Why There Are Still No Commercial 3D-ICs


Building chips in three dimensions is drawing increased attention and investment, but so far there have been no announcements about commercial 3D-IC chips. There are some fundamental problems that must be overcome and new tools that need to be developed. In contrast, the semiconductor industry is becoming fairly comfortable with 2.5D integration, where individual dies are assembled on some k... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Karen Heyman, and Susan Rambo UMC and Intel will collaborate on the development of a 12nm semiconductor process platform to address high-growth markets, such as mobile, communications infrastructure, and networking. Apple reportedly pushed back the launch date of its long-awaited electric vehicle and scaled back the self-driving features to L2 driver assistance, according ... » read more

EDA Back On Investors’ Radar


EDA is transforming from a staid but strategic sector into a hot investment market, fueled by strong earnings and growth, a clamoring for leading-edge and increasingly customized designs across new and existing markets, and the rollout of advanced technologies such as AI for a range of tools that will be needed to develop new architectures with much greater performance per watt. A confluence... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 24


Siemens' John McMillan finds that while 3D-IC capabilities are ready for mainstream, mass adoption success depends on how easily, effectively, and efficiently a solution can be delivered and points to five workflow adoption focus areas. Cadence's Andre Baguenie shows how to easily convert a logic signal to an electrical value using Verilog-AMS and the transition filter. Synopsys' Chris Cl... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Gregory Haley, and Liz Allan Synopsys will acquire Ansys for about $35 billion in cash and stock. The deal will boost Synopsys' multi-physics simulation capabilities, which are essential for complex 3D-IC designs, where thermal density can have significant repercussions. The acquisition is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2025. Worldwide semiconductor revenue ... » read more

Many More Hurdles In Heterogeneous Integration


Advanced packaging options continue to stack up in the pursuit of “More than Moore” and higher levels of integration. It has become a place where many high-density interconnects converge, and where many new and familiar problems need to be addressed. The industry’s first foray into fine-pitch multi-die packaging utilized silicon interposers with through-silicon vias (TSVs) to deliver s... » read more

Navigating Heat In Advanced Packaging


The integration of multiple heterogeneous dies in a package is pivotal for extending Moore’s Law and enhancing performance, power efficiency, and functionality, but it also is raising significant issues over how to manage the thermal load. Advanced packaging provides a way to pack more features and functions into a device, increasingly by stacking various components vertically rather than ... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 17


Cadence's Rajneesh Chauhan introduces the Back-Invalidate feature in Compute Express Link (CXL) 3.0 and how it contributes to the efficient functioning of modern data center architectures by upholding cache coherence across multiple hosts and devices. Synopsys' Brett Murdock and Dana Neustadter point out the importance of protecting against DRAM attacks such as Rowhammer, RAMbleed, and cold-... » read more

Which Data Works Best For Voltage Droop Simulation


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about the need for the right type of data, why this has to be done early in the design flow, and how 3D-IC will affect all of this, with Bill Mullen, distinguished engineer at Ansys; Rajat Chaudhry, product management group director at Cadence; Heidi Barnes, senior applications engineer at Keysight; Venkatesh Santhanagopalan, prod... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Jesse Allen, Karen Heyman, and Liz Allan Renesas will acquire Transphorm, which designs and manufactures gallium nitride power devices, for about $339 million. GaN, which is a wide-bandgap technology, is used for high-voltage applications in a slew of markets, including EVs and EV fast chargers, as well as data centers and industrial applications. Cadence acquired Invecas, a provider o... » read more

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