Is Programmable Overhead Worth The Cost?


Programmability has fueled the growth of most semiconductor products, but how much does it actually cost? And is that cost worth it? The answer is more complicated than a simple efficiency formula. It can vary by application, by maturity of technology in a particular market, and in the context of much larger systems. What's considered important for one design may be very different for anothe... » read more

Automotive Outlook: 2022


The auto industry is widening its focus this year, migrating to new architectures that embrace better security, faster data movement, and eventually more manageable costs. The auto industry is facing both short-term and long-term challenges. In the short term, the chip shortage continues to top the list of concerns for the world's automakers. That shortage has delayed new vehicle deliveries,... » read more

Radar Systems


Combined with advances in phased-array antennas and integration technologies, radars are moving beyond military/aerospace markets to address a host of commercial applications. This white paper showcases how the Cadence AWR Design Environment platform provides designers with a host of modeling and simulation technologies needed to meet the challenges of all types of radar system design. Click h... » read more

Industry Transforming In Ways Previously Unimaginable


Early in the year, everyone expected that the availability of COVID vaccines would signal the start of a return to normal, but that has certainly not been the case. Now the industry is taking a longer-term view about how to transform business, what is necessary for people to maintain their mental health, and how to create robust hybrid work environments for the future that do not discard the po... » read more

Batteries Take Center Stage


For any mobile electronic device, the biggest limiting factors are the size, age, type, and utilization of the batteries. Battery technology is improving on multiple fronts. The batteries themselves are becoming more efficient. They are storing more energy per unit of area, and work is underway to provide faster charging and to increase the percentage of that energy that can be used, as well... » read more

Reliability Concerns Shift Left Into Chip Design


Demand for lower defect rates and higher yields is increasing, in part because chips are now being used for safety- and mission-critical applications, and in part because it's a way of offsetting rising design and manufacturing costs. What's changed is the new emphasis on solving these problems in the initial design. In the past, defectivity and yield were considered problems for the fab. Re... » read more

Challenges With Stacking Memory On Logic


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changes in design tools and methodologies needed for 3D-ICs, with Sooyong Kim, director and product specialist for 3D-IC at Ansys; Kenneth Larsen, product marketing director at Synopsys; Tony Mastroianni, advanced packaging solutions director at Siemens EDA; and Vinay Patwardhan, product management group director at Cadence... » read more

Holistic FMEDA-Driven Safety Design And Verification For Analog, Digital, And Mixed-Signal Design


With state-of-the-art electronics propelling the automotive industry into the future, automotive OEMs require safety-certified semiconductors. The integration of these advanced technologies into cars drives a need for component suppliers to assess and audit the risk of the technologies they want to deploy. At the same time, safety requirements are constantly evolving and becoming more stringent... » read more

Amdahl Limits On AI


Software and hardware both place limits on how fast an application can run, but finding and eliminating the limitations is becoming more important in this age of multicore heterogeneous processing. The problem is certainly not new. Gene Amdahl (1922-2015) recognized the issue and published a paper about it in 1967. It provided the theoretical speedup for a defined task that could be expected... » read more

Innovations In Sensor Technology


Sensors are the “eyes” and “ears” of processors, co-processors, and computing modules. They come in all shapes, forms, and functions, and they are being deployed in a rapidly growing number of applications — from edge computing and IoT, to smart cities, smart manufacturing, hospitals, industrial, machine learning, and automotive. Each of these use cases relies on chips to capture d... » read more

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