing part of the market increasingly is focused on flexible substrates. The market for printed sensors is roughly $3.6 billion today, according to a new report by IDTechEx. In a decade, that number is expected to grow to $4.5 billion, according to the firm, with growth i... » read more

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