The Week In Review: Design/IoT

By Jesse Allen - 18 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Tools Aldec updated its emulation and simulation acceleration software package for high speed prototyping boards, adding a SCE-MI Pipes-based flow for streaming large amounts of data, and a 30% speed increase for all emulation modes. Plus, Aldec's mixed-language FPGA design and simulation platform now includes a complete coverage analysis package for FPGA and ASIC designers with the addition... » read more

Tech Talk: 2.5D Issues

By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Bill Isaacson, director of ASIC marketing at eSilicon, about how viable this packaging approach is, organic vs. inorganic interposers, where the problems are, thermal coupling, interposer cost, and what will change over the next couple years. » read more

Racing To Design Chips Faster

By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 6

A shift is underway to develop chips for more narrowly defined market segments, and in much smaller production runs. Rather than focusing on shrinking features and reducing cost per transistor by the billions of units, the emphasis behind this shift is less about scale and much more about optimization for specific markets and delivering those solutions more quickly. As automotive, consumer e... » read more

IP Requirements Changing

By Brian Bailey - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Twenty years ago the electronics industry became interested in the notion of formalizing re-use through third-party IP. It has turned out to be harder than anyone imagined. In 1996, the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance ([getentity id="22845" comment="VSIA"]) was formed to standardize the development, distribution and licensing of IP. Soon afterward, companies with a couple of people in a ga... » read more

Robotics: Let The Games Begin

By Mike Gianfagna - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Right before the year-end holidays I posted a blog about a robot competition under Science Fair – Redefined. I am happy to report that the team we’re sponsoring – The Chargers – are putting the finishing touches on their robot entry to the competition. The games will begin soon. I continue to be amazed at the sophistication and complexity of this process, as I only have my high school s... » read more

How Healthy Is The Chip Market?

By Ed Sperling - 22 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 1

By Ed Sperling & Ann Steffora Mutschler The inclusion of semiconductors in more products across more market segments—many of which historically have not been large consumers of chips—is having a big impact on how they are designed and manufactured, as well as how they are tracked and quantified. In the past, semiconductor sales were so closely tied to the success of personal computers... » read more

The Big Shift

By Ed Sperling - 18 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

The number of chipmakers that truly can differentiate their products by moving to the next process node is falling, and that pool will continue to shrink even further over the next few years. Processor companies such as Intel and IBM always will benefit from scaling and architectural changes. So will GPU companies such as Nvidia, and FPGA vendors such as Xilinx, Microsemi and Altera (now par... » read more

Fallout From Scaling

By Ed Sperling - 03 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling & Ann Steffora Mutschler Semiconductor scaling is becoming much more difficult and expensive at each new node, creating sharp divisions about what path to take next for which markets and applications. What used to be confined to one or two clear choices is now turning into a menu of items and possibilities, often with no clear guarantees for a successful outcome. Views ... » read more

Heterogeneous Multi-Core Headaches

By Ed Sperling - 28 Jan, 2016 - Comments: 4

Cache coherency is becoming more pervasive—and more problematic—as the number of heterogeneous cores used in designs continues to rise. Cache coherency is an extension of caching, which has been around since the 1970s. The notion of a cache has a long history of being utilized to speed up a computer's main memory without adding expensive new components. Cache coherency's introduction coi... » read more

DAC Finds A New Voice

By Mike Gianfagna - 28 Jan, 2016 - Comments: 1

DAC stands for Design Automation Conference. Everyone: please stop saying “the DAC conference”. This may not be as widespread as folks calling an automated teller machine an ATM machine, although it’s still odd. But I digress… This year, the 53rd DAC will be held in Austin, Texas starting June 5. I’ve been going to DAC for more years than I will ever put in writing. I’ve seen so... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

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