Hidden Signals: The Memories And Interfaces Enabling IoT, 5G, And AI


This IDC Technology Spotlight Report, sponsored by Rambus, highlights key, often hidden, memory and interface technologies that are enabling high performance electronic systems to serve the disruptive trends of the next decade like IoT, 5G, and Artificial Intelligence. The report discusses: Data and the importance of connectivity, both from the physical (analog) world to the digital wor... » read more

In-Memory Vs. Near-Memory Computing


New memory-centric chip technologies are emerging that promise to solve the bandwidth bottleneck issues in today’s systems. The idea behind these technologies is to bring the memory closer to the processing tasks to speed up the system. This concept isn’t new and the previous versions of the technology fell short. Moreover, it’s unclear if the new approaches will live up to their billi... » read more

Using Memory Differently


Chip architects are beginning to rewrite the rules on how to choose, configure and use different types of memory, particularly for chips with AI and some advanced SoCs. Chipmakers now have a number of options and tradeoffs to consider when choosing memories, based on factors such as the application and the characteristics of the memory workload, because different memory types work better tha... » read more

What’s the Right Path For Scaling?


The growing challenges of traditional chip scaling at advanced nodes are prompting the industry to take a harder look at different options for future devices. Scaling is still on the list, with the industry laying plans for 5nm and beyond. But less conventional approaches are becoming more viable and gaining traction, as well, including advanced packaging and in-memory computing. Some option... » read more

Top Tech Talks Of 2018


2018 shaped up to be a year of transition and inflection, sometimes in the same design. There were new opportunities in automotive, continued difficulties in scaling, and an explosion in AI and machine learning everywhere. Traffic numbers on stories give a snapshot of the most current trends, but with videos those trends are even more apparent because of the time invested in watching those v... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Gyrfalcon Technology released a 22nm AI accelerator ASIC chip with embedded MRAM. The Lightspeeur 2802M includes 40MB of memory to support large or multiple AI models, such as image classification and voice identification, within a single chip. Manufactured by TSMC, target applications include IoT endpoints, cloud solutions, and autonomous vehicles. Arm expanded its line of automotive-focuse... » read more

Making Sense Of DRAM


Graham Allan, senior manager for product marketing at Synopsys, examines the different types of DRAM, from GDDR to HBM, which markets they’re used in, and why there is such disparity between them. https://youtu.be/ynvcPfD2cZU     __________________________________ See more tech talk videos here. » read more

Where Advanced Packaging Makes Sense


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Chenglin Liu, director of package engineering at Marvell; John Hunt, senior director of engineering at ASE; Eric Tosaya, senior director of package manufacturing at eSilicon; and Juan Rey, vice president of engineering for Calibre at Mentor, a Siemens Business. What follows are excerpts of that discussion, which was held in front of a live audience at MEP... » read more

Why Chips Die


Semiconductor devices contain hundreds of millions of transistors operating at extreme temperatures and in hostile environments, so it should come as no surprise that many of these devices fail to operate as expected or have a finite lifetime. Some devices never make it out of the lab and many others die in the fab. It is hoped that most devices released into products will survive until they be... » read more

The Impact of Moore’s Law Ending


Over the past couple of process nodes the chip industry has come to grips with the fact that Moore's Law is slowing down or ending for many market segments. What isn't clear is what comes next, because even if chipmakers stay at older nodes they will face a series of new challenges that will drive up costs and increase design complexity. Chip design has faced a number of hurdles just to get ... » read more

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