Using AI To Glue Disparate IC Ecosystem Data


AI holds the potential to change how companies interact throughout the global semiconductor ecosystem, gluing together different data types and processes that can be shared between companies that in the past had little or no direct connections. Chipmakers always have used abstraction layers to see the bigger picture of how the various components of a chip go together, allowing them to pinpoi... » read more

Characteristics and Potential HW Architectures for Neuro-Symbolic AI


A new technical paper titled "Towards Efficient Neuro-Symbolic AI: From Workload Characterization to Hardware Architecture" was published by researchers at Georgia Tech, UC Berkeley, and IBM Research. Abstract: "The remarkable advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), primarily driven by deep neural networks, are facing challenges surrounding unsustainable computational trajectories, li... » read more

Optimizing Wafer Edge Processes For Chip Stacking


Stacking chiplets vertically using short and direct wafer-to-wafer bonds can reduce signal delay to negligible levels, enabling smaller, thinner packages with faster memory/processor speeds and lower power consumption. The race is on to implement wafer stacking and die-to-wafer hybrid bonding, now considered essential for stacking logic and memory, 3D NAND, and possibly multi-layer DRAM stac... » read more

Smart Manufacturing, Smart Data-AI, And Future Of Computing


By Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, Pushkar Apte, and Mark da Silva Use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) is on an exponential rise across fields1 including all aspects of the semiconductor industry. In the last decade, the use of ML/AI exploded in the areas of speech recognition, facial recognition, smart phone features, search engines and now large language models like Chat... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Infineon rolled out the world's first 300mm gallium nitride (GaN) wafer, opening the door for high-volume manufacturing of GaN-based power semiconductors. A 300mm wafer contains 2.3 times as many chips per wafer as a 200mm wafer. Fig.1: Infineon's 300mm GaN wafer. Source: Infineon The Semiconductor Industry Association released its 2024 State of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry report th... » read more

Can You Rely Upon Your NPU Vendor To Be Your Customers’ Data Science Team?


The biggest mistake a chip design team can make in evaluating AI acceleration options for a new SoC is to rely entirely upon spreadsheets of performance numbers from the NPU vendor without going through the exercise of porting one or more new machine learning networks themselves using the vendor toolsets. Why is this a huge red flag? Most NPU vendors tell prospective customers that (1) the v... » read more

HBM4 Feeds Generative AI’s Hunger For More Memory Bandwidth


Generative AI (Gen AI), built on the exponential growth of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their kin, is one of today’s biggest drivers of computing technology. Leading-edge LLMs now exceed a trillion parameters and offer multimodal capabilities so they can take a broad range of inputs, whether they’re in the form of text, speech, images, video, code, and more, and generate an equally broa... » read more

Understanding The Total Cost Of Ownership In HPC And AI Systems


Cost is often the deciding factor when it comes to purchasing decisions at an organization, particularly those dealing with high-tech investments. When organizations evaluate proposals for new procurements, the initial capital cost of the system often receives significant attention. A great deal of preparation and planning goes into the decision to make a large purchase. While this is a critica... » read more

From Mobile Phones To Robotics: How The Industry Continues To Drive Innovation


I recently had the opportunity to host Pierre Cambou, Principal Analyst for Global Semiconductors at Yole Group, on the Advantest podcast. What struck me about our conversation was while we focused on what was going on in the mobile market, the entire talk was reflective of the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and how technology can drive intense cycles of innovation. As Pierre ... » read more

Liquid Cooling, Meeting The Demands Of AI Data Centers


Many Porsche “purists” reflect forlornly upon the 1997, 5th generation, 996 version of the iconic 911 sports car. It was the first year of the water-cooled engine versions of the 911, which had previously been based on air-cooled engines since their entry into the market in 1964. The 911 was also the successor to the popular air-cooled 356. For over three decades, Porsche’s flagship 911 w... » read more

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