What Just Happened?

By Brian Fuller - 12 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

Boy that went by fast. One minute, I’m waking up a little groggy on New Year’s Day, wondering whether the silicon industry is ever going to rebound. The next minute, it’s today and the industry had a good year, and is, in many ways, a completely different animal than it was 12 months ago. Innovation is evolutionary, sure. But if you really think about 2013, you can make an argument tha... » read more

Crunch Time

By Brian Fuller - 14 Nov, 2013 - Comments: 0

The electronics industry finds itself today at a tipping point (well, okay, another tipping point). Consider: The network as we’ve known it for a couple of generations is changing before our eyes, not the least of which to accommodate the expected explosion of Internet of Things in the coming years. ARM CEO Simon Segars put it this way at the recent ARM TechCon event in Santa Clara: ... » read more

The “Last Simple Node” And the Internet of Things

By Brian Fuller - 17 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

Power, performance and size are key targets that will enable the expected explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT). Today, most observers see the path to that running directly through 16/14nm finFET and below for the node’s ability to manage power and size and boost integration. Geoff Lees isn’t your average observer. The vice president and general manager of Freescale’s microcon... » read more

Can the EDA Software Industry Evolve Successfully?

By Brian Fuller - 09 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

The most fundamental industry question of the moment is uncomfortably simple: Can EDA move beyond itself? Industry growth is sluggish, and innovation via startups seems—seems because that’s a flabby statement—static today. Cadence CEO and venture capitalist Lip-bu Tan put it plainly in an interview: “If you look at the bigger picture, the semiconductor industry has not grown for ... » read more

Should EDA Heads Be In The Cloud?

By Brian Fuller - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

Consider the following two comments about cloud computing and electronic design automation: “Over time everybody will move to the cloud in EDA at least in some extent.”—Raik Brinkmann, CEO of OneSpin Solutions. “We put a substantial effort into that, and of all the things we've done in the last 25 years this is probably the single one where the result is essentially zero. I don't ... » read more

Semiconductor Memory Aids

By Brian Fuller - 15 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Brian Fuller It's not hard to forget that semiconductor memory remains one of the most relentless challenges in system design. It sometimes doesn’t get the ink that sexier semiconductor design topics do, but it’s there. Always. Twenty years ago this year, University of Virginia computer scientists William Wulf and Sally McKee published a paper that popularized the term semiconductor ... » read more

The New Hybrid World: Vision And Reality

By Brian Fuller - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

SAN FRANCISCO—You know the famous scene from the movie “The Graduate,” in which a young Dustin Hoffman is offered investment advice by a businessman. “I want to say just one word to you…just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.” Today, Hoffman’s character Benjamin Braddock might hear two words: “Integrated objects.” At least that’s how Ross Bringans from PARC sees... » read more

Deja Vu All Over Again

By Brian Fuller - 19 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Brian Fuller I’m sure you’ve had that experience, at least once in your life, where you’re walking down the street, you pass someone and think, “Where do I know that guy from? Looks soooo familiar….” Well, here in this spot, I’m that guy. You’re looking at that incredibly sincere mug shot nearby and thinking, “Where do I know that guy from? Didn’t he sell me a really ... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

NAND Flash Targets 1,000 Layers

New techniques go beyond improved deposition and etching, but challenges stack up, too.

by Bryon Moyer

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

Hot Chips 24: Large language models ratchet up pressure for sustainable computing and heterogeneous integration; data management becomes key differentiator.