Where Do We Stand With CDC


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss where the industry stands on clock domain crossing with Charlie Janac, CEO of [getentity id="22674" e_name="Arteris"]; Shaker Sarwary, VP of Formal Verification Products at [getentity id="22026" e_name="Atrenta"]; Pranav Ashar, CTO at [getentity id="22416" e_name="Real Intent"]; and Namit Gupta, CAE, Verification Group at [getentity id="22035" e_nam... » read more

The Real Numbers: Redefining NRE


Developing ICs at the most advanced nodes is getting more expensive, but exactly how much more expensive is the subject of debate across the semiconductor industry. There are a number of reasons for this discrepancy. Among them: As design flows shift from serial to parallel, it's hard to determine which groups within companies should be saddled with different portions of the bill. The re... » read more

‘Hardening’ SoCs For Automotive Market Challenges


The semiconductor is enamored with the automotive, industrial and medical markets, and many companies are now shifting their focus there. But many mainstream vendors will face challenges entering this market. For those who have traditionally participated in the smart phone or mobility market, I will outline some changes they need to consider to successfully compete in these emerging spaces. ... » read more

Time To Market Concerns Worsen


Time to market has always been an issue for chipmakers in highly competitive sectors, but as complexity of chips continues to grow at advanced nodes, and as markets shift increasingly toward consumer electronics, it has jumped to the No. 1 concern. Interviews with engineers at multiple levels inside of some of the largest and midsize chipmakers, conducted by Semiconductor Engineering over th... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Mentor Graphics unveiled a hypervisor with configuration, debugging and hardware support. The solution is aimed at a variety of vertical markets, ranging from industrial and medical to consumer electronics. NXP uncorked a passive Inter-Integrated Circuit (I²C) solution for near-field communications tagging, allowing appliances, wearables and consumer electronics to use existing NFC-... » read more

Looking For The Next Big Thing


With [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] slowing down or coming to an end, finding the next big thing may be very different than it was in the past. We cannot assume that more of the same will be a winner. The semiconductor industry has been blessed with two new product categories that have catapulted it through what should have been a very difficult period with barely a scratch. Those techno... » read more

IP Subsystems: What Works, What Doesn’t


The [getkc id="81" kc_name="SoC"] landscape has changed substantially over the past decade and so have some of the definitions for aspects of the system—particularly the [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] subsystem. “We’ve been at the point for some time for large SoCs that what we thought about as a building block 10 years ago is now too small,” said [getperson id="11489" p_name="Drew Win... » read more

Different Approaches Emerge For Stacking Die


The concept of stacking die to shorten wires, improve performance, and reduce the amount of energy required to drive signals has been in research for at least the past dozen years at both IBM and Intel. And depending upon whom you ask, it could be another 2 to 10 years before it becomes a mainstream packaging approach—if it happens at all. At least part of the confusion stems from how you ... » read more

NoC Technology: Saving the Planet, One Chip at a Time


In Silicon Valley, the cliché is that we are using technology to change the world in some meaningful way. However, I made some calculations recently and I found network-on-chip technology is actually contributing to efforts to reduce carbon emissions. SoC designers have become the ultimate energy misers as they strive to make tradeoffs between extending battery life and providing game-chang... » read more

When Will 2.5D Cut Costs?


There is a constant drive to reduce costs within the semiconductor industry and, up until now, [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"] provided an easy path to enable this. By adopting each smaller node, transistors were cheaper, but that is no longer the case, as explained in a recent article. The industry will need to find new technologies to make this happen and some people are looking towards... » read more

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