Carmakers To Chipmakers: Where’s The Data?


The integration of electronics into increasingly autonomous vehicles isn't going nearly as smoothly as the marketing literature suggests. In fact, it could take years before some of these discrepancies are resolved. The push toward full autonomy certainly hasn't slowed down, but carmakers and the electronics industry are approaching that goal from very different vantage points. Carmakers and... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 24


Arm's Shidhartha Das digs into Power Delivery Networks with a look at how the specific roles of different components work to provide smooth supply conditions. In a video, VLSI Research's Dan Hutcheson chats with D2S CEO Aki Fujimura about the state of the photomask market, EUV optimism, and the most interesting findings from this year's eBeam Initiative survey. Synopsys' Prasad Subudhi K.... » read more

A Crisis In DoD’s Trusted Foundry Program?


The U.S. Department of Defense’s Trusted Foundry program is in flux due to GlobalFoundries’ recent decision to put 7nm on hold, raising national security concerns across the U.S. defense community. U.S. DoD and military/aerospace chip customers currently have access to U.S.-based “secure” foundry capacity down to 14nm, but that's where it ends. No other foundries provide similar “s... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Amid ongoing delays with its 10nm process, Intel has reorganized its manufacturing unit, according to a report from The Oregonian/OregonLive. Sohail Ahmed, who has jointly led the unit since 2016, will retire next month, according to the report. The industry is racing to put extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into production. TSMC recently taped-out its first 7nm chip using E... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Arm announced its new roadmap promising 30% annual system performance gains on leading edge nodes through 2021. These gains are to come from a combination of microarchitecture design to hardware, software and tools. They are branding this new roadmap 'Neoverse.' The first delivery will be Ares – expected in early 2019 – for a 7nm IP platform targeting 5G networks and next-generation cloud t... » read more

EUV’s Uncertain Future


The ground appears to be solidifying under EUV. Intel announced this week it is reducing its stake in ASML to less than 3%, the second such move in a year. Apparently ASML no longer needs outside help. According to the company's earnings report, ASML turned in net sales of €2.776 billion, a slight increase over the €2.447 billion (GAAP) the company reported in Q3 and way up over the €... » read more

Wanted: Mask Equipment for Mature Nodes


Rising demand for chips at mature nodes is impacting the photomask supply chain, causing huge demand for trailing-edge masks and a shortfall of older mask equipment. The big issue is the equipment shortfall, which could impact customers on several fronts. Tool shortages could lead to longer mask turnaround times and delivery schedules for chips being developed at 90nm and above, which are bu... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers GlobalFoundries has announced the addition of nine new partners to its RFwave Partner Program, including AkronIC, Ask Radio, Catena, University of Waterloo Centre for Intelligent Antenna and Radio Systems (CIARS), Giga Solution, Helic, Incize, Mentor Graphics and Xpeedic Technology. The RFwave Partner Program builds upon GF’s radio-frequency (RF) efforts. The new partners will pro... » read more

Reconfigurable eFPGA For Aerospace Applications


Market research reports indicate about 10% of all dollar revenue of FPGA chips is for use in aerospace applications, and DARPA/DoD reports indicate about one-third of all dollar volume of ICs purchased by U.S. aerospace are FPGAs. FPGAs clearly are very important for aerospace applications because of a combination of short development time and the long mission life of many aerospace applica... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Deals AI startup Enflame (Suiyuan) Technology purchased multiple licenses of Arteris IP's FlexNoC interconnect IP for use as the on-chip communications backbone of its AI training chips for use in cloud datacenters. Enflame cited easy creation of regular topologies used in AI chips and the ability to take advantage of HBM2 memories. Phison, a maker of NAND flash controller ICs, inked�... » read more

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