Executive Insight: Wally Rhines (March 2018)


Wally Rhines, president and CEO of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor, a Siemens Business"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss a wide range of industry and technology changes and how that will play out over the next few years. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What will happen in the end markets? Rhines: The end markets are perhaps more exciting from a... » read more

Why EDA Needs To Change


Why is it taking so long for [getkc id="305" kc_name="machine learning"] to have an impact within EDA? Most of the time when I talk to the experts within the field I hear about why designs are so different from other machine learning applications, and I know that is true. Many of you reading this may not be aware that I was a developer of EDA tools for more than 35 years before I ended up writi... » read more

Race Of Nations


Technology is the next arms race, and this is not just about national defense in the traditional sense. Countries collectively are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into developing technology for the future, from education to outright grants and seed funding, and they are working with private industry to continue investing in their respective national futures. Which technologies and na... » read more

Customizing Power And Performance


Designing chips is getting more difficult, and not just for the obvious technical reasons. The bigger issue revolves around what these chips going to be used for-and how will they be used, both by the end user and in the context of other electronics. This was a pretty simple decision when hardware was developed somewhat independently of software, such as in the PC era. Technology generally d... » read more

Monetizing Semiconductors From Silicon To Services


In 2016, Rambus published a think piece titled “Charting a New Course for Semiconductors.” The paper explored a diverse range of challenges faced by the industry, including increasing development costs, shrinking margins, market saturation and accelerating M&A activity. These challenges have only become more pronounced in 2018, as the newly consolidated semiconductor industry actively seeks... » read more

Testing Analog Chips


The world of analog components is broad and diverse, and while testing analog chips may not take as long as running tests on complex SoCs, there are different requirements for analog devices. One type of chip that's seeing more application these days is analog microelectromechanical system devices. Automotive electronics call for a number of [getkc id="37" kc_name="analog"] chips, along with... » read more

Supporting Academic Institutions – A Corporate Responsibility?


Innovation is rooted in collaboration, and there’s no better example—when done correctly—than the partnership between the various academic institutes or between the industry and academia. It’s a symbiotic relationship: Companies get access to leading research, ideas and creativity, while universities and research consortia get access to proven technologies, methodologies and experienced... » read more

Dawn Of The Data-Centric Era


A recurring theme of the recent Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) in Half Moon Bay, California, was how the explosion of new applications such as autonomous vehicles, digital healthcare, quantum computing, and crytocurrency mining are driving the need for more industry-wide collaboration to enable companies to compete in the “Data Centric” era. The resulting digital economy is creating unpr... » read more

Giant Auto Industry Disruption Ahead


The move to self-driving vehicles over the next decade or so will result in a massive restructuring of entire segments of the global economy that have evolved to create and support automobiles and the people who drive them. The shift will create many new jobs-particularly for semiconductors and electronic systems-and conservatively it will eliminate hundreds of thousands of existing ones. It... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Barco Silex, now named Silex Inside, split from parent company Barco in a management buyout in partnership with a group of private investors lead by Dutch investment company Vehold BV. The company will continue its focus on security, video compression, and interface IP, along with design services. Tools & IP Mentor is making a version of its HyperLynx design rule checking tool ... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →