CEO Outlook: Chiplets, Longer IC Lifetimes, More End Markets


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss chiplets, longer IC lifetimes, and a spike in the number of end applications with Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Cadence; Simon Segars, CEO of Arm; Joseph Sawicki, executive vice president of Siemens IC EDA; John Kibarian, CEO of PDF Solutions; Prakash Narain, president and CEO of Real Intent; Dean Drako, president and CEO of IC Manage; an... » read more

EDA In The Cloud


Hagai Arbel, CEO of Vtool, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the benefits of moving EDA tools to the cloud, why it has been slow to take off, and what will drive this trend in the future. » read more

Reliability Costs Becoming Harder To Track


Ensuring reliability in chips is becoming more complex and significantly more expensive, shifting left into the design cycle and right into the field. But those costs also are becoming more difficult to define and track, varying greatly from one design to the next based upon process node, package technology, market segment, and which fab or OSAT is used. As the number of options increases fo... » read more

Rethinking Business As Usual


Few things can snap your priorities into focus like the onset of a pandemic. Our industry is known for its cyclical nature, so adapting to change is not a new concept. But dealing with the challenges posed by COVID-19 has been like nothing any of us have experienced before. QP Technologies has been fortunate to weather the pandemic well – less than 0.05% of our staff has tested positive, w... » read more

Recalculating The Cost Of Test


The cost of test is rising. For decades, test was limited to a flat 2% of the cost of designing and manufacturing a chip. Today, no one is quite sure what that cost really is, and there doesn't seem to be any single formula for determining it. In some cases, there isn't even a sense of urgency to finding out. Several significant changes are occurring that make any formula difficult to cal... » read more

EDA, IP Revenues Soar


EDA and IP revenues increased 15.4% to $3.032 billion in Q4 2020, according to a just-released report, with huge increases reported in China and India, and a solid double-digit increase in the Americas. EDA/IP revenue from China increased 66.4% in Q4 EDA/IP compared with the same period in 2019, and for the 2020 calendar year it was up 52.3%. India's spending was up 32% for the quarter. And ... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2021


Self-driving vehicles revved up investors in March, with two companies receiving over $200M apiece as they prepare for their systems to enter mass production. One focuses on software for passenger vehicles, while the other is looking to autonomous trucks. Both of the companies received investment from automakers, with China's largest carmaker SAIC joining each of the funding rounds. It was also... » read more

Reshoring Vital To The Future Of Chipmaking


Repatriating offshore manufacturing efforts to the United States – i.e., “reshoring” – is not a new concept. The Reshoring Initiative was founded in 2010, and the Reshoring Institute, founded in 2014, conducts annual surveys of global manufacturers regarding their reshoring plans. The institute’s 2019 survey found that, while a growing number of businesses were rethinking their global... » read more

The Other Side Of AI System Reliability


Adding intelligence into pervasive electronics will have consequences, but not necessarily what most people expect. Nearly everything electronic these days has some sort of "smart" functionality built in or added on. This can be as simple as a smoke alarm that alerts you when the batteries are running low, a home assistant that learns your schedule and dials the thermostat up or down, or a r... » read more

Firmware Skills Shortage


Good hardware without good software is a waste of silicon, but with so many new processors and accelerator architectures being created, and so many new skills required, companies are finding it hard to hire enough engineers with low-level software expertise to satisfy the demand. Writing compilers, mappers and optimization software does not have the same level of pizazz as developing new AI ... » read more

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