Noise: A Chip Killer


Noise has always been important to communications experts, but it's quickly becoming an issue that every semiconductor designer has to contend with. Some chips already have been compromised. Noise can be defined as any deviation from the ideal that can impact intended functionality. When it comes to semiconductors, that could mean the ability to reliably extract a signal value at the intende... » read more

Opportunities And Challenges With Open-Source Hardware In System Development


For many years now, there has been a trend toward open source in the field of system development. It can be seen in software libraries for the product itself as well as in development tools. A clear motivation for open source lies in the fact that not charging license fees makes a product more attractive on the market. It may also enable further development of the software component, dependi... » read more

Power Integrity And Voltage Issues Get Harder To Detect And Solve


Voltage and power integrity are becoming increasingly critical and challenging for chip designers and architects, regardless of which process technology they are using or which market they are targeting. An explosion of features vying unevenly for current is increasing the number of constraints and possible interactions that engineers need to sort through to ensure reliability. These include... » read more

Multiple AI Scale-Up Options Emerge


Artificial intelligence (AI) workloads are very different from those traditionally run inside of data centers, and while the current infrastructure can accommodate those needs, there is a constant demand for higher performance and better power efficiency. It can take months to train a large language model, even with a huge number of processing elements. Typically this involves commandeering ... » read more

How Fast Can Germany Shift To Software-Defined Vehicles?


It's being called "China speed," defined by the accelerated rate at which software-defined vehicles can be designed, manufactured, and updated with new features. And nowhere is this hitting harder and forcing more profound changes than in Germany, Europe's leading automotive market. Rather than relying solely on customized electronic control units, SDVs use a combination of specialized and g... » read more

Advanced Packaging: A Key Technology For The Next Generation Of Electronics


In recent years, advanced packaging has become much more important. While semiconductor manufacturers used to focus primarily on miniaturization and increasing the performance of individual chips, the focus is increasingly shifting to the system level: How can processor cores, memory, sensors, and wireless modules be integrated as efficiently, compactly, and powerfully as possible within a sing... » read more

Current Problems Grow For Power Delivery


IR drop is becoming more problematic for a growing proportion of designs, an indication that the power delivery network (PDN) is not providing enough current to parts of the design when required. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix to this problem. In the past, when voltages were much higher, a small voltage droop didn't really matter. At the same time, wires were much thicker and presented ... » read more

The Limits Of AI’s Role In EDA Tools


The world has been inspired by generative AI models like ChatGPT. These are very applicable to things like copilots and agentic AI, but the adoption of these models into EDA tools is less obvious. What may be appropriate, and can AI make EDA tools faster or better? EDA has been enabling Moore's Law for the past 40 years, and that has required pushing the limits of many of the algorithms and ... » read more

New Antennas And Advanced ICs Needed For 6G


6G is expected to bring data speeds that enable highly integrated and responsive technology in smartphones, homes, cities, and autonomous vehicles, but realizing that goal will require a lot more work. There will be many more antennas everywhere, embedded in infrastructure around town, in base stations, edge-devices, and everything in between. They will be sending and receiving many more sig... » read more

Balancing Workloads In AI Processor Designs


A growing number of AI processors are being designed around specific workloads rather than standardized benchmarks, optimizing performance and power efficiency, but often with enough flexibility to adapt to future changes. While the fundamentals of matrix multiplication and software optimization still apply, those alone are no longer sufficient. Designs need to address specific data types, w... » read more

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