The Week In Review: Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 04 Apr, 2014 - Comments: 1

GlobalFoundries has emerged as the leading candidate to buy IBM's semiconductor unit, according to Reuters, which cited the Wall Street Journal as it source. IBM, which recently put its semiconductor unit on the block, has held discussions with GlobalFoundries, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. GlobalFoundries did not respond to the reports by press time. GlobalFoundries ... » read more

Look Who’s Making Chips

By Ed Sperling - 27 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 1

The entry into the chip business by companies such as Apple, and possibly Google, Amazon and a handful of others, may seem like a land grab in the semiconductor world, but the reality is that system companies have always done their own semiconductor design. Only the names have changed. IBM made its own PC processors, and it still makes them for its high-end servers. HP made chips for its PCs... » read more

Synopsys-Coverity Deal Final

By Ed Sperling - 26 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 2

Synopsys’ acquisition of Coverity, which makes tools for testing and analyzing software, was made official yesterday. Now what? That may be the $334 million question, which is the price Synopsys paid for the 11-year-old software tools vendor. Even Synopsys’ top executives are rather candid in their uncertainty about where this deal will lead, and they made no qualms about that at the Syn... » read more

Directed Self-Assembly Gains Momentum

By Mark LaPedus - 20 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

At last year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography symposium, directed self-assembly (DSA) grabbed the spotlight as chipmakers provided the first glimpse of their initial work and results with the technology. The results were stunning, thereby propelling DSA from a curiosity item to a possible patterning solution for next-generation devices. Last year, in fact, GlobalFoundries, IBM, Intel and Sams... » read more

Enabling Test Portability With Graphs

By Ann Mutschler - 20 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

Is it time to move up again? When it comes to test portability between simulation, emulation, prototypes and silicon, as well as an easier way to create a test structure, the answer appears to be a resounding ‘Yes.’ Looking at these activities from a higher level of abstraction and using a graph-based approach should allow automation where there has been none previously, and could allow val... » read more

EUV Reaches A Crossroads

By Mark LaPedus - 20 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 3

[gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"] (EUV) [getkc id="80" comment="lithography"] is at a crossroads. 2014 represents a critical year for the technology. In fact, it may answer a pressing question about EUV: Does it work or not? It’s too early to make that determination right now, but there are more uncertainties than ever for the oft-delayed technology. Originally aimed for the 65nm node in... » read more

Blog Review: March 19

By Ed Sperling - 19 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

ARM’s Diya Soubra has discovered an interesting term in relation to the Internet of Things: Compound Applications. Will that make the IoT more compelling? Mentor’s Colin Walls points to some less obvious reasons for choosing a processor. No. 4 on his list is particularly noteworthy. Synopsys’ Mick Posner has some thoughts about wearable computing prototypes. Check out the top pho... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 18

By Mark LaPedus - 18 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

Magazine chips Semiconductor manufacturing can produce tiny chips. The technology can also enable tiny magazine covers. For example, IBM and National Geographic plan to set a Guinness World Records title for the world's smallest magazine cover. IBM has devised a tiny chisel with a nano-size tip, which is 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil point. [caption id="attachment_10920" ali... » read more

The Good Kind Of Regulation

By Barry Pangrle - 13 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 0

This month I’m taking a page from the Editor’s book, (actually the title for the article here came from Ed Sperling) and I decided that the above title would be fitting for this article. Last September we took a look at IBM’s presentations on their POWER8 processor from HotChips. One of the multiple new interesting aspects of this design was the use of many on-chip integrated voltage regu... » read more

The End Of Automated Patent Trolls?

By Brian Bailey - 27 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 2

I have written several articles and blogs recently about the [getkc id="16" comment="patent"] system, and readers of What Were They Thinking know that I like to poke fun at patents that never should have been issued because they are obvious, silly or would never actually be able to work. There are patents that cover using a laser pointer to play with a cat, to water a Christmas tree or to creat... » 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

Legacy Process Nodes Going Strong

The critical, and growing, significance of mature node chips and processes.

by Bryon Moyer

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

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

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?