Chip Industry In Rapid Transition

By Ed Sperling - 09 Jan, 2019 - Comments: 0

Wally Rhines, CEO Emeritus at Mentor, a Siemens Business, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about global economics, AI, the growing emphasis on customization, and the impact of security and higher abstraction levels. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Where do you see the biggest changes happening across the chip industry? Rhines: 2018 was a hot year for fab... » read more

EDA, IP Show Strong Growth

By Ed Sperling - 07 Jan, 2019 - Comments: 0

EDA and IP revenue increased 6.7% worldwide in Q3 2018 to $2.44 billion, compared to $2.28 billion in the same period in 2017. The growth was fueled by rising investments in startups in AI and 5G, as well as a stampede of new and existing companies targeting automotive electrification and autonomous vehicles. While startup funding ultimately will run out as these new markets mature and cons... » read more

AI Market Ramps Everywhere

By Brian Bailey - 20 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has inspired the general populace, but its rapid rise over the past few years has given many people pause. From realistic concerns about robots taking over jobs to sci-fi scares about robots more intelligent than humans building ever smarter robots themselves, AI inspires plenty of angst. Within the technology industry, we have a better understanding about the pote... » read more

What Makes A Chip Design Successful Today?

By Brian Bailey - 13 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

"Transistors are free" was the rallying cry of the semiconductor industry during the 1990s and early 2000s. That is no longer true. The end of Dennard scaling made the simultaneous use of all the transistors troublesome, but transistors remained effectively unlimited. This led to an era where large amounts of flexibility could be built into a chip. It didn't matter if all of it was being use... » read more

The Cost Of Accuracy

By Brian Bailey - 13 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

How accurate does a system need to be, and what are you willing to pay for that accuracy? There are many sources of inaccuracy throughout the development flow of electronic systems, most of which involve complex tradeoffs. Inaccuracy leaves an impact on your design in ways you are not even aware of, hidden by best practices or guard-banding. EDA tools also inject some inaccuracy. As the i... » read more

Where Advanced Packaging Makes Sense

By Ed Sperling - 10 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Chenglin Liu, director of package engineering at Marvell; John Hunt, senior director of engineering at ASE; Eric Tosaya, senior director of package manufacturing at eSilicon; and Juan Rey, vice president of engineering for Calibre at Mentor, a Siemens Business. What follows are excerpts of that discussion, which was held in front of a live audience at MEP... » read more

Delivering Superior Throughput For EDA Verification Workloads

By Cadence - 28 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 0

Perhaps no industry is more competitive than modern electronics manufacturing and chip design. As consumers, we take it for granted that electronic devices continue to get faster, cheaper, and more capable with each generation. From smart watches to industrial controls to electronic heart-rate monitors, electronics manufacturers are challenged to build smarter, more complex devices leveraging s... » read more

Foundries Prepare For Battle At 22nm

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 0

After introducing new 22nm processes over the last year or two, foundries are gearing up the technology for production—and preparing for a showdown. GlobalFoundries, Intel, TSMC and UMC are developing and/or expanding their efforts at 22nm amid signs this node could generate substantial business for applications like automotive, IoT and wireless. But foundry customers face some tough choic... » read more

Layout Driven Design With L-Edit Photonics

By Mentor, a Siemens Business - 31 Oct, 2018 - Comments: 0

Advances in integrated circuit technology and fabrication have made it possible to leverage traditional CMOS fabrication processes and materials and apply them to the design of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). The combination of PICs with traditional electronic integrated circuits, called integrated photonics, is the ability to move, modulate, and detect light on a single IC. While there is... » read more

The Race To Design Larger Systems

By Ed Sperling - 25 Oct, 2018 - Comments: 0

For more than a decade, tools vendors and design houses have been talking about leveraging their tools and expertise to help design systems of systems. They're finally getting their chance. The basic idea behind this strategy has always been that issues inside any electronic system—performance, power, signal integrity, area—have all been dealt all the way down to the sub-atomic level in ... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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