The Week In Review: Manufacturing


This announcement could send some shock waves throughout the foundry business. For its baseband chips, Qualcomm uses several foundries, namely GlobalFoundries, Samsung and TSMC. Now, Qualcomm has another foundry partner. China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) says that it has fabricated Qualcomm’s 28nm Snapdragon 410 processors. Snapdragon 410 is a processor that int... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 17


Ansys' Bill Vandermark unearths the top five engineering articles for this week. Check out the ship-based laser weapon used to destroy drones. There's also a product called The Sphere that allows you to do strange things like answer the phone by tapping on the refrigerator. Bet you didn't think of that one. Cadence's Steve Carlson lists the top five things that can go wrong in mixed signal ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 16


Measuring electrons in silicon In what is believed to be a first, a team of physicists and chemists based at UC Berkeley, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich, Germany, the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and the Molecular Foundry at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has captured images of electrons breaking free of their atomic shells using attosecond pulse... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 16


Space DSA NASA's Physical Science Research Program is taking directed self-assembly (DSA) technology to new heights. On the International Space Station, astronauts are exploring the development of nanoparticles suspended in magnetorheolocial (MR) fluids. MR fluids, which are a new class of smart materials, self-assemble into shapes in the presence of a magnetic field. With the technology, r... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 16


High rise chip For decades, the mantra of the semiconductor industry has been ‘smaller, faster, cheaper.’ Stanford researchers are also adding ‘taller’ to the mix, and describing how to build high-rise chips that promise to leapfrog the performance of the single-story logic and memory chips on today's circuit cards. Stanford researchers said their approach would end the ‘logjams�... » read more

IBM, Intel And TSMC Roll Out finFETs


At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Franciso, IBM, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) this week will separately present the latest details of their respective 16nm/14nm finFET technologies. As expected, Intel and TSMC will continue to use bulk CMOS. IBM will continue to go with rival silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. At IEDM, Intel ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Intel and Royal Caribbean International teamed up to integrate Intel-powered tablets onboard the Quantum of the Seas, the world’s first “smartship.” Royal Caribbean is installing 15,000 Intel-based Dell Venue tablets at point-of-sale locations on the new ship. When will Applied Materials’ proposed acquisition of Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) happen? “Timing-wise we still think that it ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Cadence rolled out a use-case scenario verification tool that automates some test development that has been done manually in the past. The new tool accelerates development of software-driven tests and debug to ferret out complex SoC-level bugs. Cadence claims a 10X productivity improvement. Mentor Graphics uncorked a new version of its verification IP for PCI Express. The new IP decre... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 10


ARM's Brad Nemire takes a look at a variety of the latest smart devices. Check out the intelligent frying pan that tells you the temperature, the amount of time needed to cook something, and when it's done. Check out the "Homey," too. You can now give verbal commands to your home. Just don't tell it to roll over. Who needs paper? Or more accurately, who needs more than one sheet of paper—e... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 8


Progress report on EUV resists The development of resists is a key part of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. “EUV resists are production ready,” said Kevin Cummings, Sematech’s director of lithography. “However, through Sematech’s work with the resist suppliers, we have observed a deceleration in the rate of improvements. As a result, Sematech is working not only with the re... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →