The Shortest Path Deception


When manufacturing, assembling, and using integrated circuit (IC) chips, the electrostatic discharge (ESD) caused by accumulated static can damage the IC circuitry if the circuit is not properly protected [1]. To prevent such damage, ESD protection devices are designed into the circuitry such that they will create a low impedance path that limits the peak voltage and current by diverting excess... » read more

The Next Generation Of General-Purpose Compute At Hot Chips


At the recent HOT CHIPS, the first day opened with the chips that you first think of when you hear the word processor. These are the next generation of chips from the likes of Intel, AMD, and IBM. There were lots of other chips too, such as Arm's Neoverse N2, and NVIDIA's new data-processing unit (DPU), or AMD's next-generation graphics architecture. But for this post, anyway, I'm going to focu... » read more

On the Road To Higher Memory Bandwidth


In the decade since HBM was first announced, we’ve seen two-and-a-half generations of the standard come to market. HBM’s “wide and slow” architecture debuted first at a data rate of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) running over a 1024-bit wide interface. The product of that data rate and that interface width provided a bandwidth of 128 gigabytes per second (GB/s). In 2016, HBM2 doubled the s... » read more

The Impact Of Multiphysics On Production Electronic Design


For many electronic design professionals, it has become clear that the industry is transitioning through an inflection point that is shifting some of the ground rules of design. The increase in the speed and integration density in today’s systems are blurring the lines between chip design and traditional board or system design. This finds its fullest expression in multi-die, 3D integrated ... » read more

The “Natively Flexible” Processor Has Arrived: Here’s What We Need To Make It Mainstream


The microprocessor is one of history’s pivotal inventions, ranking in influence with breakthroughs such as the wheel, the transistor, and the printing press. There is no escaping their popularity or usefulness either: with tens of billions of processors produced each year they have revolutionized industries such as health care, media, retail, transportation, and of course information manageme... » read more

Now You Can Automate Latch-Up Verification For 2.5/3D Technologies


Latch-up is modeled as a short circuit (low-impedance path) that can occur in an integrated circuit (IC). It may lead to destruction due to over-current resulting from interactions between parasitic devices (PNP and NPN). To protect against latch-up conditions, there are two key types of latch-up design rules—fundamental and advanced [1,2]. Fundamental rules are the local latch-up design r... » read more

Time To Rethink Memory Chip Design And Verification


It’s no secret to anyone that semiconductor development grows more challenging all the time. Each new process technology node packs more transistors into each die, creating more electrical issues and making heat dissipation harder. Floorplanning, logic synthesis, place and route, timing analysis, electrical analysis, and functional verification stretch electronic design automation (EDA) tools... » read more

Functional Safety: Current Status And Perspectives With A View Toward Standardization Bodies


Functional safety is a topic highly driven by standards. This is due in part to legislation and regulation, but it also arises from the fact that functional safety spans a wide range of fields. Even before specific standards were introduced, there were products that met the social consensus on safety. For example, carmakers were making cars that were safe and incorporated electrical and elec... » read more

PCB Design Rules For Wiring And Crosstalk


Today’s electronic devices market demands miniaturized printed circuit boards (PCBs) with a multitude of high-speed functions integrated on a single board. This causes the designers to have traces routed very close to each other to optimize packaging and space. This proximity may cause unintentional coupling of electromagnetic fields, a phenomenon which we know by the name of crosstalk (see f... » read more

GDDR6 Memory On The Leading Edge


With the accelerating growth in data traffic, it is unsurprising that the number of hyperscale data centers keeps rocketing skyward. According to analysts at the Synergy Research Group, in nine months (Q2’20 to Q1’21), 84 new hyperscale data centers came online bringing the total worldwide to 625. Hyperscaler capex set a record $150B over the last four quarters eclipsing the $121B spent in ... » read more

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