The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Packaging and test IoT chip startup zGlue recently announced its technology, dubbed the zGlue Integrated Platform (ZiP). In ZiP, chip customers select and configure their designs based on chiplets. Chiplets are proven silicon IP from existing vendors. Then, the technology automatically generates potential implementations of a design. As part of the effort, zGlue has selected Advanced Semicondu... » read more

One Belt, One Road


China's so-called One Belt, One Road policy on global trade could have significant repercussions on semiconductors and IP if it succeeds. It's hardly a slam-dunk, and China has been vying for a larger position in the semiconductor industry for some time. But this is a completely different strategy because China is not attempting to go it alone this time. China has been rather quietly build... » read more

Portable Stimulus Status Report


The first release of the Portable Stimulus (PS) standard is slated for early next year. If it lives up to its promise, it could be the first new language and abstraction for verification in two decades. [getentity id="22028" e_name="Accellera"] uncorked the PS Early Adopter release at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in June. The standard has been more than two years in the making by t... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 23


Cadence's Madhavi Rao asks whether India should have more fabs and the role government policy should play. Synopsys' Kapil Rajpal checks out the Serial Peripheral Interface, which is emerging as a popular choice in automotive applications, and various vendor specific flavors. In a video, Mentor's Colin Walls explains inter-task communication and the basic mechanisms of how to pass data fr... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Connectivity Longing for LightSquared? The once-bankrupt company that tried to build a network with satellite airwaves and traditional spectrum has been reborn as Ligado Networks, which wants to serve 5G and Industrial Internet of Things applications with a mobile data network, employing satellite communications and other resources. Its founder is Philip Falcone, who was the guiding force behi... » read more

Why Fabs Worry About Tool Parts


Achieving high yields with acceptable costs is becoming much more difficult as chipmakers migrate to next-generation 3D NAND and finFET devices—but not just because of rising complexity or lithography issues. To fabricate an advanced logic chip, for example, a wafer moves from one piece of equipment to another in what amounts to 1,000 process steps or more in a fab. Any glitch with the equ... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 16


Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out how Imec sees the future of transistors and the challenges of 3D logic. Synopsys' Robert Vamosi gets a lesson on the electronic systems powering modern cars, and considers when it's ethical to hack one. Mentor's Colin Walls takes a look at how to pass data between RTOS tasks. Rambus' Aharon Etengoff looks at recent semi market predictions, from expand... » read more

Auto Suppliers: More Than Chips


The semiconductor industry is revving up its present and future contributions to advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving. Those areas represent tremendous growth opportunities for chips, modules, and software going into automotive electronics. There’s also the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in automotive design, which are brand new c... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Fab tools Lam Research held an analyst event this week. The company indicated that the industry is in the midst of a memory boom, including both DRAM and 3D NAND. According to Amit Daryanani, an analyst with RBC, here was one of the big takeaways at the event: “The memory spend portion of WFE is more sustainable than previously assumed due to end-market drivers such as big data, automation, ... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Connectivity M1 Limited of Singapore worked with Nokia to launch a nationwide narrowband Internet of Things network, targeting such applications as asset tracking, environmental monitoring, fleet management, and smart energy management for buildings. M1 hopes to boost the IoT ecosystem in Singapore with the new NB-IoT network. M&A DuPont has agreed to acquire Granular, a provider of digita... » read more

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