Chip Industry Week in Review


Check out the Inside Chips podcast for our behind-the-scenes analysis of changes at Intel Foundry. Intel rolled out its updated process technology roadmap this week, along with early process design kit (PDK) for its 14A gate-all-around process technology. That node will utilize high-NA EUV, and include direct contact power delivery, the second generation of its backside power delivery techno... » read more

Blog Review: Apr. 30


Cadence’s Sree Parvathy points out how electrothermal analysis can help designers understand how temperature changes affect device behavior, such as mobility, threshold voltage, and saturation to mitigate potential failures due to thermal overstress. In a podcast, Siemens’ Conor Peick, Dale Tutt, and Mike Ellow chat about the transition towards software-defined products and why companies... » read more

Security Power Requirements Are Growing


Determining how much power to budget for security in a chip design is a complex calculation. It starts with a risk assessment of the cost of a breach and the number of possible attack vectors, and whether security is active or passive. Different forms of root of trust and cryptography have different power costs. Different systems could require tradeoffs between performance and security, whic... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


To listen to the podcast version, click here. TSMC unveiled an unusually detailed roadmap at this week's North America Technology Symposium, including future architectures for 3D-ICs for high-performance computing and small, extremely low-power chips for AR/VR glasses, and two implementations of system-on-wafer. Fig. 1: TSMC's future packaging and stacking roadmap. Source: TSMC The ... » read more

Blog Review: Apr. 16


Siemens’ Tova Levy finds that heterogeneous integration necessitates a shift to a system-level technology co-optimization approach where power, performance, area, cost, and reliability are considered across various components, including silicon, package, interposer, and PCB. Synopsys’ Greg Sorber listens in as Arm’s Rene Haas and Synopsys’ Sassine Ghazi discuss the opportunity for AI... » read more

Chiplet Tradeoffs And Limitations


The semiconductor industry is buzzing with the benefits of chiplets, including faster time to market, better performance, and lower power, but finding the correct balance between customization and standardization is proving to be more difficult than initially thought. For a commercial chiplet marketplace to really take off, it requires a much deeper understanding of how chiplets behave indiv... » read more

Electronics Reliability In Space: Simulating Rad Hard Designs


Space is a harsh environment. There’s no breathable air, radiation levels are 15 times higher than on Earth, and the approximate temperature is 2.7 Kelvin (minus 270.45 degrees Celsius or minus 454.81 degrees Fahrenheit). Thankfully, Earth’s atmosphere does a great job protecting us from space’s intense climate. But because there is no atmosphere in space, there’s nothing to protect sat... » read more

3D-IC Ecosystem Starts To Take Form


The adoption of chiplets is inevitable, but exactly when a mass migration toward this design approach will begin is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, some of the biggest technological and business-related barriers are being addressed. And while a chiplet-based design remains beyond the economic reach of many companies today, that is starting to change. Early signs of an emerging ecosystem ... » read more

Discovering Digital Twins: A Complete Guide


As artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) continue to revolutionize industries, their integration with simulation is amplifying the capabilities of digital twins. AI/ML, simulation, and reduced-order modeling (ROM) technologies combine to create hybrid digital twins—virtual replicas that blend data-driven insights with the accuracy of physics-based models. This powerful approa... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Check out our new Inside Chips podcast. President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs were announced this week. The executive order stated that semiconductors and copper imports are not directly subject to the reciprocal tariff, although the exemption may be short-lived. Semiconductor equipment and tools were not mentioned, leaving the industry searching for clarification. Regardless, hig... » read more

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