Performance and Power Tradeoffs At 7/5nm


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss power optimization with Oliver King, CTO at Moortec; João Geada, chief technologist at Ansys; Dino Toffolon, senior vice president of engineering at Synopsys; Bryan Bowyer, director of engineering at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Kiran Burli, senior director of marketing for Arm's Physical Design Group; Kam Kittrell, senior product management group d... » read more

Redefining The Power Delivery Network


Reliably getting power around a package containing multiple dies, potentially coming from multiple sources, or implemented in diverse technologies, is becoming much more difficult. The tools and needed to do this in an optimized manner are not all there today. Nevertheless, the industry is confident that we can get there. For a single die, the problem has evolved slowly over time. "For a ... » read more

Preparing For A Barrage Of Physical Effects


Advancements in 3D transistors and packaging continue to enable better power and performance in a given footprint, but they also require more attention to physical effects stemming from both increased density and vertical stacking. Even in planar chips developed at 3nm, it will be more difficult to build both thin and thick oxide devices, which will have an impact on everything from power to... » read more

Aging Problems At 5nm And Below


The mechanisms that cause aging in semiconductors have been known for a long time, but the concept did not concern most people because the expected lifetime of parts was far longer than their intended deployment in the field. In a short period of time, all of that has changed. As device geometries have become smaller, the issue has become more significant. At 5nm, it becomes an essential par... » read more

Lower Resistance Protects Against Failure In IC Design


By Fady Fouad, Esraa Swillam, and Jeff Wilson When you’re fighting off a threat, you typically want all the resistance you can muster. In IC design, on the other hand, minimizing resistance is crucial to success in power structure design. As metals get narrower with technology node advances, resistance levels rise, and voltage drop (IR) and electromigration (EM) issues grow, both in number... » read more

Reducing IR And EM Issues With Automated Via Insertion


IR drop and EM issues are significant performance and reliability detractors at advanced nodes. Adding vias is the most effective means of correction, but traditional custom scripts are difficult and time-consuming, and do not guarantee correct-by-construction vias. The Calibre YieldEnhancer PowerVia utility uses manufacturing requirements to perform automated insertion of DRC/LVS-clean vias. R... » read more

Ensuring Coverage In Large SoCs


Sven Beyer, product manager for design verification at OneSpin Solutions, talks about why formal technology is required to ensure coverage in some of the newest chips, how it deals with potential interactions and different use cases, and why it is gaining traction in automotive applications. » read more

Big Design, IP and End Market Shifts In 2020


EDA is on a roll. Design starts are up significantly thanks to increased investment in areas such as AI, a plethora of new communications standards, buildout of the Cloud, the race toward autonomous driving and continued advancements in mobile phones. Many designs demand the latest technologies and push the limits of complexity. Low power is becoming more than just reducing wasted power at t... » read more

Using Static Analysis For Functional Safety


Fadi Maamari, group director for R&D at Synopsys, explains why static analysis is suddenly in demand in auto chip design, how it can help to choose the best implementation of functional safety approaches, and where it fits into the design flow. » read more

A Reliable I/O Ring For A Reliable SoC


What is an input/output (I/O) ring, and why should I care about it? If you’re a system-on-chip (SoC) designer, you had better know the answer to that question. SoCs are the darlings of the semiconductor industry—they combine all the typical functionality of a computer (central processing unit (CPU), memory, input/output (I/O) ports, and storage) on a single chip. They’re particularly popu... » read more

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