Cracking The Memory Wall


Processor performance continues to improve exponentially, with more processor cores, parallel instructions, and specialized processing elements, but it is far outpacing improvements in bandwidth and memory. That gap, the so-called memory wall, has persisted throughout most of this century, but now it is becoming more pronounced. SRAM scaling is slowing at advanced nodes, which means SRAM takes ... » read more

Low-Cost TSV Repair Architecture Specialized for Highly Clustered TSV Faults Within HBM


A new technical paper titled "Low Cost TSV Repair Architecture Using Switch-Based Matrix for Highly Clustered Faults" was published by researchers at Yonsei University. Abstract "Through-silicon via (TSV), responsible for inter-layer communication in high-bandwidth memory (HBM), plays a critical role in HBM operation. Therefore, faults occur in TSVs can critically impact the entire chips. H... » read more

EUV’s Future Looks Even Brighter


The rapidly increasing demand for advanced-node chips to support everything-AI is putting pressure on the industry's ability to meet demand. The need for cutting-edge semiconductors is accelerating in applications ranging from hyperscale data centers powering large language models to edge AI in smartphones, IoT devices, and autonomous systems. But manufacturing those chips relies heavily on ... » read more

Chiplets: Where Are We Today?


The 3rd annual Chiplet Summit was held in Santa Clara from January 21st to 23rd at the Convention Center. The conference continues to grow from its 1st year when it was held at the San Jose Doubletree Hotel (almost exactly 2 years ago). During his Chairman’s Welcome presentation, Chuck Sobey mentioned that there were 41 exhibitors at this year’s conference. Chuck was also the moderator f... » read more

Assembly Design Rules Slowly Emerge


Process design kits (PDKs) play an essential in ensuring that silicon technology can proceed from one generation to the next in a manner that design tools can keep up with. No such infrastructure has been needed for packaging in the past, but that's beginning to change with advanced packages. Heterogeneous assemblies are still ramping up, but their benefits are attracting new designs. “Chi... » read more

New Class Of Memory: Managed-Retention Memory or MRM (Microsoft Research)


A new technical paper titled "Managed-Retention Memory: A New Class of Memory for the AI Era" was published by researchers at Microsoft. Abstract "AI clusters today are one of the major uses of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). However, HBM is suboptimal for AI workloads for several reasons. Analysis shows HBM is overprovisioned on write performance, but underprovisioned on density and read band... » read more

Choosing The Right Memory Solution For AI Accelerators


To meet the increasing demands of AI workloads, memory solutions must deliver ever-increasing performance in bandwidth, capacity, and efficiency. From the training of massive large language models (LLMs) to efficient inference on endpoint devices, choosing the right memory technology is critical for chip designers. This blog explores three leading memory solutions—HBM, LPDDR, and GDDR—and t... » read more

Ammonia Plasma Surface Treatment for Improved Cu–Cu Bonding Reliability


A new technical paper titled "Ammonia Plasma Surface Treatment for Enhanced Cu–Cu Bonding Reliability for Advanced Packaging Interconnection" was published by researchers at Myongji University. Abstract "With the emergence of 3D stacked semiconductor products, such as high-bandwidth memory, bonding-interface reliability cannot be overemphasized. The condition of the surface interface befo... » read more

Redefining XPU Memory For AI Data Centers Through Custom HBM4: Part 3


This is the third and final of a series from Alphawave Semi on HBM4 and gives and examines custom HBM implementations. Click here for part 1, which gives an overview of the HBM standard, and here for part 2, on HBM implementation challenges. This follows on from our second blog, where we discussed the substantial improvements high bandwidth memory (HBM) provides over traditional memory tec... » read more

Is In-Memory Compute Still Alive?


In-memory computing (IMC) has had a rough go, with the most visible attempt at commercialization falling short. And while some companies have pivoted to digital and others have outright abandoned the technology, developers are still trying to make analog IMC a success. There is disagreement regarding the benefits of IMC (also called compute-in-memory, or CIM). Some say it’s all about reduc... » read more

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