category: Top Stories

category: Auto, Security & Edge AI

Managing ALD Effluent
By Katherine Derbyshire - 31 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Process designers tend to not think very much about the waste gases from their processes. The chamber exhaust sends the effluent gases to the fab scrubbers, and that is pretty much that. Except when it’s not. It turns out that the design of the ALD process can make life significantly more challenging for the chamber exhaust pumps. In atomic layer deposition, the first precursor gas, su... » read more

What Cognitive Computing Means For Chip Design
By Ann Mutschler - 30 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 1

Cognitive computing. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. All of these are concepts aim to make human types of problems computable, whether it be a self-driving car, a health care-providing robot, or a walking and talking assistant robot for the home or office. R&D teams around the world are working to create a whole new world of machines more intelligent than humans. Designing sys... » read more

Planes, Cars, And Lagging Standards
By Ed Sperling - 28 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Automotive and aerospace standards are struggling to adapt to pervasive connectivity, increased functionality, and new packaging approaches and architectures, leaving chipmakers and systems vendors unsure about what needs to be included in future designs. Each of these markets has a reputation for being lumbering and unresponsive, in part because they deal with safety-critical issues and i... » read more

Pain Points At 7nm
By Ed Sperling - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 3

Early work has begun on 7nm. Process technology has progressed to the point where IP and tools are being qualified. There is still a long way to go. But as companies begin engaging with foundries on this process node—[getentity id="22586" comment="TSMC"] is talking publicly about it, but [getentity id="22846" e_name="Intel"], [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"] and [getentity ... » read more

A Formal Transformation
By Brian Bailey - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

A very important change is underway in functional verification. In the past, this was an esoteric technology and one that was difficult to deploy. It was relegated to tough problems late in the verification cycle, and it was difficult to justify the ROI unless the technology actually did find some problems. But all of that has changed. Formal verification companies started to use the technology... » read more

Coherency, Cache And Configurability
By Ann Mutschler - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Coherency is gaining traction across a wide spectrum of applications as systems vendors begin leveraging heterogeneous computing to improve performance, minimize power, and simplify software development. Coherency is not a new concept, but making it easier to apply has always been a challenge. This is why it has largely been relegated to CPUs with identical processor cores. But the approach ... » read more

Are Simulation’s Days Numbered?
By Brian Bailey - 24 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

In the latest EDAC report, the value of IP surpassed the value of CAE tools for the first time. Verification tools are an important part of establishing confidence in IP blocks and simulation has been the mainstay of that IP verification strategy. But simulation is under increasing pressure, particularly for full-chip and SoC verification, because it has failed to scale. While it still remains ... » read more

EUV Resists Move Forward
By Katherine Derbyshire - 23 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Improvements in EUV exposure sources and exposure tools are shifting the industry’s focus to other components of the lithography process. As noted last year, one of the key areas is photoresists. But advanced photoresists face significant challenges, due to the need to balance sensitivity, etch selectivity, and resolution. This year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography conference featured promis... » read more

How Many Cores? (Part 2)
By Ed Sperling - 21 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 1

New chip architectures and new packaging options—including fan-outs and 2.5D—are changing basic design considerations for how many cores are needed, what they are used for, and how to solve some increasingly troublesome bottlenecks. As reported in part one, just adding more cores doesn't necessarily improve performance, and adding the wrong size or kinds of cores wastes power. That has s... » read more

Multi-Beam Market Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus - 17 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 3

The multi-beam e-beam mask writer business is heating up, as Intel and NuFlare have separately entered the emerging market. In one surprising move, [getentity id="22846" e_name="Intel"] is in the process of acquiring IMS Nanofabrication, a [gettech id="31058" t_name="multi-beam e-beam"] equipment vendor. And separately, e-beam giant NuFlare recently disclosed its new multi-beam mask writer t... » read more

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