The Growing Materials Challenge


By Katherine Derbyshire & Ed Sperling Materials have emerged as a growing challenge across the semiconductor supply chain, as chips continue to scale, or as they are utilized in new devices such as sensors for AI or machine learning systems. Engineered materials are no longer optional at advanced nodes. They are now a requirement, and the amount of new material content in chips contin... » read more

Extending The IC Roadmap


An Steegen, executive vice president of semiconductor technology and systems at Imec, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss IC scaling and chip packaging. Imec is working on next-generation transistors, but it is also developing several new technologies for IC packaging, such as a proprietary silicon bridge, a cooling technology and packaging modules. What follows are excerpts of t... » read more

Tech Talk: 5G Everywhere


Sarah Yost, senior product marketing manager at National Instruments, talks about the promise of 5G, where it works and where it doesn’t work, and why it’s so critical for so many different markets. https://youtu.be/CzxdrrhSvGY » read more

Hardware Acceleration With eFPGAs


If integrating an embedded FPGA (eFPGA) into your ASIC or SoC design strikes you as odd, it shouldn’t. ICs have been absorbing almost every component on a circuit board for decades, starting with transistors, resistors, and capacitors –– then progressing to gates, ALUs, microprocessors, and memories. FPGAs are simply one more useful component in the tool box, available for decades and ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Cleanliness is a good thing. In the fab, it's also a very profitable thing. According to a report from Research and Markets, the wafer cleaning systems market will grow more than 6%. The research house notes, however, that the rate of growth is slowing. GlobalFoundries began volume production of its 180nm ultra-high-voltage process for industrial and power applications. The base platform sta... » read more

CEO Outlook On Chip Industry (Part 1)


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor, a Siemens Business; Simon Segars, CEO of Arm; Grant Pierce, CEO of Sonics; and Dean Drako, CEO of IC Manage. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. L-R: Dean Drako, Grant Pierce, Wally Rhines, Simon Segars. Photo: Paul Cohen/ESD Alliance SE: What are the big changes ahead, and where do you see th... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT


Conferences Keynote highlights from the Internet of Things World 2018 conference: “Safety is the most important thing,” said Russ Benson, vice president of IT product systems at Boeing; “It’s all about data,” said Juan Perez, chief information officer and chief engineering officer of UPS; “Semiconductors accelerate IoT growth,” said Tony Keirouz, vice president of IoT strategy, e... » read more

The Power Of De-Integration


The idea that more functionality can be added into a single chip, or even into a single system, is falling out of vogue. For an increasing number of applications, it's no longer considered the best option for boosting performance or lowering power, and it costs too much. Hooman Moshar, vice president of engineering at Broadcom, said in a keynote speech at Mentor's User2User conference this w... » read more

RF SOI Wars Begin


Several foundries are expanding their fab capacities for RF SOI processes amid huge demand and shortages of this technology for smartphones. A number of foundries are increasing their 200mm RF SOI fab capacities to meet soaring demand. Then, GlobalFoundries, TowerJazz, TSMC and UMC are expanding or bringing up RF SOI processes in 300mm fabs in an apparent race to garner the first wave of RF ... » read more

How 5G Differs From Previous Network Technologies


The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain is the wireless industry’s leading annual event, and this year’s edition in late February was buzzing with talk of 5G wireless technology and its evolving uses and technology requirements. First, Gregg Bartlett and Dr. Bami Bastani, Sr. Vice Presidents of GlobalFoundries' CMOS and RF business units, respectively, outlined 5G-related semico... » read more

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