Big Shift In Multi-Core Design

By Ann Mutschler - 03 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Hardware and software engineers have a long history of working independently of each other, but that insular behavior is changing in emerging areas such as AI, machine learning and automotive as the emphasis shifts to the system level. As these new markets consume more semiconductor content, they are having a big impact on the overall design process. The starting point in many of these desig... » read more

Utilizing More Data To Improve Chip Design

By Ann Mutschler - 28 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Just about every step of the IC tool flow generates some amount of data. But certain steps generate a mind-boggling amount of data, not all of which is of equal value. The challenge is figuring out what's important for which parts of the design flow. That determines what to extract and loop back to engineers, and when that needs to be done in order to improve the reliability of increasingly com... » read more

The Automation Of AI

By Brian Bailey - 28 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the role that EDA has in automating artificial intelligence and machine learning with Doug Letcher, president and CEO of Metrics; Daniel Hansson, CEO of Verifyter; Harry Foster, chief scientist verification for Mentor, a Siemens Business; Larry Melling, product management director for Cadence; Manish Pandey, Synopsys fellow; and Raik Brinkmann, CEO ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Mar. 19

By Jesse Allen - 19 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Explainable AI Researchers from Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) propose a pair of algorithms to help determine how AI systems reach their conclusions. Explainable AI is an important step towards practical applications, argued Klaus-Robert Müller, Professor for Machine Learning at... » read more

Using Less Power At The Same Node

By Brian Bailey - 14 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Going to the next node has been the most effective way to reduce power, but that is no longer true or desirable for a growing percentage of the semiconductor industry. So the big question now is how to reduce power while maintaining the same node size. After understanding how the power is used, both chip designers and fabs have techniques available to reduce power consumption. Fabs are makin... » read more

Using Analog For AI

By Brian Bailey - 14 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications and the compute platforms for them may be overlooking an alternative technology—analog. The semiconductor industry has a firm understanding of digital electronics and has been very successful making it scale. It is predictable, has good yield, and while every de... » read more

The Other Side Of Makimoto’s Wave

By Ann Mutschler - 06 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Custom hardware is undergoing a huge resurgence across a variety of new applications, pushing the semiconductor industry to the other side of Makimoto's Wave. Tsugio Makimoto, the technologist who identified the chip industry’s 10-year cyclical swings between standardization and customization, predicted there always will be room in ASICs for general-purpose processors. But it's becoming mo... » read more

New Memory Options

By Ed Sperling - 28 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

Carlos Macián, eSilicon’s senior director of AI strategy and products, talks about how to utilize memory differently and reduce the movement of data in AI chips, and what impact that has on power and performance. https://youtu.be/wItp6wReVts » read more

Can Debug Be Tamed?

By Brian Bailey - 28 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

Debug consumes more time than any other aspect of the chip design and verification process, and it adds uncertainty and risk to semiconductor development because there are always lingering questions about whether enough bugs were caught in the allotted amount of time. Recent figures suggest that the problem is getting worse, too, as complexity and demand for reliability continue to rise. The... » read more

Pushing AI Into The Mainstream

By Brian Bailey - 31 Jan, 2019 - Comments: 0

Artificial intelligence is emerging as the driving force behind many advancements in technology, even though the industry has merely scratched the surface of what may be possible. But how deeply AI penetrates different market segments and technologies, and how quickly it pushes into the mainstream, depend on a variety of issues that still must be resolved. In addition to a plethora of techni... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

tag: artificial intelligence