The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Fab tool vendors In terms of sales for 2015, Applied Materials retained the No. 1 position in the wafer fab equipment (WFE) market with 1.3% growth last year, according to Garnter. Lam Research experienced the strongest growth of the top 10 vendors in 2015, moving into the No. 2 position. In the rankings, Lam jumped ahead of ASML and TEL. ASML was in third place, followed in order by TEL, KLA-... » read more

IoT’s 3 Big Demands On The Semiconductor Industry


Sometime in the last decade or two, whenever you signed up for your first cell phone contract, you became an untethered node in the electronic data network. Of course no one was talking about IoT then, but the trend – machine-to-machine communication and basic computation, often independent of human input – was already well underway. (What else but an early instantiation of IoT was the hand... » read more

Full AMS Design Flow For The IoT


By Nicolas Williams and Jeff Miller The pressure for a new generation of (analog/mixed-signal) AMS design capabilities has been accelerated by the sudden demand for Internet of Things (IoT). These inexpensive devices are used in an expanding array of scenarios on the edge of the network — thus the demand for an AMS design environment that is affordable and easy to use, but powerful enough ... » read more

Analog FastSpice Platform Full-Spectrum Sampled Periodic Noise Analysis


Many high-performance analog/mixed-signal ICs include track-and-hold circuits to sample analog signals at one or more discrete timepoints per period. Although track-and-hold circuits are periodic, traditional periodic noise (pnoise) analysis does not apply because it measures the device noise impact integrated over an entire period rather than at instantaneous time points within the target peri... » read more

Power And Noise Integrity For Analog / Mixed-Signal Designs


The convergence of advance process technology, increasing levels of integration, and higher operating frequencies pose considerable challenge to IP designers whose circuits are required to function in variety of conditions. Full-custom and mixed signal circuit designers ensure that their circuits will function by simulating for various operating conditions (PVT, input stimuli, etc). One key asp... » read more

Extending Digital Verification Techniques For Mixed-Signal SoCs With VCS AMS


The growth in mixed-signal system-on-chip (SoC) designs is driven by many factors, including cost, performance and power consumption. This is fueled by many industry segments, including mobile communication, automotive, imaging, medical, networking and power management. The convergence of analog and digital blocks within the same die is driving the need for SoC design teams to adopt new verific... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Here’s a sad commentary on the state of Japan’s electronics industry: Some Japanese electronics giants are converting unused factories and fabs into agricultural growing facilities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last month, for example, Fujitsu began selling lettuce from the Aizu-Wakamatsu plant. It's officially over. IBM's talks to sell its chip unit to GlobalFoundries have offi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


As semiconductor technology becomes more challenging, expect more mergers and acquisitions in the fab tool sector. In a research report issued this week, Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, sees several possible M&A scenarios in the future. There is no evidence that any deal is pending right now. But according to Twigg, here are some possible M&As that could happen i... » read more

The Sensor Revolution


“Sensors will transform manufacturing from now on,” said Eric Janson, senior vice president of sales and marketing at AMS (Austria Micro Systeme), an analog mixed-signal semiconductor manufacturer based in Austria. There have been many such predictions in the past—lithography, processors, memory and various materials all have been predicted to change semiconductor manufacturing. But se... » read more

Pain Management


In part one of this series, the focus was on overlapping and new pain points in the semiconductor flow, from initial conception of what needs to be in a chip all the way through to manufacturing. Part two looks at how companies are attempting to manage that pain. It’s no secret that [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"]s are getting more complicated to design, debug and build, but the complexity i... » read more

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