Heat-Related Issues Impact Reliability In Advanced IC Designs


Heat is becoming a much bigger problem in advanced-node chips and packages, causing critical electrons to leak out of DRAM, timing and reliability issues in 3D-ICs, and accelerated aging that are unique to different workloads. All types of circuitry are vulnerable to thermal effects. It can slow the movement of the electrons through wires, cause electromigration that shortens the lifespan of... » read more

Effectively Monitor And Streamline Test Processes Using A DAQ


Manufacturing and field operations generate a high volume of data, and they are also fueling growth in the use of smart remote sensing and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The data that is generated gives users visibility into their operations in real time or near real time to help them make decisions quickly. Time is a critical factor when high-volume production lines go down, electri... » read more

Integration Challenges For ATE Data


Tighter integration of automatic test equipment (ATE) into semiconductor manufacturing, so that data from one process can be seamlessly leveraged by another, holds significant promise to boost manufacturing efficiency and yield. The challenge is selling this concept to fabs, packaging houses, and their customers. Data involving yield parameters, process variations, and intricate details abou... » read more

Why Data-Over-Sound Is An Integral Part Of Any IoT Engineer’s Toolbox


Data-over-sound technology such as Chirp presents a compelling solution for many device-to-device connectivity applications, particularly for use cases that require frictionless, low cost connectivity with nearby devices. Download this white paper to: Understand the fundamental concepts and benefits of data-over-sound connectivity Explore the key application areas within the Internet... » read more

Leveraging Chip Data To Improve Productivity


The semiconductor ecosystem is scrambling to use data more effectively in order to increase the productivity of design teams, improve yield in the fab, and ultimately increase reliability of systems in the field. Data collection, analysis, and utilization is at the center of all these efforts and more. Data can be collected at every point in the design-through-manufacturing flow and into the f... » read more

Looking Inside Of Chips


Shai Cohen, co-founder and CEO of proteanTecs, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about how to boost reliability and add resiliency into chips and advanced packaging. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Several years ago, no one was thinking about on-chip monitoring. What's changed? Cohen: Today it is obvious that a solution is needed for optimizing performanc... » read more

Can ML Help Verification? Maybe


Functional verification produces an enormous amount of data that could be used to train a machine learning system, but it's not always clear which data is useful or whether it can help. The challenge with ML is understanding when and where to use it, and how to integrate it with other tools and approaches. With a big enough hammer, it is tempting to call everything a nail, and just throwing ... » read more

Telecare Challenges: Secure, Reliable, Lower Power


The adoption of telecare using a variety of connected digital devices is opening the door to much more rapid response to medical emergencies, as well as more consistent monitoring, but it also is adding new challenges involving connectivity, security, and power consumption. Telecare has been on the horizon for the better part of two decades, but it really began ramping with improvements in s... » read more

Data Management Position: An Automated Approach to Intelligent PCB Design Data Management


The design cycle of electronic devices produces vast amounts of data. From a top-level view, this data can be broken down into basic blocks, including software, circuit board design, mechanical design, and others. These blocks contain extensive and complex information, including the types and amounts of individual data and information files, as well as their hierarchy structure. This data and i... » read more

Silicon Lifecycle Management’s Growing Impact On IC Reliability


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about silicon lifecycle management, how it's expanding and changing, and where the problems are, with Prashant Goteti, principal engineer at Intel; Rob Aitken, R&D fellow at Arm; Zoe Conroy, principal hardware engineer at Cisco; Subhasish Mitra, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University; a... » read more

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