Power Delivery Challenges For AI Chips


As artificial intelligence (AI) workloads grow larger and more complex, the various processing elements being developed to process all that data are demanding unprecedented levels of power. But delivering this power efficiently and reliably, without degrading signal integrity or introducing thermal bottlenecks, has created some of the toughest design and manufacturing challenges in semiconducto... » read more

Physics Limits Interposer Line Lengths


Electrical interposers provide a convenient surface for mounting multiple chips within a single package, but even though interposer lines theoretically can be routed anywhere, insertion losses limit their practical length. Lines on interposers — and on silicon interposers in particular — can be exceedingly narrow. Having a small cross-section makes such lines resistive, degrading signals... » read more

Are Larger Reticle Sizes On The Horizon?


Making high-NA EUV lithography work will take a manufacturing-worthy approach to stitching together circuits or a wholesale change to larger masks. Circuit stitching between the exposure fields is challenging the design, yield and manufacturability of the high-NA (0.55) EUV transition. The alternative is a radical change from 6x6-inch to 6x11-inch masks that would eliminate stitching, but re... » read more

Can You Build A Known-Good Multi-Die System?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the challenges of designing and testing multi-die systems, including how to ensure they will work as expected, with Bill Mullen, Ansys fellow; John Ferguson, senior director of product management at Siemens EDA; Chris Mueth, senior director of new markets and strategic initiatives at Keysight; Albert Zeng, senior engineering group director at Cadenc... » read more

Photomask Changes And Challenges At Mature And Advanced Nodes


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the current state and future direction of mask-making, with Harry Levinson, principal lithographer at HJL Lithography; Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S; Ezequiel Russell, senior director of mask technology at Micron; and Christopher Progler, executive vice president and CTO at Photronics. What follows are excerpts of that conversation.... » read more

RISC-V’s Increasing Influence


The industry is increasingly talking about benefits brought by the RISC-V architecture, but is it even the right starting point? While it may not be perfect, it may provide the flexibility necessary to move forward gradually. Computer architectures and software have followed in the footsteps of processors developed 80 years ago. They aimed to solve sequential, scalar arithmetic problems usin... » read more

Multi-Die Assemblies Complicate Parasitic Extraction


The shift from planar designs to multi-die assemblies with complex interconnects is transforming what had become almost an afterthought in the design process into a first-order challenge. Parasitics include things like inductance, capacitance, and resistance, which have become more problematic at advanced nodes due to increasing logic density, thinner interconnects and insulators, and a spik... » read more

Challenges In Using Sub-7nm ICs In Automotive


The automotive industry is producing vehicles with increasing levels of real-time decision-making, enabled by thousands of ICs, sensors, and multi-chip packages, but making sure these systems work flawlessly throughout their expected lifetimes is a growing challenge. Automotive chips traditionally were developed at mature process nodes in five- to seven-year cycles, but much has changed over... » read more

High-Quality Data Needed To Better Utilize Fab Data Streams


Fab operations have wrestled with big data management issues for decades. Standards help, but only if sufficient attention to detail is taken during collection. Semiconductor wafer manufaFcturing represents one of the most complex manufacturing processes in the world. With each generation of process improvement comes more sophisticated fab equipment, new process recipes, and exponential incr... » read more

How Secure Are Analog Circuits?


The move toward multi-die assemblies and the increasing value of sensor data at the edge are beginning to focus attention and raise questions about security in analog circuits. In most SoC designs today, security is almost entirely a digital concern. Security requirements in digital circuits are well understood, particularly in large data centers and at the upper end of edge computing, which... » read more

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