category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

True 3D-IC Problems
By Brian Bailey - 27 Apr, 2023 - Comments: 0

Placing logic on logic may sound like a small step, but several problems must be overcome to make it a reality. True 3D involves wafers stacked on top of each other in a highly integrated manner. This is very different from 2.5D integration, where logic is placed side-by-side, connected by an interposer. And there are some intermediate solutions today where significant memory is stacked on l... » read more

Designing For In-Circuit Monitors
By Ann Mutschler - 27 Apr, 2023 - Comments: 0

In every application space the semiconductor ecosystem touches, in-circuit monitors and sensors are playing an increasing role in silicon lifecycle management and concepts around reliability and resiliency — both during design as well as in the field. The combination of true system-level design, in/on-chip monitors, and improved data analysis are expected to drastically improve reliability... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2023
By Jesse Allen - 05 Apr, 2023 - Comments: 0

Funding was broadly spread between sectors in March, with automotive edging ahead thanks to a more than $100 million round for a company manufacturing electric, autonomous heavy commercial trucks for freight logistics. To keep up with the amount of information presented by cars and ADAS, several companies raised funds for head-up displays with increasing levels of detail and expanded fields of ... » read more

Mechanical Challenges Rise With Heterogeneous Integration
By Ed Sperling - 03 Apr, 2023 - Comments: 0

Companies integrating multiple chips or chiplets into a package will need to address structural and other mechanical engineering issues, but gaps in the design tools, new materials and interconnect technologies, and a shortage of expertise are making it difficult to address those issues. Throughout most of the history of the semiconductors, few people outside of foundries worried about struc... » read more

True 3D Is Much Tougher Than 2.5D
By Brian Bailey - 23 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

Creating real 3D designs is proving to be much more complex and difficult than 2.5D, requiring significant innovation in both technology and tools. While there has been much discussion about 3D designs, there are multiple interpretations about what 3D entails. This is more than just semantics, however, because each packaging option requires different design approaches and technologies. And a... » read more

The Race Toward Mixed-Foundry Chiplets
By Ann Mutschler - 23 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 1

Creating chiplets with as much flexibility as possible has captured the imagination of the semiconductor ecosystem, but how heterogeneous integration of chiplets from different foundries will play out remains unclear. Many companies in the semiconductor ecosystem are still figuring out how they will fit into this heterogeneous chiplet world and what issues they will need to solve. While near... » read more

Managing EDA’s Rapid Growth Expectations
By Brian Bailey - 23 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

The EDA industry has been doing very well recently, but how long this run will continue is a matter of debate. EDA is an industry ripe for disruption due to rapid changes in chip architectures, end markets, and a long list of new technologies. In addition, recent geopolitical tensions are bringing a lot more attention to this small sector upon which the whole semiconductor industry rests. De... » read more

Startup Funding: February 2023
By Jesse Allen - 08 Mar, 2023 - Comments: 0

The cost of borrowing is going up, but investors continued to pour money into the chip industry in February. Collectively, 132 companies raised more than $4.5 billion last month. One of the big beneficiaries was quantum computing, with nine companies drawing a total of more than $500 million. The bulk of that went to a quantum software and services company spun out of Alphabet, but plenty wa... » read more

How To Build Resilience Into Chips
By Ed Sperling and Ann Mutschler - 27 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

Disaggregating chips into specialized processors, memories, and architectures is becoming necessary for continued improvements in performance and power, but it's also contributing to unusual and often unpredictable errors in hardware that are extremely difficult to find. The sources of those errors can include anything from timing errors in a particular sequence, to gaps in bonds between chi... » read more

Taming Corner Explosion In Complex Chips
By Brian Bailey - 23 Feb, 2023 - Comments: 0

There is a tenuous balance between the number of corners a design team must consider, the cost of analysis, and the margins they insert to deal with them, but that tradeoff is becoming a lot more difficult. If too many corners of a chip are explored, it might never see production. If not enough corners are explored, it could reduce yield. And if too much margin is added, the device may not be c... » read more

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