eFuses: Use Cases, Benefits, And Design In The System Context


In recent years, the automotive industry has been one of the drivers of innovation in the field of electrical and electronic system safety. This is primarily due to the rapid uptake and, in some cases, already mandatory use of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) as well as to the first steps toward (partially) autonomous vehicles. In conventional safety systems, the off state can be as... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Three Fraunhofer Institutes (IIS/EAS, IZM, and ENAS) launched the Chiplet Center of Excellence, a research initiative to support the commercial introduction of chiplet technology. The center initially will focus on automotive electronics, developing workflows and methods for electronics design, demonstrator construction, and the evaluation of reliability. The UCIe Consortium published the Un... » read more

Managing Complexity And A Left Shift: Reconfigurable Mixed-Signal Circuits For Complex Integrated Systems


By Björn Zeugmann and Benjamin Prautsch The chip market is growing worldwide; it’s projected to nearly double by 2030 to over one trillion dollars. Most of this market is made up of digital functions in the form of logic, microprocessors, and memory. Although analog ICs account for only around 15% of the total, they are key components for overall systems and are therefore almost always pr... » read more

Analog Consolidation Spurs New Round Of Startups


A new wave of startups is rising to meet the growing need for specialized analog customization in chip design projects, opening the door to more affordable custom designs. These startups are breathing new life into a sector, which as a result of consolidation has favored only the largest chipmakers. As larger analog companies acquire smaller ones, many companies that were previously engaged ... » read more

Voltage Drop Now Requires Dynamic Analysis


At one time a relatively infrequent occurrence, voltage drop is now a major impediment to reliability at advanced nodes. Decades ago, voltage drop was only an issue for very large and high-speed designs, where there was concern about supply lines delivering full voltage to transistors. As design margins have tightened in modern advanced designs, controlling voltage drop has become a requiremen... » read more

Making Electronics More Efficient


Projections about the amount of energy required for AI in data centers and other electronic devices are putting a spotlight on more efficient electronics. But making chips and systems more efficient is an enormous challenge. It used to be as simple as turning down the voltage or moving to the next process node, but those approaches are no longer yielding the same kinds of benefits as in the pas... » read more

Sensor Requirements For Developing Robust Environment Perception Systems


In recent years, sensor systems for environment perception have become increasingly important – whether for adaptive robotics, automated driving, industrial process and quality control, or condition monitoring. The aim is always to detect and interpret certain environmental characteristics. In doing so, it’s important to choose not only the right algorithm but also the right sensor or senso... » read more

Verification Tools Straining To Keep Up


Verification engineers are the unsung heroes of the semiconductor industry, but they are at a breaking point and desperately in need of modern tools and flows to deal with the rapidly increasing pressures. Verification is no longer just about ensuring that functionality is faithfully represented in an implementation. That alone is an insolvable task, but verification has taken on many new re... » read more

Validation Of Smart Sensors For AI-Based Condition Monitoring In Industry


By André Schneider and Martin Lehmann Industry has challenging requirements for the quality and reliability of the distributed smart sensors used in condition monitoring. As a result of digitalization and the increasing use of AI-based monitoring solutions, we can expect an increase in demand for systematic, efficient design and validation processes. In the future, a product’s journey fro... » read more

Trouble Ahead For IC Verification


Verification complexity is roughly the square of design complexity, but until recently verification success rates have remained fairly consistent. That's beginning to change. There are troubling signs that verification is collapsing under the load. The first-time success rate fell (see figure 1) in the last survey conducted by Wilson Research, on behalf of Siemens EDA, in 2022. A new survey ... » read more

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