Neuromorphic Chip Biz Heats Up


It’s no secret that today’s computers are struggling to keep up with the enormous demands of data processing and bandwidth, and the whole electronics industry is searching for new ways to enable that. The traditional approach is to continue to push the limits of today’s systems and chips. Another way is to go down the non-traditional route, including an old idea that is generating stea... » read more

Why Use A Package?


Subramanian Iyer, distinguished chancellor's professor in UCLA's Electrical Engineering Department—and a former fellow and director of the systems scaling technology department at IBM—sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about the future of chip scaling. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Advanced packaging is being viewed as a way to extend scaling in the fut... » read more

5nm Fab Challenges


At a recent event, Intel presented a paper that generated sparks and fueled speculation regarding the future direction of the leading-edge IC industry. The company described a next-generation transistor called the nanowire FET, which is a finFET turned on its side with a gate wrapped around it. Intel’s nanowire FET, sometimes called a gate-all-around FET, is said to meet the device require... » read more

The Internet Of Power Also Benefits From Moore’s Law


By Jef Poortmans It may sound strange, but striving to achieve smaller dimensions with Moore’s Law is an important enabler for producing increasingly better solar cells, with a more elaborate technology toolbox (including ALD, epitaxy, etc.) Improved process steps are constantly being developed to achieve these small transistor dimensions (for growing material layers or to etch away str... » read more

Coming To A Fab Near You?


What do Quentin Tarantino and ASML have in common? Anamorphic lenses. The optical image created by an anamorphic lens is oval, rather than round, with different magnifications along the horizontal and vertical axes. Tarantino used 65mm anamorphic lenses to film The Hateful Eight, and some theaters are also using them to screen the movie. It’s the first fiction feature to use this format s... » read more

Automated Power Model Verification For Analog IPs


By Sierene Aymen and Hartmut Marquardt Creating macro power models for analog intellectual property (IP) blocks is essential to enable the chip assembly group to effectively integrate these blocks within their place and route environment. These macro models, which define power domains, identify IP ports as signal, power, ground, or trivial ports, and describe the associations of signal pins ... » read more

Hello, It’s Your Pet Calling


As we entered into the new year of 2016 with the worldwide economic cloud of uncertainty hovering like an unregistered drone—particularly in China—CES was still setting records. Bustling with more than 170,000 attendees and more than 3,600 companies displaying their new products, the event was as hectic as ever. There was a big showing from all the major automotive manufacturers and supp... » read more

Display Landscape Heats Up At CES 2016


I was one of the 170,000+ people who attended the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month and thought I’d share some observations; first, about the consumer technologies on exhibit, and second, about the topic closest to my heart, displays. To learn what technologies were trending, you don’t need to look any further than Intel CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote speech. ... » read more

Predictions For 2016: Semiconductors, Manufacturing And Design


Seventeen companies sent in their predictions for this year with some of them sending predictions from several people. This is in addition to the CEO predictions that were recently published. That is a fine crop of views for the coming year, especially since they know that they will be held accountable for their views and this year, just like the last, they will have to answer for them. We beli... » read more

Overview Of Atomic Layer Etching In The Semiconductor Industry


Atomic layer etching (ALE) is a technique for removing thin layers of material using sequential reaction steps that are self-limiting. ALE has been studied in the laboratory for more than 25 years. Today, it is being driven by the semiconductor industry as an alternative to continuous etching and is viewed as an essential counterpart to atomic layer deposition. As we enter the era of atomic-sca... » read more

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