category: Editor’s Note

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

New Starting Point
By Ed Sperling - 14 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

Debate has been raging for years about whether software or hardware should be the starting point for improving power and performance, or whether it should elevated another notch by fusing hardware and software into a system-level approach. Now, groups like Leti, IEEE, SEMI, and a number of researchers in leading universities around the globe are beginning to talk about moving the starting point... » read more

Performance First
By Ed Sperling - 16 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

Crank up the clock speed. It takes a lot more performance to run virtual reality smoothly, or to process data in the cloud, or to stream a high-definition video from a drone. And none of that compares to the amount of performance required to kill an array of disturbingly realistic zombies on a mobile device in conjunction with other players scattered around the globe. After several years of ... » read more

No More Straight Lines
By Ed Sperling - 12 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

Shrinking features on a chip is no longer the only way forward, and in an increasing number of designs and markets, it is no longer the best way forward. Power and performance are generally better dealt with using different architectures and microarchitectures, and all of those provide the potential to reduce silicon area (cost). Cramming more transistors on a die and working around leakage... » read more

It’s All About DRAM
By Ed Sperling - 14 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 4

For decades, the starting point for compute architectures was the processor. In the future, it likely will be the DRAM architecture. Dynamic random access memory always has played a big role in computing. Since IBM's Robert Dennard invented DRAM back in 1966, it has become the gold standard for off-chip memory. It's fast, cheap, reliable, and at least until about 20nm, it has scaled quite n... » read more

Is 2.5D Cheaper?
By Ed Sperling - 10 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

For the past several years, as 2.5D was being tested, the most common response from chipmakers and tools vendors was that the interposer used to connect various die in a package was far too expensive. It was basically the same argument as mask costs are rising too high to continue building complex planar SoCs at 16/14nm, or that FD-SOI is more expensive than bulk silicon at 28nm. The critici... » read more

Will 3D-IC Work?
By Ed Sperling - 11 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 3

Advanced packaging is becoming real on every level, from fan-outs to advanced fan-outs, 2.5D, and 3D-ICs for memory. But just how far 3D and monolithic 3D will go isn't clear at this point. The reason is almost entirely due to heat. In a speech at SEMI's Integrated Strategy Symposium in January, Babek Sabi, Intel corporate VP and director of assembly and test technology development, warned t... » read more

The Human Bottleneck
By Ed Sperling - 10 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

The history of semiconductor technology can be neatly summed up as a race to eliminate the next bottleneck. This is often done one process node at a time across an increasingly complex ecosystem. And it usually involves a high level of frustration, because the biggest problems stem from areas where engineering teams generally can't do anything about them. Concerns over the years have ranged ... » read more

Ecosystem Vs. Ecosystem
By Ed Sperling - 12 Nov, 2015 - Comments: 0

The massive consolidation that has been underway over the past couple years is about to slow down. Interest rates are expected to increase in the very near future—the Fed has been dropping hints about this for months—ending the era of cheap capital. The cost of borrowing already is creeping up in anticipation of this, and it's happening globally because money lending is a global industry. ... » read more

Bigger Standards Required
By Ed Sperling - 15 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

One of the great benefits of standards in the semiconductor world is that they make it easier to move forward and speed up technologies and markets—but not always. They are revered by semiconductor companies, despite the fact that they sometimes outlive their usefulness and need to be folded into other standards, and they are recognized as the best way to get things done across a complex, far... » read more

New Options For Power
By Ed Sperling - 10 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers have been talking for years about the next big breakthrough in battery technology, low-power architectures and energy harvesting. So far, none of them has made their job any easier. Batteries empty out too quickly, and the technology for improving the amount of energy that can be stored don't improve fast enough—or safely enough when they do show big improvements—to make a big... » read more

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