New Drivers For Test


Mention Design for Test (DFT) and scan chains come to mind, but there is much more to it than that—and the rules of the game are changing. New application areas such as automotive may breathe new life into built-in self-test (BIST) solutions, which could also be used for manufacturing test. So could DFT as we know it be a thing of the past? Or will it continue to have a role to play? Te... » read more

What’s Next For UVM?


The infrastructure for much of the chip verification being done today is looking dated and limited in scope. Design has migrated to new methodologies, standards and tools that are being introduced to deal with heterogeneous integration, more customization, and increased complexity. Verification methodologies started appearing soon after the release of SystemVerilog. Initially they were inten... » read more

Stacked Die Changes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss advanced packaging with David Pan, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas; Max Min, senior technical manager at Samsung; John Hunt, senior director of engineering at ASE; and Sitaram Arkalgud, vice president of 3D portfolio and technologies at Invensas. What follows are excerpts of tha... » read more

GPUs Power Ahead


GPUs, long a sideshow for CPUs, are suddenly the rising stars of the processor world. They are a first choice in everything from artificial intelligence systems to automotive ADAS applications and deep learning systems powered by [getkc id="261" kc_name="convolutional neural network"]. And they are still the mainstays of high-performance computing, gaming and scientific computation, to name ... » read more

CPU, GPU, or FPGA?


Nvidia’s new GeForce GTX 1080 gaming graphics card is a piece of work. Employing the company’s Pascal architecture and featuring chips made with a 16nm [getkc id="185" kc_name="finFET"] process, the GTX 1080’s GP104 graphics processing units boast 7.2 billion transistors, running at 1.6 GHz, and it can be overclocked to 1.733 GHz. The die size is 314 mm², 21% smaller than its GeForce ... » read more

How To Build Systems In Package


The semiconductor industry is racing to define a series of road maps for semiconductors to succeed the one created by the ITRS, which will no longer be updated, including a brand new one focused on heterogeneous integration. The latest entry will establish technology targets for integration of heterogeneous multi-die devices and systems. It has the support of IEEE's Components, Packaging and... » read more

Plotting The Next Semiconductor Road Map


The semiconductor industry is retrenching around new technologies and markets as Moore's Law becomes harder to sustain and growth rates in smart phones continue to flatten. In the past, it was a sure bet that pushing to the next process node would provide improvements in power, performance and cost. But after 22nm, the economics change due to the need for multi-patterning and finFETs, and th... » read more

DAC Day Four: Excitement And Risk


One thing that was new to DAC this year, was an art exhibit. These were pieces of artwork related to our industry, such as chip plots, or more abstract ideas based on design data or analyses. They received many more entrants than their wildest dreams and had to choose a winner from over 80 pieces, but the grand prize was won by a 3D model of a finFET by David Freid of Coventor. This piece was ... » read more

DAC Day Three: UVM, Machine Learning And DFT Come Together


The industry and users have a love/hate relationship with UVM. It has quickly risen to become the most used verification methodology and yet at the same time it is seen as being overly complex, unwieldy and difficult to learn. The third day of DAC gets started with breakfast with Accellera to discuss UVM and what we can expect to see in the next 5 years. The discussion was led by Tom Alsop, pri... » read more

Alternative To x86, ARM Architectures?


Software developed by professors and graduate students from the University of California at Berkeley? That will never fly in the semiconductor industry, right? Maybe they said that about SPICE, four decades ago. The jury is still out on RISC-V (pronounced risk-five) the modular, open-source instruction set architecture created in this decade by Cal professors and students, yet the ISA is gai... » read more

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