5G Is Coming

By Bami Bastani - 18 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

When I returned from the holidays, I thought I had entered a time warp. Did I sleep through January and wake up near the end of February? I expected to see the usual deluge of news about the gadgets and gear that will be featured at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2018). Instead, I’ve seen story after story about next-generation 5G mobile networks—typically the stuff of Mobile W... » read more

Toward Self-Driving Cars

By Mark Granger - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

The automotive market for semiconductors is shifting into high gear. Right now the average car has about $350 worth of semiconductor content, but that is projected to grow another 50% by 2023 as the overall automotive market for semiconductors grows from $35 billion to $54 billion. This strong growth is being driven by the need to develop what we are calling the ‘connected car.’ The ... » read more

Tech Talk: Substrate Noise Coupling

By Ed Sperling - 14 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Roland Jancke, head of the department for design methodology for the Fraunhofer's Engineering of Adaptive Systems Division, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the impact of substrate noise coupling on reliability of chips and how to deal with this issue. https://youtu.be/7E2rCwYr6-o » read more

Body Biasing For Analog Design

By Fraunhofer IIS/EAS - 13 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

This paper presents the practical application of body biasing control of ultra-deep submicron FD-SOI technologies for analog and mixed-signal designs. The body biasing control is dedicated for dynamic control of the trade- off between speed vs. power consumption for advanced digital circuits. However, in this work we focus on trading-off and improvement of analog circuit performances. Three dif... » read more

Enabling Automotive Design

By Ann Mutschler - 07 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Falling automotive electronics prices, propelled by advances in chip manufacturing and innovations on the design side, are driving a whole new level of demand across the automotive industry. Innovations that were introduced at the luxury end of the car market over the past couple years already are being implemented in more standard vehicles. The single biggest driver of change in the automo... » read more

Here Comes High-Res Car Radar

By Mark LaPedus - 20 Nov, 2017 - Comments: 1

A dozen or so startups are developing high-resolution radar chips that use various modulation schemes and processes, such as CMOS, FD-SOI and even metamaterials. In theory, high-resolution radar could boost the capabilities of today’s radar for cars, as well as eliminate the need for a separate LiDAR system. But the technology is still in the research stage and has yet to be proven commerc... » read more

Chips In China

By Wallace Pai - 16 Nov, 2017 - Comments: 1

The Chinese semiconductor industry is undergoing radical change. The national imperative is to increase self-sufficiency in semiconductors dramatically in the next few years, because while China is the world’s fastest-growing semiconductor market, it currently must import about 80 percent of the chips used in equipment manufactured by Chinese OEMs. Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province ... » read more

The Return Of Body Biasing

By Ann Mutschler - 15 Nov, 2017 - Comments: 1

Body biasing is making a comeback across a wide swath of process nodes as designers wrestle with how to build mobile devices with more functionality and longer battery life. Consider an ultra-low-power IoT device with a wireless sensor, for example, which is meant to last for years without changing a battery. Body biasing can be used to create an ultra-low-leakage sleep state. “In that ... » read more

Mixed Messages For Mixed-Signal

By Brian Bailey - 09 Nov, 2017 - Comments: 1

There is no such thing as a purely digital design at advanced nodes today. Even designs that have no [getkc id="37" kc_name="analog"] content are likely relying on [getkc id="38" kc_name="mixed-signal"] components such as SerDes for communications, or voltage regulators for adaptive power control. But the days of purposely attempting to integrate everything including analog and RF onto a single... » read more

Radar Versus LiDAR

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 6

Demand is picking up for vision, radar and LiDAR sensors that enable assisted and autonomous driving capabilities in cars, but carmakers are now pushing for some new and demanding requirements from suppliers. The automotive market always has been tough on suppliers. OEMs want smaller, faster and cheaper devices at the same or improved safety levels for both advanced driver-assistance systems... » read more

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