The Road Ahead For SoCs In Self-Driving Vehicles


Automakers have relied on a human driver behind the wheel for more than a century. With Level 3 systems in place, the road ahead leads to full autonomy and Level 5 self-driving. However, it’s going to be a long climb. Much of the technology that got the industry to Level 3 will not scale in all the needed dimensions — performance, memory usage, interconnect, chip area, and power consumption... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


The Biden-Harris Administration announced the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a cybersecurity certification and labeling program to help consumers choose smart devices less vulnerable to cyberattacks. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is applying to register the Cyber Trust Mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and it would appear on qualifying smart products, including refrigerators,... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Cadence will acquire Rambus' SerDes and memory interface PHY IP business. Rambus will retain its digital IP business, including memory and interface controllers and security IP. “With this transaction, we will increase our focus on market-leading digital IP and chips and expand our roadmap of novel memory solutions to support the continued evolution of the data center and AI,” said Sean Fan... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Inflection AI raised $1.3 billion in a new funding round led by Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and NVIDIA after raising $225 million in the first round to support the ongoing development of Pi, a “useful, friendly, and fun” AI. In partnership with CoreWeave and NVIDIA, Inflection aims to build the world’s largest AI cluster, comprised of 22,000 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core ... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


The CHIPS for America team at the U.S. Department of Commerce named the selection committee who will select board members for the nonprofit entity that will likely be managing the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC). Members include John Hennessy, chairman of Alphabet; Jason Matheny, president and CEO of the RAND Corporation; Don Rosenberg, fellow in residence at UCSD’s School of ... » read more

A Buyers Guide To An NPU


Choosing the right AI inference NPU (Neural Processing Unit) is a critical decision for a chip architect. There’s a lot at stake because as the AI landscape constantly changes, the choices will impact overall product cost, performance, and long-term viability. There are myriad options regarding system architecture and IP suppliers, and this can be daunting for even the most seasoned semicondu... » read more

Heterogeneous Integration — Chiplets


Chiplets are a hot topic in the semiconductor industry, and to many, represent a paradigm change for chip designers and chip consumers alike. While heterogenous chiplets seem to have multiple advantages over traditional monolithic silicon and even homogenous chiplets, they still have not been mass-market deployed. This white paper, published in cooperation with the Global Semiconductor Alliance... » read more

Chiplet Planning Kicks Into High Gear


Chiplets are beginning to impact chip design, even though they are not yet mainstream and no commercial marketplace exists for this kind of hardened IP. There are ongoing discussions about silicon lifecycle management, the best way to characterize and connect these devices, and how to deal with such issues as uneven aging and thermal mismatch. In addition, a big effort is underway to improve... » read more

An Ideal Always-Sensing Subsystem Architecture


Always-sensing cameras are a relatively new method for users to interact with their smartphones, home appliances, and other consumer devices. Like always-listening audio-based Siri and Alexa, always-sensing cameras enable a seamless, more natural user experience. Through continuous sampling and analyzing visual data, always-sensing enables use cases such as: “Find a face” detection for... » read more

Architectural Considerations For Compute-In-Memory In AI Inference


Can Compute-in-Memory (CIM) bring new benefits to AI (Artificial Intelligence) inference? CIM is not an AI solution; rather, it is a memory management solution. CIM could bring advantages to AI processing by speeding up the multiplication operation at the heart of AI model execution. To read more, click here. » read more

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