Infrastructure Impacts Data Analytics


Semiconductor data analytics relies upon timely, error-free data from the manufacturing processes, but the IT infrastructure investment and engineering effort needed to deliver that data is, expensive, enormous, and still growing. The volume of data has ballooned at all points of data generation as equipment makers add more sensors into their tools, and as monitors are embedded into the chip... » read more

How Will Future Cars Interact With Humans?


Future automobiles may come with a set of controls very different from what we’re used to now. Mechanical knobs and switches already are being replaced by touchscreens, but that's just the beginning. There are a multitude of other possible ways in which drivers can interact with their vehicles, and the list is growing as technology drives down the cost of this new human-machine interface (... » read more

Using ICs To Shrink Auto’s Carbon Footprint


A large portion of the burden for reducing greenhouse gases is being handed off to makers of automotive chips and systems, which are being tasked to make vehicles drive further using less energy and with zero emissions. The effort is critical in battling climate change. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the transportation sector represented 28.2% of 2018 greenhouse gas e... » read more

Blockchain Attempts To Secure The Supply Chain


Blockchain technology is starting to be deployed more widely In the battle against counterfeiting, often coupled with component IDs to allow device authentication. Securing the supply chain is a complex challenge, particularly as more IP from more vendors in more locations makes its way into chips, packages or even systems. Being able to attest to the history of the device to prove its prove... » read more

Startup Funding: November 2020


Numerous chipmakers pulled in funding in November 2020, with investors putting money into interconnects, memories, AI hardware, and quantum computing. Launching from stealth was a startup aiming to combine AI and 5G. Autonomous delivery did well, too, with one company raising a massive $500M. This month, we take a look at 28 companies that raised a collective $1.1B. Semi & design Connec... » read more

MPU Vs. MCU


There was a time when microprocessors and microcontrollers were distinct devices. There was never a question as to which one you were dealing with. But changes in the memory architecture have muddied the distinction in modern devices. There are a number of ways in which microprocessors and microcontrollers could possibly be differentiated. But there is no universal agreement as to how that s... » read more

Forward And Backward Compatibility In IC Designs


Future-proofing of designs is becoming more difficult due to the accelerating pace of innovation in architectures, end markets, and technologies such as AI and machine learning. Traditional approaches for maintaining market share and analyzing what should be in the next rev of a product are falling by the wayside. They are being replaced by best-guesses about market trends and a need to bala... » read more

Security Gaps In Open Source Hardware And AI


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss security risks across multiple market segments with Helena Handschuh, security technologies fellow at Rambus; Mike Borza, principal security technologist for the Solutions Group at Synopsys; Steve Carlson, director of aerospace and defense solutions at Cadence; Alric Althoff, senior hardware security engineer at Tortuga Logic; and Joe Kiniry, princi... » read more

Silo Busting In The Design Flow


An increasing number of dependencies in system design are forcing companies, people, tools, and flows to become more collaborative. Design and EDA companies must adapt to this new reality because it has become impossible for anyone to do it all by themselves. Moreover, what happens in manufacturing and packaging needs to be considered up front, and what gets designed in the design phase may ... » read more

Using AI And Bugs To Find Other Bugs


Debug is starting to be rethought and retooled as chips become more complex and more tightly integrated into packages or other systems, particularly in safety- and mission-critical applications where life expectancy is significantly longer. Today, the predominant bug-finding approaches use the ubiquitous constrained random/coverage driven verification technology, or formal verification techn... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →