category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

2023: A Good Year For Semiconductors
By Brian Bailey - 21 Dec, 2023 - Comments: 0

Looking back, 2023 has had more than its fair share of surprises, but who were the winners and losers? The good news is that by the end of the year, almost everyone was happy. That is not how we exited 2022, where there was overcapacity, inventories had built up in many parts of the industry, and few sectors — apart from data centers — were seeing much growth. The supposed new leaders we... » read more

AI Accelerator Architectures Poised For Big Changes
By Ann Mutschler - 04 Dec, 2023 - Comments: 5

AI is driving a frenzy of activity in the chip world as companies across the semiconductor ecosystem race to include AI in their product lineup. The challenge now is how to make AI run faster, use less energy, and to be able to leverage it from the edge to the data center — particularly with the rollout of large language models. On the hardware side, there are two main approaches for accel... » read more

System State Challenges Widen
By Brian Bailey - 30 Nov, 2023 - Comments: 0

Knowing the state of a system is essential for many analysis and debug tasks, but it's becoming more difficult in heterogeneous systems that are crammed with an increasing array of features. There is a limit as to how many things engineers can keep track of, and the complexity of today's systems extends far beyond that. Hierarchy and abstraction are used to help focus on the important aspect... » read more

EDA Pushes Deeper Into AI
By Karen Heyman - 30 Nov, 2023 - Comments: 0

EDA vendors are ramping up the use of AI/ML in their tools to help chipmakers and systems companies differentiate their products. In some cases, that means using AI to design AI chips, where the number and breadth of features and potential problems is exploding. What remains to be seen is how well these AI-designed chips behave over time, and where exactly AI benefits design teams. And all o... » read more

3D-ICs May Be The Least-Cost Option
By Brian Bailey - 30 Nov, 2023 - Comments: 1

When 2.5D and 3D packaging were first conceived, the general consensus was that only the largest semiconductor houses would be able to afford them, but development costs are quickly coming under control. In some cases, these advanced packages actually may turn out to be the lowest-cost options. With stacked die [1], each die is considered to be a complete functional block or sub-system. In t... » read more

What Will That Chip Cost?
By Brian Bailey - 30 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 1

In the past, analysts, consultants, and many other experts attempted to estimate the cost of a new chip implemented in the latest process technology. They concluded that by the 3nm node, only a few companies would be able to afford them — and by the time they got into the angstrom range, probably nobody would. Much has changed over the past few process nodes. Increasing numbers of startups... » read more

Anatomy Of A System Simulation
By Brian Bailey - 26 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry has greatly simplified analysis by consolidating around a small number of models and abstractions, but that capability is breaking down both at the implementation level and at the system level. Today, the biggest pressure is coming from the systems industry, where the electronic content is a small fraction of what must be integrated together. Systems companies tend... » read more

Rethinking Design, Workflow For 3D
By Karen Heyman - 26 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 0

In the 3D world, where NAND has hundreds of layers and packages come in intricate stacks, fresh graduates and veteran engineers alike are being confronted with design challenges that require a rethinking of both classic designs and traditional workflows, but without breaking the laws of physics. “There are pockets of things that have been on 3D for quite some time,” said Kenneth Larson, ... » read more

Making Connections In 3D Heterogeneous Integration
By Ann Mutschler - 26 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 0

Activity around 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI) is heating up, driven by growing support from governments, the need to add more features and compute elements into systems, and a widespread recognition that there are better paths forward than packing everything into a single SoC at the same process node. The leading edge of chip design has changed dramatically over the last few years. Int... » read more

Navigating EDA Vendor Cloud Options
By Ann Mutschler - 25 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the challenges of cost-dependent cloud decisions, and how to navigate between different EDA vendor clouds options with Philip Steinke, fellow, CAD infrastructure and physical design at AMD; Mahesh Turaga, vice president of business development for cloud at Cadence Design Systems; Richard Ho, vice president hardware engineering ... » read more

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