The Race Toward Mixed-Foundry Chiplets


Creating chiplets with as much flexibility as possible has captured the imagination of the semiconductor ecosystem, but how heterogeneous integration of chiplets from different foundries will play out remains unclear. Many companies in the semiconductor ecosystem are still figuring out how they will fit into this heterogeneous chiplet world and what issues they will need to solve. While near... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Rambus will begin selling Arm's CryptoCell embedded security platform and CryptoIsland root-of-trust cores, setting the stage for a much broader push by Rambus into security for a wide range of connected devices, and ultimately into security as a service. Under the terms of the deal, Rambus' customers will be able to license Arm IP directly from Rambus. For Arm's existing customers, there will ... » read more

The Importance Of Metal Stack Compatibility For Semi IP


Every foundry and every node is different, but for every foundry/node there are multiple supported metal stacks. Some chips use a lot more metal layers than others. A common rule of thumb is each metal layer increases wafer cost 10%. So, a chip with 5 more metal layers than another will cost 50%+ more. The most complex, high performance chips, including performance FPGAs, typically use AL... » read more

How To Build Resilience Into Chips


Disaggregating chips into specialized processors, memories, and architectures is becoming necessary for continued improvements in performance and power, but it's also contributing to unusual and often unpredictable errors in hardware that are extremely difficult to find. The sources of those errors can include anything from timing errors in a particular sequence, to gaps in bonds between chi... » read more

Dealing With Performance Bottlenecks In SoCs


A surge in the amount of data that SoCs need to process is bogging down performance, and while the processors themselves can handle that influx, memory and communication bandwidth are straining. The question now is what can be done about it. The gap between memory and CPU bandwidth — the so-called memory wall — is well documented and definitely not a new problem. But it has not gone away... » read more

Safety, Security, And Reliability Of AI In Autos


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about security, aging, and safety in automotive AI systems, with Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix; Veerbhan Kheterpal, CEO of Quadric; Steve Teig, CEO of Perceive; and Kurt Busch, CEO of Syntiant. What follows are excerpts of that conversation, which was held in front of a live audience at DesignCon. Part one of this discussion is he... » read more

AI’s Impact In Automobiles Remains Uncertain


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about software updates in cars, where AI makes sense, and why there's a growing sense of optimism, with Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix; Veerbhan Kheterpal, CEO of Quadric; Steve Teig, CEO of Perceive; and Kurt Busch, CEO of Syntiant. What follows are excerpts of that conversation, which were held in front of a live audience at Desi... » read more

Where And Why AI Makes Sense In Cars


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about where AI makes sense in automotive and what are the main challenges, with Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix; Veerbhan Kheterpal, CEO of Quadric; Steve Teig, CEO of Perceive; and Kurt Busch, CEO of Syntiant. What follows are excerpts of that conversation, which were held in front of a live audience at DesignCon. Part two of this... » read more

Micro FPGAs And Embedded FPGAs


When people hear “FPGA” they think “big, expensive, power hungry.”  But it doesn’t need to be that way. Renesas has announced their Forge FPGA family. Details are at their website and in one of the many articles that covered their press release. Forge FPGAs show that FPGAs don’t have to be big, power hungry, and expensive. Forge FPGAs are tiny, draw standby current measure... » read more

Improving PPA When Embedding FPGAs Into SoCs


Embedded FPGAs have been on everyone’s radar for years as a way of extending the life of chips developed at advanced nodes, but they typically have come with high performance and power overhead. That’s no longer the case, and the ability to control complex chips and keep them current with changes to algorithms and various protocols is significant step. Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks a... » read more

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