The Week In Review: Design

By Jesse Allen - 09 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

M&A Microchip inked an agreement to acquire Microsemi, provider of chips for defense and aerospace, for $68.78 per share in cash. The acquisition price represents a total equity value of about $8.35 billion and a total enterprise value of about $10.15 billion, according to Microchip. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018. Silvaco acquired NanGate. Founded in 2004, ... » read more

Customizing Power And Performance

By Ed Sperling - 08 Feb, 2018 - Comments: 0

Designing chips is getting more difficult, and not just for the obvious technical reasons. The bigger issue revolves around what these chips going to be used for-and how will they be used, both by the end user and in the context of other electronics. This was a pretty simple decision when hardware was developed somewhat independently of software, such as in the PC era. Technology generally d... » read more

Data Buffering’s Role Grows

By Ann Mutschler - 17 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

Data buffering is gaining ground as a way to speed up the processing of increasingly large quantities of data. In simple terms, a data buffer is an area of physical [getkc id="22" kc_name="memory"] storage that temporarily stores data while it is being moved from one place to another. This becomes increasingly necessary in data centers, autonomous vehicles, and for [getkc id="305" kc_name=... » read more

Warp Speed Ahead

By Ed Sperling - 11 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 3

The computing world is on a tear, but not just in one direction. While battery-powered applications are focused on extending the time between charges or battery replacements, there is a whole separate and growing market for massive improvements in speed. Ultimately, this is where quantum computing will play a role, probably sometime in the late 2020/early 2030 timeframe, according to multipl... » read more

DAC System Design Contest

By Sharon Hu - 20 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

When it comes to tackling leading-edge design challenges in fun ways, there’s no better place than DAC. For DAC 2018, we’ve created a System Design Contest targeting machine learning on embedded hardware. If you think this is too leading edge for a design contest, you’d be mistaken: More than 100 teams registered for the contest. You can find a full list of the teams here. So ho... » read more

What’s Next With Computing?

By Mark LaPedus - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

At the recent IEDM conference, Jeff Welser, vice president and lab director at IBM Research Almaden, sat down to discuss artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing and supercomputing with Semiconductor Engineering. Here are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Where is high-end computing going? Welser: We are seeing lots of different systems start to come up. First of all,... » read more

Changes Ahead For Test

By Jeff Dorsch - 11 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 0

Testing microprocessors is becoming more difficult and more time consuming as these devices are designed to take on more complex tasks, such as accelerating artificial intelligence computing, enabling automated driving, and supporting deep neural networks. This is not just limited to microprocessors, either. Graphics processing units are grabbing market share in supercomputing and other area... » read more

Making Machine Learning Portable

By Ed Sperling - 26 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

Machine learning is everywhere, and it has exploded at a pace no one would have expected. Even a year ago, ML was more of an experiment than a reality. NVIDIA's stock price (Fig. 1, below) is a good representation of just how quickly this market has grown. GPUs are the chip of choice for training machine learning systems. Fig. 1: Nvidia 5-year stock price. Source: Google Finance Ma... » read more

Move Data Or Process In Place?

By Brian Bailey - 26 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

Should data move to available processors or should processors be placed close to memory? That is a question the academic community has been looking at for decades. Moving data is one of the most expensive and power-consuming tasks, and is often the limiter to system performance. Within a chip, Moore's Law has enabled designers to physically move memory closer to processing, and that has rema... » read more

Executive Insight: Lip-Bu Tan

By Ed Sperling - 06 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 2

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Lip-Bu Tan, president and CEO of [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"], to discuss disruptions and changes in the semiconductor industry, from machine learning and advance packaging to tools and business. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What do you see as the next big thing? Tan: Unlike mobility or cell phones, or PCs before th... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

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