category: Top Stories

category: Auto, Security & Edge AI

Reflections On 2017: Manufacturing And Markets
By Brian Bailey - 28 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

People love to make predictions, and most of the time they have it easy, but at Semiconductor Engineering, we ask them to look back on the predictions they make each year and to assess how close to the mark they were. To see what they missed and what surprised them. Not everyone accepts our offer to grade themselves, but many have this year. This is the first of two parts that looks at the pred... » read more

Foundry Challenges in 2018
By Mark LaPedus - 27 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 6

The silicon foundry business is expected to see steady growth in 2018, but that growth will come with several challenges. On the leading edge, GlobalFoundries, Intel, Samsung and TSMC are migrating from the 16nm/14nm to the 10nm/7nm logic nodes. Intel already has encountered some difficulties, as the chip giant recently pushed out the volume ramp of its new 10nm process from the second half ... » read more

Is Verification Falling Behind?
By Brian Bailey - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Every year that [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] is in effect means that the [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] task gets larger and more complex. At one extreme, verification complexity increases at the square of design complexity, but that assumes that every state in the design is usable and unique. On the other hand, verification has not had the luxury that comes with design reuse b... » read more

Mixing Interface Protocols
By Ann Mutschler - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Continuous and pervasive connectivity requires devices to support multiple interface protocols, but that is creating problems at multiple levels because each protocol is based on a different set of assumptions. This is becoming significantly harder as systems become more heterogeneous and as more functions are crammed into those devices. There are more protocols that need to be supported to ... » read more

Custom Vs. Non-Custom Design
By Ed Sperling - 21 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss custom designs with Yong Pang, head of North American operations for [getentity id="22217" e_name="Imec"]; Phil Burr, director of portfolio product management for [getentity id="22186" e_name="Arm's"] embedded and automotive groups; Ambar Sarkar, chief technologist at eInfochips; and John Tinson, vice president of sales at Sondrel. What follows are ... » read more

The Trouble With Models
By Ed Sperling - 20 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Models are becoming more difficult to develop, integrate and utilize effectively at 10/7nm and beyond as design complexity, process variation and physical effects add to the number of variables that need to be taken into account. Modeling is a way of abstracting the complexity in various parts of the semiconductor design, and there can be dozens of models required for complex SoCs. Some are ... » read more

Will Fab Tool Boom Cycle Last?
By Mark LaPedus - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 2

Fab equipment spending is on pace for a record year in 2017, and it now appears that momentum could continue into 2018. Fab tool vendors found themselves in the midst of an unexpected boom cycle in 2017, thanks to enormous demand for equipment in [getkc id="208" comment="3D NAND"] and, to a lesser degree, [getkc id="93" kc_name="DRAM"]. In the logic/foundry business, however, equipment deman... » read more

The Next 5 Years Of Chip Technology
By Ed Sperling - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the future of scaling, the impact of variation, and the introduction of new materials and technologies, with Rick Gottscho, CTO of [getentity id="22820" comment="Lam Research"]; Mark Dougherty, vice president of advanced module engineering at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; David Shortt, technical fellow at [getentity id="22876" co... » read more

Chipmakers Look To New Materials
By Jeff Dorsch - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

Graphene, the wonder material rediscovered in 2004, and a host of other two-dimensional materials are gaining ground in manufacturing semiconductors as silicon’s usefulness begins to fade. And while there are a number of compounds in use already, such as gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, and silicon carbide, those materials generally are being confined to specific niche applications. Tran... » read more

Pushing DRAM’s Limits
By Kevin Fogarty - 14 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

If humans ever do create a genuinely self-aware artificial intelligence, it may well exhibit the frustration of waiting for data arrive. The access bandwidth of DRAM-based computer memory has improved by a factor of 20x over the past two decades. Capacity increased 128x during the same period. But latency improved only 1.3x, according to Kevin Chang, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon Universit... » read more

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