Aging In Advanced Nodes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss design reliability and circuit aging with João Geada, chief technologist for the semiconductor business unit at ANSYS; Hany Elhak, product management director, simulation and characterization in the custom IC and PCB group at Cadence; Christoph Sohrmann, advanced physical verification at Fraunhofer EAS; Magdy Abadir, vice president of marketing at ... » read more

Enabling Cheaper Design


While the EDA industry tends to focus on cutting edge designs, where design costs are a minor portion of the total cost of product, the electronics industry has a very long tail. The further along the tail you go, the more significant design costs become as a percent of total cost. Many of those designs are traditionally built using standard parts, such as microcontrollers, but as additional... » read more

Process Corner Explosion


The number of corners that need to be checked is exploding at 7nm and below, fueled by everything from temperature and voltage to changes in metal. Lowering risk and increasing predictability of an SoC at those nodes starts with understanding what will happen when a design is manufactured on a particular foundry process, captured in process corners. This is basically a way of modeling what i... » read more

Minimizing Chip Aging Effects


Aging kills semiconductors, and it is a growing problem for an increasing number of semiconductor applications—especially as they migrate to more advanced nodes. Additional analysis and prevention methods are becoming necessary for safety critical applications. While some aspects of aging can be mitigated up front, others are tied to the operation of the device. What can an engineering tea... » read more

People Vs. Self-Driving Cars


If you’re a screenwriter—or a car salesman—you’re already thinking of ways to write non-sci-fi self-driving cars into a movie script. Automobiles have been integral to the plots of gritty noir crime movies, heist flicks, romantic comedies, and obviously, road movies. What's clear is the self-driving car won’t be the ideal getaway vehicle anymore, particularly if there is no steerin... » read more

Intel’s Next Move


Gadi Singer, vice president and general manager of Intel's Artificial Intelligence Products Group, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about Intel's vision for deep learning and why the company is looking well beyond the x86 architecture and one-chip solutions. SE: What's changing on the processor side? Singer: The biggest change is the addition of deep learning and neural ne... » read more

The Race To Zero Defects


By Jeff Dorsch and Ed Sperling Testing chips is becoming more difficult, more time-consuming, and much more critical—particularly as these chips end up in cars, industrial automation, and a variety of edge devices. Now the question is how to provide enough test coverage to ensure that chips will work as expected without slowing down the manufacturing process or driving up costs. Balanci... » read more

Cobalt Shortages Ahead


Rapid growth of electric vehicles is creating an enormous demand for cobalt, causing tight supply, high prices and supply chain issues for this critical material. Cobalt is a ferromagnetic metal and one of the key materials used in lithium-ion batteries for cell phones, notebook PCs, battery-electric cars and hybrids. It also is used in alloys and semiconductors. And while the IC industry co... » read more

Sorting Out Packaging Options


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss advanced packaging with David Butler, executive vice president and general manager of SPTS Technologies; Ingu Yin Chang, senior vice president president at ASE Group; Hubert Karl Lakner, executive director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems; Robert Lo, division director for electronics and optoelectronics research at Industrial Te... » read more

Cracking The Auto IC Market


The market for automotive electronics is booming, and it has set off a global scramble among established chipmakers and startups. What's becoming clear, though, is that not everyone understands just how different automotive is from the mobile market. Mobile is still the highest-volume market for semiconductors, but the growth has flattened. In contrast, the value of the automotive electronic... » read more

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