The Evolving Data Center


Confession time. In addition to being utterly fascinated by all things chip design, I have always been absolutely enthralled by the magnificent data center. With a family member that has worked in them for most of his career, I can recalled being delighted to be amongst the racks in a second floor data center in Palo Alto in the early 90s. Time to time throughout my career it’s been thrilling... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers GlobalFoundries has asked European antitrust regulators to investigate TSMC over alleged unfair competition, according to a report from Reuters. Commenting on the report, a spokeswoman for GlobalFoundries said: “We are not surprised that the European Commission is looking into anti-competitive market practices and abusive conduct in the semiconductor sector. The semiconductor indu... » read more

AI Technology Is Changing Voice Recognition


It was one thing when some of Amazon’s voice-enabled Alexa devices picked up children’s voices and then ordered goods online. It was another thing altogether when families watching television coverage of that story found that their Amazon devices ordered those same products because they heard the reference on the news report. Ah, the unintended consequences of powerful voice recognition ... » read more

Light In A Package


Silicon photonics is gaining significant traction inside the data center, but creating a simpler method of packaging the laser with other circuitry remains a stumbling block for cutting costs and using this technology across a wider swath of applications. Progress does appear to be on the horizon, even though exact time frames remain unclear. The advantages of light in communications are wel... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Conferences Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and 5G wireless communications were the talk of this week’s Mobile World Congress Americas event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Interesting topics, to be sure, yet they were eclipsed by a panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon about a matter of life or death. At a program put together by 151 Advisors, one of the panel ses... » read more

What’s After 7nm?


The rollout of 10/7nm was a long time coming, and for good reason. It's hard stuff, and chipmakers have to be ready to take a giant step forward with new processes, tools, and to deal with a slew of physical effects that no longer can be handled by just guard-banding a design. The big question is what's next, when it will happen, and how much it will cost. Preparing for the next process node... » read more

Is The IoT Making Progress In Business?


Mention the Internet of Things and most people think about smart appliances or wearable electronics. But one of the biggest growth opportunities involves the digitalization of the workplace, and this is where a business case can be made—or lost—for widespread adoption of connected devices. A new Economist Intelligence Unit study found that 21% of executives surveyed believe the IoT alrea... » read more

Toward Defining Qubits


Quantum computing, by many accounts the future of high-performance computing, will be blazing fast, state-dependent, and it will require extremely cold operating temperatures. But beyond some general areas of agreement, comparing progress made by companies or different research groups is confusing. What's missing is a simple nomenclature to define some of the basic technology used in quantum... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Finance Dublin-based Cubic Telecom has taken in €40 million (about $47.6 million) in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to €75 million (around $89.25 million). Audi Electronics Venture and Qualcomm are existing investors participating in the new round of funding, joined by new investors Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Valid Soluciones Tecnologicas SAU. Cubic will use the mo... » read more

What’s New At Hot Chips


By Jeff Dorsch & Ed Sperling Machine learning, artificial intelligence and neuromorphic computing took center stage at Hot Chips 2017 this week, a significant change from years past where the focus was on architectures that addressed improvements in speed and performance for standard compute problems. What is clear, given the focus of presentations, is that the bleeding edge of comput... » read more

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