Week In Review: IoT, Security, Autos


Internet of Things Sensors that see in the dark, look deep into our faces and hear the impossible, were all part of ams’ CES lineup this week. ams announced that it has designed an advanced spectral ambient light sensor (ALS) for high-end mobile phone cameras. The ALS, called the AS7350, identifies the light source and makes an accurate white balance under low-light and other non-ideal condi... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 8


Synopsys' Taylor Armerding digs into the privacy and security concerns surrounding connected toys and argues that the current practice of consumers bearing much of the burden to determine what is safe is not viable. In a podcast, Mentor's John McMillan looks back at the past decade in technology and what the next may hold in store as areas like AI and automotive get going. Cadence's Madha... » read more

The Week In Review: Semiconductors


The tech-centric NASDAQ index this week broke 9,000, which was a first. Key to the latest run-up were reports of a breakthrough on the trade war with China and continued low interest rates. Chuck Peddle, who helped democratize computing and fuel Moore's Law with his $25 processor chip, passed away last week. Peddle designed the MOS Technology 6502, which was the basis for the KIM-1 single-bo... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


M&A Intel acquired Habana Labs, a maker of programmable deep learning accelerators for the data center, for approximately $2 billion. Based in Israel, Habana was founded in 2016 but only emerged from stealth in September 2018 with the release of its first inference chip. Intel's VC arm, Intel Capital, previously invested in the startup. Intel has made numerous M&A moves in the AI space... » read more

What Worked, What Didn’t In 2019


2019 has been a tough year for semiconductor companies from a revenue standpoint, especially for memory companies. On the other hand, the EDA industry has seen another robust growth year. A significant portion of this disparity can be attributed to the number of emerging technology areas for semiconductors, none of which has reached volume production yet. Some markets continue to struggle, a... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 18


Lam Research's David Haynes finds that taking advances made at 300mm and applying them via upgrades to 200mm equipment is a cost appropriate strategy to quickly improve yield and add capacity. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding looks at which of this year's many data breaches hit corporate wallets the hardest and how the cost of privacy noncompliance is expected to rise with California's CCPA and st... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs TrendForce has released its projected foundry rankings for the fourth quarter of 2019. TSMC remains in first place, followed by Samsung, GlobalFoundries and UMC, according to the firm. “TrendForce projects the foundry industry’s 4Q19 revenue performance to exceed previous expectations,” according to the firm. “Nonetheless, the ongoing U.S-China trade war and uncerta... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Rambus finalized its acquisition of the silicon IP, secure protocols and provisioning business from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure, for $45 million at closing, and up to an additional $20 million, subject to certain revenue targets in 2020. RISC-V SiFive unveiled two new product families. The SiFive Apex processor cores target mission-critical processors with Size, Weight, and Power (SW... » read more

Interdependencies Complicate IC Power Grid Design


Creating the right power grid is a growing problem in leading-edge chips. IP and SoC providers are spending a considerable amount of time defining the architecture of logic libraries in order to enable different power grids to satisfy the needs of different market segments. The end of Dennard scaling is one of the reasons for the increased focus. With the move to smaller nodes, the amount of... » read more

Combining Digital Twins And IoT In The Cloud


Engineers are tasked with the continuous improvement of the products, services and systems they design. The trouble is, once a product is out in the field, it’s hard to know how that design is performing — or being used. By coupling digital twin and internet of things (IoT) technology, engineers can get a better idea of a product’s real-world performance. As a reminder, digital twins a... » read more

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