Locking Down The Chip


The push toward securing chips is complicated by the amount of third-party IP that is being used inside of today’s complex SoCs. This has cast new light on the potential for on-chip networks to also function in securing signals that flow through those networks. This becomes particularly important with the Internet of Things, because the source of those signals isn’t always obvious to the... » read more

R-FPGA Security Risks


Configurable chips have been around for a long time. Modern FPGAs, E/EEPROMS and other types of programmable memory have allowed us some flexibility in changing chip functionality in the field. But really, this is static reprogramming and requires a process and procedure. Moreover, it needs to done by knowledgeable programmers, either on site or remotely. But the fact remains that field re-prog... » read more

Next Bonanza: Security Holes


Security threats—both real and potential—are beginning to reshape the semiconductor business. These threats are drawing venture capitalists back into the industry as they race for the next big opportunity. They are blurring the lines between software and hardware, as threats grow in complexity at every level of a device and its myriad and sometimes perpetual connections to the outside wo... » read more

Threat Intelligence


The new buzz phrase in security is threat intelligence, a pre-emptive approach that combines forward-thinking, real-time awareness with both reactive and pre-emptive threat analysis philosophies. “The principle purpose of threat intelligence is to inform decision making and mitigate risk,” says Adam Vincent, Founder, and CEO of Cyber Squared, in Arlington, Va. While specific definitions ... » read more

Programmable Risk Factors


The semiconductor industry is starting to come around to the realization that security begins at the block level. Intellectual property (IP) is being seen with IP blocks that can be woven into the general-purpose system-on-chip (SoC) hardware layers to secure I/O, data, keys, and various other sensitive or critical information. But modifying hardware designs in response to the demands placed... » read more

The Next Big Threat: AI Malware


It’s an understatement to say that today’s cyber adversaries and cyber threats are reaching unparalleled levels of sophistication. Malevolent entries and their creators have, and will continue to, devise über-complex malware that will seem to take on an intelligence of its own. In fact, artificially intelligent malware is coming to a system near you. The ability of threats to morph, on ... » read more

DFM And Multipatterning


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss DFM at advanced nodes with Kuang-Kuo Lin, director of foundry design enablement at Samsung Electronics; Jongwook Kye, lithography modeling and architecture fellow at GlobalFoundries; David Abercrombie, advanced physical verification methodology program manager at Mentor Graphics; Ya-Chieh Lai, engineering director for DFM/CLS silicon signoff and ver... » read more

Not All Qubits Are Small


While diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers offer one attractive implementation of quantum qubits, many other systems have been proposed. In theory, at least, any system with clearly identifiable quantum states can serve the purpose. The challenge lies in finding a system in which those states can be manipulated and measured by external forces and can be fabricated in large enough numbers for practi... » read more

Moore’s Law Tail No Longer Wagging The Dog


In a recent special report titled “Will 7nm and 5nm really happen?” Semiconductor Engineering outlined the progress being made for new production nodes and the progress being made to overcome the technological challenges that they contain. But who are the likely candidates for those new nodes and who is going to pay for their development, including the EDA tools that will be necessary to ut... » read more

Asynchronous Is Mostly Academic


There are a number of interesting technologies to keep an eye on in term of how and when they could be adopted for use in SoC design today, some of which include gallium arsenide, GPGPUs, 3D ICs and asynchronous logic. Asynchronous logic promises a number of benefits in some specific application areas, and one that buoys to the surface for potential near-term use is in the area of security a... » read more

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