Artificial Intelligence For Sustainable And Energy Efficient Buildings


According to the goals of Europe’s green deal missions, the continent strives for becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Since buildings are a major contributor to the overall consumption of energy, improving their energy efficiency can be a key to a more sustainable and greener Europe. On the way towards zero-emission buildings, several challenges have to be met: In modern energy systems, several ... » read more

Increase In Analog Problems


Analog and mixed signal design has always been tough, but a resent survey suggests that the industry has seen significantly increased failures in the past year because the analog circuitry within an ASIC was out of tolerance. What is causing this spike in failures? Is it just a glitch in the data, or are these problems real? The answer is complicated, and to a large extent it depends heavily... » read more

Confusion Grows Over Packaging And Scaling


The push toward both multi-chip packaging and continued scaling of digital logic is creating confusion about how to classify designs, what design tools work best, and how to best improve productivity and meet design objectives. While the goals of design teams remains the same — better performance, lower power, lower cost — the choices often involve tradeoffs between design budgets and ho... » read more

Analog Chip Layout: Creativity Vs. Deadlines


The entire design of integrated circuits, from the specification onward, depends on successful validation by measurement of microchips. One key milestone in this process is the completion of the layout. However, the path to reach this point can be quite difficult as many iterations are usually required. It includes: Iterations with the customer to finalize the specification. Iteratio... » read more

Dealing With Device Aging At Advanced Nodes


Premature aging of circuits is becoming troublesome at advanced nodes, where it increasingly is complicated by new market demands, more stress from heat, and tighter tolerances due to increased density and thinner dielectrics. In the past, aging and stress largely were separate challenges. Those lines are starting to blur for a number of reasons. Among them: In automotive, advanced-node... » read more

A Summary Of Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting For Autonomous Smart Structures


The technology of energy harvesting has great potential to enable energy autonomy of wireless sensors. The drop of power requirements of micro-electronic devices allows confidence that piezoelectric energy harvesting (PEH) is able to reliably power a wireless sensor network (WSN). The present work summarizes results of ongoing research in the field of PEH. With the aid of a performance metric a... » read more

Mission Profiles In The Automotive Development Process


The automotive industry's roadmap for the coming years is e-mobility and autonomous driving. Its implementation is likely to bring about changes on a par with the invention of the automobile itself. While the motor vehicle used to be primarily a mechanical product, it is now an entirely electronic system. Many of the new functions increase the safety of the driver and other road users, and t... » read more

Redefining The Power Delivery Network


Reliably getting power around a package containing multiple dies, potentially coming from multiple sources, or implemented in diverse technologies, is becoming much more difficult. The tools and needed to do this in an optimized manner are not all there today. Nevertheless, the industry is confident that we can get there. For a single die, the problem has evolved slowly over time. "For a ... » read more

Preparing For A Barrage Of Physical Effects


Advancements in 3D transistors and packaging continue to enable better power and performance in a given footprint, but they also require more attention to physical effects stemming from both increased density and vertical stacking. Even in planar chips developed at 3nm, it will be more difficult to build both thin and thick oxide devices, which will have an impact on everything from power to... » read more

Better Analytics Needed For Assembly


Package equipment sensors, newer inspection techniques, and analytics enable quality and yield improvement, but all of those will require a bigger investment on the part of assembly houses. That's easier said than done. Assembly operations long have operated on thin profit margins because their tasks were considered easy to manage. Much has changed over the past several years, however. The r... » read more

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