Preventing Failures Before They Occur


A decade or so ago, when MEMS sensors were in the limelight, one of the touted applications was to install them on industrial or other equipment to get an advance warning if the equipment was approaching failure. Today, in-circuit monitoring brings the same promise. Are these competing technologies? Or can they be made to work together? “Almost all advanced tool manufacturing companies ... » read more

Inspecting And Testing GaN Power Semis


As demand for new automotive battery electric vehicles (BEVs) heats up, automakers are looking for solutions to meet strict zero-defect goals in power semiconductors. Gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) wide-bandgap power semiconductors offer automakers a range of new EV solutions, but questions remain on how to meet the stringent quality goals of the automotive industry. Among t... » read more

Automotive Outlook: 2022


The auto industry is widening its focus this year, migrating to new architectures that embrace better security, faster data movement, and eventually more manageable costs. The auto industry is facing both short-term and long-term challenges. In the short term, the chip shortage continues to top the list of concerns for the world's automakers. That shortage has delayed new vehicle deliveries,... » read more

Making PUFs Even More Secure


As security has become a must-have in most systems, hardware roots of trust (HRoTs) have started appearing in many chips. Critical to an HRoT is the ability to authenticate and to create keys – ideally from a reliable source that is unviewable and immutable. “We see hardware roots of trust deployed in two use models — providing a foundation to securely start a system, and enabling a se... » read more

Manufacturing Shifts To AI Of Things


AI is being infused into the Internet of Things, setting the stage for significant improvements in manufacturing productivity, improved uptime, and reduced costs — regardless of market segment. The traditional approach to improving manufacturing equipment reliability and efficiency is regular scheduled maintenance. While that is an improvement over just fixing or replacing equipment when i... » read more

Expanding Advanced Packaging Production In The U.S.


The United States is taking the first steps toward bringing larger-scale IC packaging production capabilities back to the U.S. as supply chain concerns and trade tensions grow. The U.S. is among the leaders in developing packages, especially new and advanced forms of the technology that promise to shake up the semiconductor landscape. And while the U.S. has several packaging vendors, North A... » read more

Startup Funding: December 2021


Chinese startups dominated last month's fundraising, with companies from the country comprising about two-thirds of those covered in this report. In addition to the number of companies, startups from China also drew significant amounts of funding, with a display driver company and an EV battery maker each garnering around $1B and six more companies seeing rounds over $100M. Two particularly ... » read more

Domain-Specific Design Drives EDA Changes


The chip design ecosystem is beginning to pivot toward domain-specific architectures, setting off a scramble among tools vendors to simplify and optimize existing tools and methodologies. The move reflects a sharp slowdown in Moore's Law scaling as the best approach for improving performance and reducing power. In its place, chipmakers — which now includes systems companies — are pushing... » read more

Industry Transforming In Ways Previously Unimaginable


Early in the year, everyone expected that the availability of COVID vaccines would signal the start of a return to normal, but that has certainly not been the case. Now the industry is taking a longer-term view about how to transform business, what is necessary for people to maintain their mental health, and how to create robust hybrid work environments for the future that do not discard the po... » read more

Who Designs Medical ICs


The medical chip market is heating up as sensor and processing technologies reach maturity, seeing off a frenzy of activity by systems companies and startups looking to plant a stake in a vast and largely untapped arena. As with any industry, there are a variety of business models, which can spread out the design burden over many companies or just one large one. This was limited in the past ... » read more

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