Five Trends In IC Packaging


At one time, chip packaging was an afterthought. Chipmakers were more worried about IC design. Packaging was considered a mere commodity, which was simply used to house the design. More recently, though, chip packaging has become a hot topic. The IC design is still important, but packaging is a key part of the solution. In fact, the industry can go down two paths. The traditional way is t... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Packaging and test A*STAR’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has formed a fan-out wafer-level packaging consortium comprising of OSATs, materials vendors, equipment suppliers and others. The group is called the FOWLP Development Line Consortium. As part of the announcement, Singapore’s IME has established a development line to accelerate the development of fan-out. Located in IME’s... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT


Security Mocana said it is working with Avnet, Infineon Technologies, Microsoft, and Xilinx to provide Industrial Internet of Things systems that meet cybersecurity standards. The systems utilize the Avnet UltraZed-EG system-on-module, Mocana’s security software running on the Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoc, and Infineon’s OPTIGA Trusted Platform Module 2.0 security chip. The Microsoft Azur... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Bloomberg has reported that Broadcom is in talks to acquire Qualcomm for $70 per share or about $90 billion. Qualcomm is attempting to acquire NXP, but Broadcom has its sights on Qualcomm, not NXP. “We think AVGO would want to acquire QCOM assets not NXP,” said Amit Daryanani, an analyst with RBC. Samsung continues to reshuffle its management amid a plethora of changes at t... » read more

MEMS Market Shifting


The MEMS sector is beginning to look more promising, bolstered by new end-market demand and different packaging options that require more advanced engineering, processes and new materials. All of this points to higher selling prices, which are long overdue in this space. For years, the market for microelectromechanical systems was populated by too many companies vying for too few opportunit... » read more

Ethernet’s Next Life


An ever-growing engagement with the Internet — where most of humanity and the ‘things’ we use are almost constantly connected and constantly storing, processing and retrieving data over a network — is increasing pressure to develop new standards, and much more quickly. Witness the timeline of Ethernet, and its humble beginnings as a standard protocol for moving data at 2.5 megabits p... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Market research Intel retained its No. 1 position as the largest semiconductor manufacturer and grew its semiconductor revenue 4.6% in 2016, according to Gartner. Samsung Electronics continued to maintain the No. 2 spot with 11.7% market share. The largest mover in the top 25 was Broadcom, which moved up 12 places in the market share ranking, according to the firm. Worldwide silicon wafer a... » read more

Can Formal Replace Simulation?


A year ago, [getentity id="22147" comment="Oski Technology"] achieved something that had never happened before. It brought together 15 of the top minds in [getkc id="33" kc_name="formal verification"] deployment and sat them down in a room to discuss the problems and issues they face and the ways in which they are attempting to solve those problems. Semiconductor Engineering was there to record... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers At an event, Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing group outlined the company's vision. As part of the event, Intel reiterated what many are saying—the current node designations are meaningless and misleading. “For example, Intel estimates that its 14nm solution that has been out in the market since 2014 should be equal to 10nm solutions released by competitors in the near futu... » read more

Challenges Grow For IP Reuse


As chip complexity increases, so does the complexity of IP blocks being developed for those designs. That is making it much more difficult to re-use IP from one design to the next, or even to integrate new IP into an SoC. What is changing is the perception that standard [getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"] works the same in every design. Moreover, well-developed [getkc id="100" kc_name="methodologie... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →