Variability In Chip Manufacturing


Brewer Science’s Jim Korich talks about how to deal with variability in processes and why consistency in materials is so important at advanced nodes. https://youtu.be/U1KkUmtmqpE » read more

Faster Verification With AI, ML


Tool providers have continually improved the performance, capacity, and memory footprint parameters of functional verification engines over the past decade. Today, although the core anchors are still formal verification, simulation, emulation, and FPGA-based prototyping, a new frontier focusing on the verification fabric itself aims to make better use of these engines including planning, alloca... » read more

On-Chip Monitoring Of FinFETs


Stephen Crosher, CEO of Moortec, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss on-chip monitoring and its impact on power, security and reliability, including predictive maintenance. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What new problems are you seeing in design? Crosher: There are challenges emerging for companies working on advanced nodes, including scaling and trans... » read more

Using Data To Improve Yield


Semiconductor manufacturers are always looking for an edge to improve operating efficiency and to increase yields on chip lots. For some, the answers include big data analytics, as well as technology to move that data around more quickly. Chipmakers, board assemblers, and related businesses are turning to the Internet of Things, especially [getkc id="78" kc_name="Industrial IoT"] technology... » read more

Listening To The Voice Of Your Product


Much has been said and written about the business values of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Through connecting the manufacturing elements (machines) on the factory floor, and collecting and analyzing their data, manufacturers can significantly improve the efficiency and profitability of their operations through intelligent predictive maintenance of equipment and optimal equipment ut... » read more

7nm Power Issues And Solutions


Being able to achieve 35% speed improvement, 65% power reduction and 3.3X higher density makes adopting a 7nm process for your next system-on-chip (SoC) design seem like an easy decision. However, with $271 million in estimated total design cost and 500 man-years it would take to bring a mid-range 7nm SoC to production, companies need to carefully weigh the benefits against the cost of designin... » read more

MapD Makes GPUs First-Class Citizens


It’s now well known that with the latest innovations in parallel programming and GPU technology, graphics processing units (GPUs) can be harnessed today to deal with the enormous data sets regularly encountered in applications ranging from ADAS, artificial intelligence, and gaming to deep learning, scientific computation, and high-performance computing. But how exactly do you find what you... » read more

New Directions For EDA


DAC is over and everyone is asking – what was the theme this year? It is sometimes difficult to make such a determination because quite often the theme has been there for some time, but suddenly appears more obvious than it did in the past. Some years it is a new product or class of products. The theme also can remain hidden, or disguised. As an example, people have been talking about the ... » read more

Power Limits Apps In The IoT


The applications in the IoT are seemingly limitless, but the power is one thing that can’t be. Mary Ann White at Synopsys reminded me that a lot of the energy harvesting devices are super low power and there is a reason why they use just a simple LCD-type display. But we agree it would be so cool if we could have color LCDs that still only consume low power. Of course, I have no doubt tha... » read more

Newer posts →