Foundry Capacity Is Limiting Who Competes At Leading Edge Nodes


Key Takeaways: Leading-edge node access is increasingly reserved for hyperscalers, squeezing smaller chip developers. Chiplets and advanced packaging offer a path forward, but raise cost, complexity, and risk — especially for smaller teams. Chip architecture is now driven as much by capacity, yield, and economics as by technical goals. The benefits of device scaling are sl... » read more

Solving Clock Signal Integrity And Jitter Issues


A recent blog post discussed the challenges of clock signal integrity and clock jitter in deep submicron semiconductor devices. Nice, clean clock signals are degraded due to many factors, including noise in the power delivery network (PDN). Timing variation due to clock jitter is also a serious issue, especially for chips operating at low voltage with high frequencies. The impact due to cloc... » read more

NoC Coherency Challenges Balloon With AI SoCs And Chiplets


Key Takeaways Data movement, congestion, and energy efficiency are key determiners of whether compute is usable. Different processors bring various coherency challenges. For example, a cache-coherent NoC for CPUs is expensive and harder to verify than an I/O-coherent NoC for an accelerator. Designers need to balance top-down performance with bottom-up physical engineering to effect... » read more

How Long Will CAN Stick Around As Rival Networks Speed Up?


Key Takeaways Automotive Ethernet is rapidly becoming the backbone of software-defined vehicles for higher bandwidth, scalability, and advanced features like TSN and security that legacy protocols cannot match. CAN, LIN, and other legacy networks will not disappear quickly because they are deeply embedded, low‑cost, and proven, but they are increasingly seen as inadequate for future A... » read more

Blog Review: Apr. 29


Synopsys' Madhumita Sanyal shows why interface IP has emerged as the keystone for building scalable, reliable 3D multi-die designs in which interconnects often have a greater influence on overall system capability than the peak performance of individual dies. Cadence's Frank Ferro checks out why SOCAMM2 built on LPDDR is being deployed in AI data centers, increasing memory bandwidth and capa... » read more

Building An AI Chip: Silicon Design And Advanced Packaging


AI has become a key driver for the semiconductor industry as it is applied to ever more aspects of daily life. Many startups and established vendors are designing AI chips to accelerate algorithms and yield the best results. AI designs are large and complex, requiring advanced process nodes and putting stress on every step of the development process. Multi-die, or chiplet-based, design is becom... » read more

When Semiconductor Materials Misbehave


Key Takeaways Material behavior in production depends on the process context that no development environment can fully replicate. In advanced packaging, the interactions that cross domain boundaries are increasingly where failures originate. The most accurate materials data is also the most commercially sensitive, leaving simulation models calibrated against generic inputs rather tha... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Deals Marvell acquired Polariton Technologies, a Swiss developer of plasmonics-based silicon photonics devices. Onto Innovation is partnering with Rigaku, combining Onto’s analysis software with Rigaku’s CD-SAXS platform for advanced semiconductor process control. Onto also agreed to acquire a 27% stake in Rigaku for about $710M. Tesla plans to use Intel’s 14A process for its T... » read more

Can Edge AI Keep Up?


Key Takeaways: Model development is outpacing silicon design cycles, so edge AI architectures must prioritize adaptability. The required cadence for model updates is highly application-dependent and is closely tied to product lifetime and operational risk. Adaptability can conflict with power, performance, and area targets, so effective heterogeneous architectures and robust softwa... » read more

Blog Review: Apr. 22


In a podcast, Siemens EDA's Harry Foster and Vladislav Palfy chat about why coverage closure has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern verification and how a unified approach that combines planning, automation, and analytics helps teams break through coverage plateaus. Synopsys' Emily Gerken and Marc Swinnen consider the challenges of designing analog and mixed-signal circuits at a... » read more

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