MEMS: Improving Cost And Yield


MEMS devices inspire awe on the design side. On the test and manufacturing side, they evoke a different kind of reaction. These are, after all, the intersection of mechanical and electrical engineering—a joining of two miniature worlds that are the basis of some of the most complex technology on the planet. But getting these devices to yield sufficiently, understanding what does or does no... » read more

Devices Threatened By Analog Content?


As the amount of analog content in connected devices explodes, ensuring that the analog portion works properly has taken on a new level of urgency. Analog circuitry is required for interpreting the physical world and for moving data to other parts of the system, while digital circuitry is the fastest way to process it. So a sensor that gives a faulty reading in a car moving at high speed or ... » read more

Tech Talk: Timing Closure


Arteris' George Janac talks about timing closure issues in advanced chips and why this has reared its head again for the first time in a decade.   Related Stories Timing Closure Issues Resurface Adding more features and more power states is making it harder to design chips at 10nm and 7nm. » read more

Oscilloscopes: The EE’s Stethoscope


Oscilloscopes are like the electricity to your house. You don't give it much thought until a storm knocks it out. The entire electronics industry can't function without oscilloscopes. But this equipment is such a constant and so consistent, we sometimes forget it's there. Semiconductor Engineering spent time with three Test & Measurement (T&M) industry stalwarts to talk about Oscillo... » read more

What’s Next For IoT Security?


By Ed Sperling & Jeff Dorsch With security, the little things can cause as much of a problem as the big things. As shown in the recent distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on Dyn, which created waves of attacks using Mirai malware, connected devices of all sizes can be amassed into an army of bots that can bring even giants like Amazon and Netflix to a dead stop. This attack was ... » read more

Can Analog And Digital Get Along Better?


How to bridge analog and digital is getting renewed attention as the amount of analog content that needs to be processed balloons with consumer and industrial IoT applications. Solving that problem isn’t going to be easy, though. To begin with, digital designers view designs in terms of voltages. Analog designers, in contrast, look at currents. “Unless you can analyze an [getkc id="37... » read more

End Of Mixed Signal Engineering?


EDA companies are stepping back after years of trying to force engineers to combine analog and digital disciplines. Rather than emphasizing [getkc id="38" kc_name="mixed signal"] as a single expertise, they are building bridges and translation mechanisms between the two worlds. The moves cap more than a decade of trying to find optimal ways to pack [getkc id="37" kc_name="analog"] and digita... » read more

Mixed-Signal Design Powers Ahead


Mixed-signal devices are at the heart of many advanced systems today because of the need to interact with the outside world, but designing and verifying these systems is getting harder. There are several reasons for this. First, almost all of these devices now have to be lower power than in the past, and in the analog space it's not as simple as just dialing down part of a block. Second, it ... » read more

What Is ‘Digital’?


I saw a LinkedIn article with this title a couple of weeks ago and was curious. Do we not know what digital is and do we need to question it? When I read the first line I was very surprised and somewhat confused. Ved Sen, the author said that, “Despite working in the digital space for years, now I was quite stumped a few weeks ago when I was asked to define it.” Why would digital be so d... » read more

Experts At The Table: The Internet Of Everything


By Ed Sperling System-Level Design sat down to discuss the Internet of Things with Jack Guedj, president and CEO of Tensilica; John Heinlein, vice president of marketing for the physical IP division of ARM; Kamran Izadi, director of sourcing and supplier management at Cisco; and Oleg Logvinov, director of market development for STMicroelectronics’ Industrial and Power Conversion Division. Wh... » read more

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