The Big Blur


Chip companies, research houses, foundries—and more recently large systems companies—have been developing alternative technologies to continue scaling power and performance. It's still not obvious which of those will win, let alone survive, or what they will do to the economics of developing chips. For more than five decades, the biggest concern was scaling devices in order to save money... » read more

Auto Chip Design, Test Changes Ahead


The automotive industry’s unceasing demand for performance, coupled with larger and more complex processors, are driving broad changes in how electronics are designed, verified and tested. What's changing is that these systems, which include AI-oriented logic developed at the most advanced process nodes, need to last several times longer than traditional IT and consumer devices, and they n... » read more

Enabling Device Intelligence


The explosive growth in silicon and software for artificial intelligence applications is transforming everything we know about connectivity, energy-efficiency, mobility, and security. Machine learning (ML) techniques are already used in computer vision, object recognition, speech recognition, and big data analytics. Deep learning (DL) algorithms and neural networks are pushing both silicon and ... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things NXP Semiconductors provided its A71CH trust anchor to Google IoT Cloud, enabling authentication for Google IoT Cloud Core. The technology helps to secure edge devices for Internet of Things deployments. Separately, NXP announced the promotion of Kurt Sievers, executive vice president and general manager of the chip company’s automotive business, to president of NXP Semicon... » read more

The Security Penalty


It's not clear if Meltdown, Spectre and Foreshadow caused actual security breaches, but they did prompt big processor vendors like Intel, Arm, AMD and IBM to fix these vulnerabilities before they were made public by Google's Project Zero. While all of this may make data center managers and consumers feel better in one respect, it has created a level of panic of a different sort. For decades,... » read more

Is Your AI SoC Secure?


As artificial intelligence (AI) enters every application, from IoT to automotive, it is bringing new waves of innovation and business models, along with the need for high-grade security. Hackers try to exploit vulnerabilities at all levels of the system, from the system-on-chip (SoC) up. Therefore, security needs to be integral in the AI process. The protection of AI systems, their data, and th... » read more

AI’s Long-Term Impact


Artificial intelligence technology will have a significant impact on the world’s economy in the months and years ahead, the McKinsey Global Institute forecasts in a new report. Certain companies and some countries will greatly benefit in the new era of AI, leaving others behind, the business and economics research arm of McKinsey & Co. predicts. The key takeaway points of the report: ... » read more

Intel’s Next Move


Gadi Singer, vice president and general manager of Intel's Artificial Intelligence Products Group, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about Intel's vision for deep learning and why the company is looking well beyond the x86 architecture and one-chip solutions. SE: What's changing on the processor side? Singer: The biggest change is the addition of deep learning and neural ne... » read more

Intel Buys NetSpeed for NoC, Fabric IP


Intel acquired NetSpeed Systems, taking in network-on-a-chip and interconnect fabric intellectual property for designing, developing, and testing system-on-a-chip devices. The acquisition gives Intel a key missing ingredient in its plan to develop customized heterogeneous solutions for its customers. The company now has various memory pieces, interconnect bridges, programmable logic and ASIC... » read more

The Quest For Perfection


Demands by automakers for zero defects over 15 years are absurd, particularly when it comes to 10/7nm AI systems that will be the brains of autonomous and assisted driving or any mobile electronic device. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, no one has ever used a 10/7nm device under extreme conditions for any length of time. Chips developed at these nodes are just starting to ... » read more

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