Why Chiplets Are So Critical In Automotive


Chiplets are gaining renewed attention in the automotive market, where increasing electrification and intense competition are forcing companies to accelerate their design and production schedules. Electrification has lit a fire under some of the biggest and best-known carmakers, which are struggling to remain competitive in the face of very short market windows and constantly changing requir... » read more

Uncovering The Size, Structure, And Operation Of DRAM Subarrays And Showing Experimental Results Supporting The Cause Of Rowhammer


A technical paper titled “X-ray: Discovering DRAM Internal Structure and Error Characteristics by Issuing Memory Commands” was published by researchers at Seoul National University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Abstract: "The demand for accurate information about the internal structure and characteristics of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) has been on the rise. Recen... » read more

Heterogenous Integration Creating New IP Opportunities


The design IP market has long been known for constant change and evolution, but the industry trend toward heterogenous integration and chiplets is creating some new challenges and opportunities. Companies wanting to stake out a claim in this area have to be nimble, because there will be many potential standards introduced, and they are likely to change quickly as the industry explores what is r... » read more

Clocks Getting Skewed Up


At a logical level, synchronous designs are very simple and the clock just happens. But the clocking network is possibly the most complex in a chip, and it's fraught with the most problems at the physical level. To some, the clock is the AC power supply of the chip. To others, it is an analog network almost beyond analysis. Ironically, there are no languages to describe clocking, few tools t... » read more

Architecting Interposers


An interposer performs a similar function as a printed circuit board (PCB), but when the interposer is moved inside a package the impact is significant. Neither legacy PCB nor IC design tools can fully perform the necessary design and analysis tasks. But perhaps even more important, adding an interposer to a design may require organizational changes. Today, leading-edge companies have shown ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Perforce Software acquired Methodics. Founded in 2006 and based in San Francisco, Methodics' IP lifecycle management and traceability software will join Perforce's larger portfolio of DevOps software that includes version control, Agile planning, and static code analysis. The two companies have had a strategic partnership in place with customers using software from both companies. Terms of the ... » read more

High-Speed SerDes At 7/5nm


Manmeet Walia, senior product marketing manager at Synopsys, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about how to optimize PHYs for integration on all four corners of an SoC, as well as the PPA implications of moving large amounts of data across and around a chip. » read more

The Good And Bad Of Chiplets


The chiplet model continues to gain traction in the market, but there are still some challenges to enable broader support for the technology. AMD, Intel, TSMC, Marvell and a few others have developed or demonstrated devices using chiplets, which is an alternative way to develop an advanced design. Beyond that, however, the adoption of chiplets is limited in the industry due to ecosystem issu... » read more