Gate-All-Around: TCAD and DTCO Approach To Evaluate Power and Performance (imec, et al.)


A new technical paper titled "Exploring GAA-Nanosheet, Forksheet and GAA-Forksheet Architectures: a TCAD-DTCO Study at 90 nm & 120 nm Cell Height" was published by imec, Huawei Technologies and Global TCAD Solutions. Abstract "This study presents a Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) and comprehensive Design-Technology Co-Optimization (DTCO) approach to evaluate and enhance power an... » read more

New Approaches To Power Decoupling


Decoupling capacitors have long been an important aspect of maintaining a clean power source for integrated circuits, but with noise caused by rising clock frequencies, multiple power domains, and various types of advanced packaging, new approaches are needed. Power is a much more important factor than it used to be, especially in the era of AI. “Doing an AI search consumes 10X the power t... » read more

Striking A Balance On Efficiency, Performance, And Cost


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power-related issues such as voltage droop, application-specific processing elements, the impact of physical effects in advanced packaging, and the benefits of backside power delivery, with Hans Yeager, senior principal engineer, architecture, at Tenstorrent; Joe Davis, senior director for Calibre interfaces and EM/IR product m... » read more

Intel Vs. Samsung Vs. TSMC


The three leading-edge foundries — Intel, Samsung, and TSMC — have started filling in some key pieces in their roadmaps, adding aggressive delivery dates for future generations of chip technology and setting the stage for significant improvements in performance with faster delivery time for custom designs. Unlike in the past, when a single industry roadmap dictated how to get to the next... » read more

How To Get The Most Out Of Gate-All-Around Designs


The semiconductor industry has relied on finFETs, three-dimensional field-effect transistors with thin vertical fins, for many generations of technology. However, the industry is reaching the limits of how much finFETs can be shrunk while maintaining their speed and power benefits, which are crucial for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications. The solution is the gat... » read more

TSMC Uncorks A16 With Super Power Rail


TSMC showed off its forthcoming A16 process technology node, targeted for the second half of 2026, at its 30th North American Technology Symposium this week. As the foundry moves from nanometer to angstrom process numbering, the new nodes will be prefixed with an “A” designation (instead of “N”) and A16 is the first for TSMC. TSMC said that N2 is still tracking to a 2025 production s... » read more

Unlocking PPA Benefits of Backside Routing


The power delivery network (PDN) is a critical part of any modern semiconductor device. Even with advanced power-saving technologies, today’s chips are hungry for power. Traditionally, power is distributed through metal layers on the same side of the substrate as the signal metal layers. This creates competition for the available layers and pushes the limits of fabrication technology to add m... » read more

Powering CFETs From The Backside


The first CMOS circuits to incorporate backside power connections are likely to be based on stacked nanosheet transistors, but further down the road, planners envision complementary transistors (CFETs) that vertically integrate stacked NFET and PFET devices. With at least twice the thickness of a nanosheet transistor, connecting CFETs to each other and to the rest of the circuit is likely to... » read more

Backside Power Delivery Adds New Thermal Concerns


As the semiconductor industry gears up for backside power delivery at the 2nm node, implementation of the technology requires a re-thinking of established design practices. While some EDA tools are already qualified, designers must acquaint themselves with new issues, including making place-and-route more thermal-aware and how to manage heat dissipation with less shielding and thinner substr... » read more

The Rising Price Of Power In Chips


Power is everything when it comes to processing and storing data, and much of it isn't good. Power-related issues, particularly heat, dominate chip and system designs today, and those issues are widening and multiplying. Transistor density has reached a point where these tiny digital switches are generating more heat than can be removed through traditional means. That may sound manageable e... » read more

← Older posts