Si2 Leadership Change


Steve Schulz, who had been president and CEO of standards body Si2 for the past 12 years has resigned from the organization, Semiconductor Engineering learned today. He said he has thoroughly enjoyed the 12-1/2 years that he was with Si2 and is very, very proud of the successes from rebuilding it when he first joined and all of the growth the organization has had. “I still have a lot o... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 3


A viable silicon substitute A new study by UC Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) moves graphene a step closer to knocking silicon off as the dominant workhorse of the electronics industry. They reminded that while silicon is ubiquitous in semiconductors and integrated circuits, researchers have been eyeing graphene, a one-atom... » read more

Back To The Future


The push to the next process node typically has meant that designs get simpler at existing and older nodes because the process technology is more mature and there have been so many chips developed at those nodes—many billions of them—that every possible corner case has been encountered hundreds, if not thousands, of times. That all makes sense in theory, but several key things have chang... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers/Acquisitions Lattice Semiconductor agreed to pay $600 million for Silicon Image, which makes connectivity solutions for high-definition content for mobile and consumer electronics. Lattice already makes programmable connectivity solutions, so the combined IP portfolio is expected to strengthen its position in wired and wireless markets. Tools Cadence expanded the tool portfolio it ... » read more

Bigger Systems, Bigger Profits


Markets work in very mysterious ways. Technology that should be a slam dunk—think 2.5D with its promise of re-usable analog IP and faster performance, for example—are still hobbling along because no one wants to deal with the risk of a new architectural and manufacturing approach. They haven't even shown up yet in servers, where price is almost irrelevant. At the same time (no pun intended)... » read more

New Market Expectations For 2015


This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

First Look: 10nm


As the semiconductor industry begins grappling with mass production at 14/16nm process nodes, work is already underway at 10nm. Tools are qualified, IP is characterized, and the first test chips are being produced. It's still too early for production, of course—perhaps three years too early—but there is enough information being collected to draw at least some impressions about just how toug... » read more

Automotive System Design Challenges


The automotive semiconductor market did exceptionally well last year. IHS reported strong vehicle production growth and increased semiconductor content in 2014, and that trend is likely to continue with semiconductor revenue for the automotive segment to reach $31 billion this year, up from $29 billion last year. The market research company affirmed the fastest growing segments for automoti... » read more

Tools And Flows In 2015


This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

What Will 2015 Bring For System-On-Chip Verification?


Starting a new year, I always look back at predictions from years past to see how far off they were from reality and try to understand why. Rolling back 10 years, IEEE Spectrum published its annual “Winners and Losers” issue. Looking back, three predictions stick out for me. The first one is about how we consume media. Back in the January 2005 issue of IEEE Spectrum, Internet Protocol T... » read more

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