Software Driving More Hardware Designs


The influence of software engineers is growing inside of chip and systems companies, reversing a decades-old trend of matching the software to the fastest or most power-efficient hardware and raising as-yet unanswered questions about what will change in SoC design. The shift is particularly evident in chips developed for high-volume markets such as mobile phones and tablets. It's also happen... » read more

5 Things To Know About The IoT


The IoT means many things to many people. While the numbers and projections are all very large, the views of what it actually means are vastly different because it can include anything from a sensor in a car or an ingestible medical device to a data center full of servers and the connectivity in between. But there are some interesting shifts under way, both driving the [getkc id="76" comment... » read more

Foundries Expand Planar Efforts


Competition is heating up in the leading-edge foundry business, as vendors begin to ramp up their new 16nm/14nm finFET processes. But that’s not the only action in the foundry arena. They are also expanding their efforts in the leading-edge planar market by rolling out new 28nm and 22nm processes. On one front, TSMC is offering new 28nm variants, based on bulk CMOS technology. And on an... » read more

Traffic Jam?


This week, the first week in which school was out of session for the summer, I noticed that my commute to work was much shorter than it had been, reduced from about 25 minutes to 15 minutes. It’s always hard for me to believe that such a simple thing, as fewer drivers on the road due to summer vacations, is enough to cause such wild swings in commute times. I took advantage of the additional ... » read more

New Robots For The IoT


Until recently, remote telepresence has largely been a fixed screen with a video link between participants, and mostly in business setting. But all of that is about to change once the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"]/Internet of Everything begins to take root. There is a plethora of development going on in mobile robotic telepresence (MRT). Companies such as iRobot, Cisco, Suitab... » read more

Stacked Die, Phase Two


The initial hype phase of [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"] appears to be over. There are multiple offerings in development or on the market already from Xilinx, Altera, Cisco, Huawei, IBM, AMD, all focused on better throughput over shorter distances with better yield and lower power. Even Intel has jumped on the bandwagon, saying that 2.5D will be essential for extending [getkc id="74" comment="M... » read more

One-on-One: Smarter Architectures


Edward Lee, distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science professor at the [getentity id="22165" comment="UC Berkeley"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what is needed to maximize the usefulness of the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] and how our perceptions need to shift to take advantage of this technology. What follows are excerpts o... » read more

Wireless Technologies For The IoE


It's generally understood the [getkc id="76" kc_name="Internet of Everything"] eventually will be the interconnect platform of all things, wireless and wireline. The utopian scenario is to have a common platform, with standardized protocols, which everyone builds to. Will that happen? Perhaps, but for a time, especially while the IoE evolves, that won’t be the case. Count on the early IoE bei... » read more

NXP To Buy Freescale For $16.7B


By Ann Steffora Mutschler & Ed Sperling Dutch semiconductor giant NXP Semiconductors will buy Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor for $16.7 billion—$11.8 billion in cash, $5.6 billion worth of debts, minus $696 million in cash reserves—creating a combined company with a broad-based product portfolio and projected annual revenue of more than $10 billion. Given the size of the deal... » read more

Smarter Cars, But How Smart?


With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention — the kind that comes with real R&D dollars, market development plans and cost analyses for future commercialization. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Until now, the focus on intelligence in automobiles has largely been on driver assist and in... » read more

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