New Uses For Assertions


Assertions have been a staple in formal verification for years. Now they are being examined to see what else they can be used for, and the list is growing. Traditionally, design and verification engineers have used assertions in specific ways. First, there are assertions for formal verification, which are used by designers to show when something is wrong. Those assertions help to pinpoint wh... » read more

Productivity Keeping Pace With Complexity


Designs have become larger and more complex and yet design time has shortened, but team sizes remain essentially flat. Does this show that productivity is keeping pace with complexity for everyone? The answer appears to be yes, at least for now, for a multitude of reasons. More design and IP reuse is using more and larger IP blocks and subsystems. In addition, the tools are improving, and mo... » read more

RISC-V: What’s Missing And Who’s Competing


Part 2: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the business and technology landscape for RISC-V with Zdenek Prikryl, CTO of Codasip; Helena Handschuh, a Rambus Security Technologies fellow; Louie De Luna, director of marketing at Aldec; Shubhodeep Roy Choudhury, CEO of Valtrix Systems; and Bipul Talukdar, North America director of applications engineering at SmartDV. What follows are exc... » read more

DRAM, 3D NAND Face New Challenges


It’s been a topsy-turvy period for the memory market, and it's not over. So far in 2020, demand has been slightly better than expected for the two main memory types — 3D NAND and DRAM. But now there is some uncertainty in the market amid a slowdown, inventory issues and an ongoing trade war. In addition, the 3D NAND market is moving toward a new technology generation, but some are enc... » read more

Industry Pushes For Fab Tool Security Standards


The semiconductor industry is developing new cybersecurity standards for fab equipment in an effort to protect systems from potential cyberattacks, viruses, and IP theft. Two new standards are in the works, which are being formulated under the auspices of the SEMI trade group with leadership from chipmakers and others. Led by Intel and Cimetrix, the first standard deals with malware-free equ... » read more

Momentum Builds For Advanced Packaging


The semiconductor industry is stepping up its efforts in advanced packaging, an approach that is becoming more widespread with new and complex chip designs. Foundries, OSATs and others are rolling out the next wave of advanced packaging technologies, such as 2.5D/3D, chiplets and fan-out, and they are developing more exotic packaging technologies that promise to improve performance, reduce p... » read more

Neural Networks Without Matrix Math


The challenge of speeding up AI systems typically means adding more processing elements and pruning the algorithms, but those approaches aren't the only path forward. Almost all commercial machine learning applications depend on artificial neural networks, which are trained using large datasets with a back-propagation algorithm. The network first analyzes a training example, typically assign... » read more

Custom Designs, Custom Problems


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

Moov: Used Equipment Digital Marketplace


Most startups in the tech world are done by engineers or scientists. The idea behind Moov, a platform for buying and selling used equipment, is the brainchild of investment bankers. In effect, Moov has built a futures platform for semiconductor manufacturing equipment, with prices updated every few minutes from all over the world. "The basic idea is that every few years, companies upgrade... » read more

Integrity Problems For Edge Devices


Battery-powered edge devices need to save every picojoule of energy they can, which often means running at very low voltages. This can create signal and power integrity issues normally seen at the very latest technology nodes. But because these tend to be lower-volume, lower-cost devices, developers often cannot afford to perform the same level of analysis on these devices. Noise can come in... » read more

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