Week in Review: Manufacturing, Test


Breaking the Logjam The U.S. government’s delay in funding strategic chip capacity is threatening supply chains that are critical to national security. In fact, classified meetings are being held this week on the subject. Meanwhile, recognizing that time is of the essence, a group of billionaires has backed the “America’s Frontier Fund,” a non-profit group that aims to spur U.S. chipma... » read more

Continuous Integration For Digital Design


By Christian Skubich and Nico Peter In 2001, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development [1] laid the foundation for many modern software development processes. Today, 20 years later, agile methods are in widespread use in numerous domains. Out of the participants in the study Status Quo (Scaled) Agile 2020 [2], only 9% still relied on classic project management methods. One core element... » read more

Design Meets EDA: Gaps And Countermeasures In Analog/Mixed-Signal IC Design


Along the path from specification to silicon, the design of analog/mixed-signal chips comprises a variety of challenges. They are of technological, methodological, organizational, communicational, and business nature. Additionally, large gaps are to be managed among the individual challenges. Still up to now, approaches such as the “four eye principle” are used even in industrial practice i... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Nvidia to block the company’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm. The FTC said in a press statement that “the proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over the computing technology and designs that rival firms rely on to develop their own competing chips. … the combined firm would have the means and in... » read more

The Importance Of Aging Simulation In IC Design


Electronics reliability has been an important quality criterion in the automotive sector and in industrial automation for years. Electronics in this sector have to achieve product lifetimes of 10+ years under partially harsh environmental conditions. But the reliability of electronics is also becoming more important in other fields. For example, end customers now keep consumer products longer, ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 24


Panel packaging consortium Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM has provided an update on a consortium that is developing panel-level IC packaging technologies. Fraunhofer IZM is leading the consortium. The R&D organization and its partners, including Intel and others, have made progress in terms of equipment, processes and other technologies in the so-called Pa... » read more

Condition Monitoring Of Drive Trains By Data Fusion Of Acoustic Emission And Vibration Sensors


Early damage detection and classification by condition monitoring systems is crucial to enable predictive maintenance of manufacturing systems and industrial facilities. The data analysis can be improved by applying machine learning algorithms and fusion of data from heterogenous sensors. This paper presents an approach for a step-wise integration of classifications gained from vibration and ac... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Security Xilinx is investing an undisclosed amount in fabless semiconductor startup Kameleon Security, which is working on a cyber protection chip for servers, data centers, and cloud computing. The proactive Security Processing Unit (ProSPU) already secures the boot and has a root of trust (RoT). The chip will be demonstrated at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit, which is planned f... » read more

Bumps Vs. Hybrid Bonding For Advanced Packaging


Advanced packaging continues to gain steam, but now customers must decide whether to design their next high-end packages using existing interconnect schemes or move to a next-generation, higher-density technology called copper hybrid bonding. The decision is far from simple, and in some cases both technologies may be used. Each technology adds new capabilities in next-generation advanced pac... » read more

Virtual Prototyping In SoC Development


Modern semiconductor technologies enable manufacturers to pack more and more functions and memory into a single silicon die. While steadily advancing microintegration based on Moore’s Law just a few years ago mainly focused on increasing the clock frequency of integrated circuits (IC), today, it’s the design complexity and number of blocks that enable new IC functions. More and more logic b... » read more

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