Fab Tool R&D And Ramen Noodles


The semiconductor equipment and materials industry has always been a tough business. Over the years, vendors have been under pressure to develop new technologies for a shrinking but demanding customer base. And as a result, many vendors could not keep up, or elected to exit the business, causing a massive shakeout in the industry. It isn’t getting any easier, though. Today, tool and... » read more

Signal Integrity Issues


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss signal integrity with Rob Aitken, research fellow at [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"]; PV Srinivas, senior director of engineering for the Place & Route Division of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"]; and Bernard Murphy, chief technology officer at [getentity id="22026" e_name="Atrenta"]. What follows are excerpts of that conver... » read more

Tech Talk: Set-Top Power


Broadcom's John Redmond, associate technical director for digital video technology, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about what the next-generation set-top boxes will look like and how they will save power. The video was shot at Cadence's Low Power Summit. [youtube vid=Ov2GFrUTzts] » read more

IP Design Essentials For Reliability And SoC Integration


IP is integral to every SoC design. The need for ubiquitous connectivity has pushed the threshold for content in SoCs even beyond the tenets of Moore’s Law. Technology scaling has not only enabled the delivery of increased performance and reduced power, but also rich content through the integration of a wide range of IPs such as radio devices, CMOS image sensors, MEMs, etc., into a single ... » read more

(Low) Power Predictions 2015


Happy New Year! As we step into the New Year, lots of exciting things are already underway. First of all, the Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping up in a big way as witnessed at CES last week. Advances in devices that can talk to each other and share information are becoming a reality. Automotive applications, medical devices, industry automation, energy distribution and entertainment are all a... » read more

System-Aware SoC Power, Noise And Reliability Sign-off


In globally competitive markets for mobile, consumer and automotive electronic systems, the critical success factors are power consumption, performance and reliability. To manage these conflicting requirements, design teams consider multiple options, including the use of advanced process technology nodes — especially finFET-based devices. These advanced technology nodes allow chips to operate... » read more

Industry Scorecard For 2014


At the end of last year, Semiconductor Engineering asked the industry about the developments they expected to see in 2014. If you care to refresh your memory, they were categorized under markets, semiconductors and development tools. Now it is time to look back and see how accurate those predictions were and where they fell short. Markets The obvious trend, at the beginning of the year, wa... » read more

Trouble Spots And Optimism For 2015


Most top executives in the semiconductor industry are bullish about 2015 and even beyond, particularly as the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"] begins to drive new markets and market mash-ups, and as more semiconductors find their way into markets such as automotive, health-care and manufacturing. But it's not an entirely rosy picture, and top executives point to potential trouble sp... » read more

Fab Tool Biz Faces Challenges In 2015


After a slight downturn in 2013, the semiconductor equipment industry rebounded and experienced a solid upturn in 2014. The recovery was primarily driven by tool spending in the foundry and [getkc id="93" kc_name="DRAM"]sectors. Another big and ongoing story continued to unfold in 2014. In late 2013, [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"] announced a definitive agreement to acquir... » read more

Signal And Power Integrity Cross Paths


Signal integrity and power integrity historically have been relatively independent issues, and engineers with expertise in one area generally operate independently of the other. But as more power domains are added to conserve energy and allow more features, as voltages are reduced to save battery life, and as dynamic power becomes more of a concern at advanced nodes, these worlds are suddenly m... » read more

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