AI Storm Brewing


AI is coming. Now what? The answer isn't clear, because after decades of research and development, AI is finally starting to become a force to reckon with. The proof is in the M&A activity underway right now. Big companies are willing to pay huge sums to get out in front of this shift. Here is a list of just some of the AI acquisitions announced or completed over the past few years: ... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Consortia Optimal+ said this week that it has joined the Industrial Internet Consortium. “The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will have a tremendous impact on industries worldwide. The application of smart manufacturing, combined with the collection and analysis of in-use/field stage data, will deliver powerful insights to brand owners and enable them to achieve dramatic improvements in... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Market Research There will be 8.4 billion connected things in use this year, a 31% gain from 2016, and leading up to 20.4 billion connected devices in 2020, according to Gartner. The market research firm estimates worldwide spending on endpoints and services will hit nearly $2 trillion in 2017. Greater China, North America, and Western Europe account for two-thirds of the IoT installed base th... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Finance NXP Semiconductors reported its Secure Connected Devices group posted revenue of $569 million in the fourth quarter, a gain of 10% from a year earlier. NXP CEO Richard Clemmer said in a statement, “All major product lines contributed to a seasonally solid quarter.” The chip company reported Q4 revenue of $2.44 billion and 2016 revenue of nearly $9.5 billion. Consortia Bosch, C... » read more

Managing Parasitics For Transistor Performance


The basic equations describing transistor behavior rely on parameters like channel doping, the capacitance of the gate oxide, and the resistance between the source and drain and the channel. And for most of the IC industry's history, these have been sufficient. “Parasitic” or “external” resistances and capacitances from structures outside the transistor have been small enough to discoun... » read more

Making Secure Chips For IoT Devices


Chips and modules going into Internet of Things node devices must have cybersecurity features designed and built into them. Multiple vendors are responding with products meant to keep the IoT devices protected from the cyberattacks that are becoming more common. While [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"] privacy remains a key concern for consumers and homeowners, IoT security has taken on top-of-mi... » read more

Looking Back On IoT In 2016


The Internet of Things was going great guns for most of 2016. Until October 21, that is. That’s the date of the coordinated cyberattacks on Dyn, an Internet performance management services firm. The distributed denial-of-service attacks quickly had impacts on Airbnb, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, PayPal, Reddit, Twitter, and other popular websites. Dyn was able to fight off the aggressive att... » read more

What’s Missing In Advanced Packaging


Even though Moore's Law is running out of steam, there is still a need to increase functional density. Increasingly, this is being done with heterogeneous integration at the package or module level. This is proving harder than it looks. At this point there are no standardized methodologies, and tools often are retrofitted versions of existing tools that don't take into account the challenges... » read more

Uncertainty Grows For 5nm, 3nm


As several chipmakers ramp up their 10nm finFET processes, with 7nm just around the corner, R&D has begun for 5nm and beyond. In fact, some are already moving full speed ahead in the arena. [getentity id="22586" comment="TSMC"] recently announced plans to build a new fab in Taiwan at a cost of $15.7 billion. The proposed fab is targeted to manufacture TSMC’s 5nm and 3nm processes, whic... » read more

5 Takeaways from IEDM


As usual, the recent IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) was a busy week. The event, which took place in San Francisco, featured a plethora of subjects, such as next-generation transistors and memories. The event also included tracks on non-traditional approaches like quantum and neuromorphic computing. And then, there were sessions on power semis and others. In no partic... » read more

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