Is UCIe Really Universal?


Chiplets are rapidly becoming the means to overcome the slowing of Moore's Law, but whether one interface is capable of joining them all together isn't clear yet. The Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe) believes it will work, but some in the industry remain unconvinced. At least part of the problem is that interconnect standards are never truly finished. Even today, the protocols tha... » read more

Improving Reliability In Automobiles


Carmakers are turning to predictive and preventive maintenance to improve the safety and reliability of increasingly electrified vehicles, setting the stage for more internal and external sensors, and more intelligence to interpret and react to the data generated by those sensors. The number of chips inside of vehicles has been steadily rising, regardless of whether they are powered by elect... » read more

Weird Incidents Reveal L5 Challenges


A series of surprising, counterintuitive, and sometimes bizarre incidents reveal the challenges of achieving full Level 5 autonomy in self-driving vehicles, which are an increasingly common site in major cities. While it’s easy to dismiss such anecdotes as humorous glitches compared with the sobering accounts of autonomous tech-related injuries and fatalities, industry executives say these oc... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Earnings and Acquisitions Siemens will acquire Avery Design Systems, a simulation-independent verification IP supplier, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Siemens executives say the acquisition will “enhance Siemens’ offerings across mainstream verification IP segments, while further extending Siemens verification solutions into area... » read more

AI Feeds Vision Processor, Image Sensor Boom


Vision systems are rapidly becoming ubiquitous, driven by big improvements in image sensors as well as new types of sensors. While the sensor itself often is developed using mature-node silicon, increasingly it is connected to vision processors developed at the most advanced process nodes. That allows for the highest performance per watt, and it also allows designs to incorporate AI accelera... » read more

Are We Too Hard On Artificial Intelligence For Autonomous Driving?


I recently attended and presented at Detroit's "Implementation of ISO 26262 & SOTIF" conference. Its subtitle was "Taking an Integrated Approach to Automotive Safety." After three days, my head was spinning with numbers of ISO/SAE and other standards. And at the end of day two, after yet another example that tricked autonomous driving prototypes into behaving wrongly, I sighed and asked whe... » read more

Chip Challenges In The Metaverse


The metaverse is pushing the limits of chip design, despite uncertainty about how much raw horsepower these devices ultimately will require to deliver an immersive blend of augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. The big challenge in developing these systems is the ability to process mixed data types in real time while the data moves uninterrupted at lightning speed. That requires the integra... » read more

Foundational Changes In Chip Architectures


We take many things in the semiconductor world for granted, but what if some of the decisions made decades ago are no longer viable or optimal? We saw a small example with finFETs, where the planar transistor would no longer scale. Today we are facing several bigger disruptions that will have much larger ripple effects. Technology often progresses in a linear fashion. Each step provides incr... » read more

Beyond Autonomous Cars


As the automotive industry takes a more measured approach to self-driving cars and long-haul trucks for safety and security reasons, there is a renewed focus on other types of vehicles utilizing autonomous technology. The list is long and growing. It now includes autonomous trains, helicopters, tractors, ships, submarines, drones, delivery robots, motorcycles, scooters, and bikes, all of whi... » read more

EVs Raise Energy, Power, And Thermal IC Design Challenges


The transition to electric vehicles is putting pressure on power grids to produce more energy and on vehicles to use that energy much more efficiently, creating a gargantuan set of challenges that will affect every segment of the automotive world, the infrastructure that supports it, and the chips that are required to make all of this work. From a semiconductor standpoint, improvements in th... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →