Problems Ahead For EDA


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with [getperson id="11411" comment="Bill Neifert"], chief technology officer at [getentity id="22521" comment="Carbon Design Systems"]; [getperson id="11032" comment="Simon Davidmann”], chief executive officer for [getentity id="22036" e_name="Imperas”]; Randy Smith, vice president of marketing for [getentity id="22605" e_name="Sonics"] and Michel Courtoy,... » read more

The End Of Silicon?


As transistors shrink, not all device parameters scale at the same rate—and therein lies a potentially huge problem. In recent years, manufacturers have been able to reduce equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) more quickly than operating voltage. As a result, the electric field present in the channel and gate dielectric has been increasing. Moreover, EOT reduction is achieved in part by reduci... » read more

FD-SOI Vs. FinFETs


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to compare the benefits, risks and challenges of moving to finFETs compared with fully depleted silicon on insulator ([getkc id="220" kc_name="FD-SOI"]) with Philippe Magarshack, group vice president for technology R&D at [getentity id="22331" comment="STMicroelectronics"]; Marco Brambilla, director of engineering at [getentity id="22150" e_name="Synapse D... » read more

One-On-One: Dark Possibilities


Professor Michael Taylor’s research group at UC San Diego is studying ways to exploit dark silicon to optimize circuit designs for energy efficiency. He spoke with Semiconductor Engineering about the post-Dennard scaling regime, energy efficiency from integrated circuits all the way up to data centers, and how the manufacturing side can help. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (P... » read more

Analysis: Applied-TEL Scrap Merger


After several delays due to a myriad of complex regulatory issues, Applied Materials’ proposed deal to buy Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) has been scrapped. It appears that the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) stepped in and blocked the deal. Now that the deal has been terminated, Applied Materials and TEL are separately re-grouping, and are back to where they originally started as fierce compe... » read more

Problems Ahead For EDA


You may have discovered that the Semiconductor Engineering Knowledge Center (KC) provides various ways in which data can be viewed. One way is to see what events happened in a given year. During the 1990s, company activity in terms of new startups and acquisitions reached a peak, and in 1997 there were at least 29 startups that the KC contains and 25 companies acquired (let us know if there wer... » read more

What Not To Verify


It is well understood that [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] is all about mitigating and managing risk, and success here begins with a good verification planning process. During the planning process, the project team creates a list of specific design functions and use cases that must be verified—and they identify the technique used to verify each specific item on the list. That list c... » read more

What EDA’s Big 3 Think Now


In the past two months the CEOs of Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics delivered their annual high-level messages to their respective user groups. Semiconductor Engineering attended all of the speeches at these conferences, as it did in 2014 (see story here). From a high level, the big issues for CEOs last year were Moore's Law, the costs of design, the impact of low power, and business-... » read more

Is Art Acceptable In Verification?


The industry appears to have accepted that [getkc id="10" kc_name="verification"] involves art as well as science. This is usually based on one of three reasons, namely: the problem is large and complex; there is a lack of understanding and tools that enable it to be automated; and if it could be made a science, all of the jobs would have migrated offshore. Today, designs are built from pre-... » read more

Pressure Builds To Revamp The Design Flow


Without [getkc id="7" kc_name="EDA"] there would be no [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] as we know it today, and without Moore's Law there would be a much more limited need for EDA. But after more than three decades of developing design flows packed with sophisticated tools to automate semiconductor design through verification, and thereby enable feature shrinks that are the basis of Moore... » read more

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