category: Editor’s Note

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Are Chips Getting More Reliable?
By Ed Sperling - 08 Sep, 2020 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is making huge progress in understanding the causes and telltale signs of circuit aging and irregular behavior. But are devices actually getting more reliable? The answer depends on a number of factors, none of which is easily measured. To be sure, circuits are much better designed and inspected than in the past, and the individual components are printed more accur... » read more

The Very Long Road To Autonomous Vehicles
By Ed Sperling - 11 Aug, 2020 - Comments: 0

It may be a long wait before fully autonomous vehicles hit the road. Even semi-autonomous vehicles aren't doing so well. The American Automobile Association drove 4,000 miles in cars equipped with active driver assistance, averaging problems every 8 miles. AAA cited a host of problems, including driving too close to other cars or guardrails, aggressive braking, and automated steering that wo... » read more

Next Challenge: Known Good Systems
By Ed Sperling - 07 Jul, 2020 - Comments: 0

The leading edge of design is heading toward multi-die/multi-chiplet architectures, and an increasing number of mainstream designs likely will follow as processing moves closer to the edge. This doesn't mean every chipmaker will be designing leading-edge chips, of course. But more devices will have at least some leading-edge logic or will be connected over some advanced interconnect scheme t... » read more

Liability And Reliability
By Ed Sperling - 09 Jun, 2020 - Comments: 0

As systems vendors accelerate the development of their own architectures, semiconductor companies across the supply chain are getting a seat at the table for architecting the engines in those systems. Rather than competing for a socket, they are directly involved in strategizing the optimal solution that can make a systems vendor or OEM more competitive or far more efficient. That gives the dev... » read more

Sensors, Data And Machine Learning
By Ed Sperling - 12 May, 2020 - Comments: 0

Strategies for building reliability into chips and systems are beginning to shift as more sensors are added into these devices and machine learning is applied to that data. In the past, system monitoring relied heavily on MEMS devices for things like acceleration, temperature and positioning (gyroscopes). While those devices are still important, in the past couple years there has been an exp... » read more

Redefining Device Failures
By Ed Sperling - 07 Apr, 2020 - Comments: 0

Can a 5nm or 3nm chip really perform to spec over a couple decades? The answer is yes, but not using traditional approaches for designing, manufacturing or testing those chips. At the next few process nodes, all the workarounds and solutions that have been developed since 45nm don't necessarily apply. In the early finFET processes, for example, the new transistor structure provided a huge im... » read more

Test Is Becoming A Horizontal Process
By Ed Sperling - 10 Mar, 2020 - Comments: 3

Semiconductor test, once a discrete part of a well-orchestrated series of manufacturing steps, is looking more like a process that extends from the early concept stage in design to the end of life of whatever system that chip ultimately is used for. This has important ramifications for safety-critical markets in general, and the semiconductor industry in particular. Both worlds have been inc... » read more

Making Light More Reliable
By Ed Sperling - 11 Feb, 2020 - Comments: 0

The buzz around photonics in packages and between packages is growing. Now the question is whether it will work as expected, and where it will be useful. Replacing electrical with optical signals has been on the technology horizon for some time. Light moves faster through fiber than electrons through copper. How much faster depends upon the diameter of the wires, the substrate and interconne... » read more

Things That Go Bump In The Daytime
By Ed Sperling - 14 Jan, 2020 - Comments: 0

There is no argument that autonomous technology is better at certain things than systems controlled by people. A computer-guided system has only one mission — to stay on the road, avoid object, and reach the end destination. It doesn't get tired, text, or look out the window. And it can park within a millimeter of a wall or another vehicle without hitting it, and do that every time — as lon... » read more

Reliability At 5nm And Below
By Ed Sperling - 10 Dec, 2019 - Comments: 2

The best way to figure out how a chip or package will age is to bake it in an oven, heat it in a pressure cooker, and stick it in a freezer. Those are all standard methods to accelerate physical effects and the effects of aging, but it's not clear they will continue working as chips shrink to 5nm and 3nm, or as they are included in multi-die packages. Extending any of those kitchen-like appr... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

  • Sponsors

About

Navigation

Connect With Us

Copyright ©2013-2024 SMG   |  Terms of Service  |  Privacy Policy