Designing Hardware For Security


By Ed Sperling and Kevin Fogarty Cyber criminals are beginning to target weaknesses in hardware to take control of devices, rather than using the hardware as a stepping stone to access to the software. This shift underscores a significant increase in the sophistication of the attackers, as evidenced by the discovery of Spectre and Meltdown by Google Project Zero in 2017 (made public in Ja... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: May 8


Electrolyte transistors Delft University of Technology, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and NTT have developed a nanotransistor technology that will make it easier to measure the concentration of different electrolytes in the body. Electrolytes involve nutrients and chemicals in the body. They perform important functions and a disruption of the electrolyte balance is... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 8


Cobalt-free cathodes Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, built lithium-ion battery cathodes without cobalt that can store 50% more energy than traditional cobalt-containing cathodes. Currently, lithium-ion battery cathodes use layered structures, which cobalt is necessary to maintain. When lithium ions move from the cathode to anode during charging, a lot of space is left... » read more

The Case For Chiplets


Discussion about chiplets is growing as the cost of developing chips at 10/7nm and beyond passes well beyond the capabilities of many chipmakers. Estimates for developing 5nm chips (the equivalent 3nm for TSMC and Samsung) are well into the hundreds of millions of dollars just for the NRE costs alone. Masks costs will be in the double-digit millions of dollars even with EUV. And that's assum... » read more

Software-Defined Test And Measurement


Software-defined radios, instrumentation and test are ramping up alongside a flood of new technologies related to assisted and autonomous vehicles, 5G, and military/aerospace electronics, breathing new life and significant change into the test and measurement market. Software-defined test adds flexibility in markets where the products and protocols are evolving or still being defined, and wh... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Consumers recently filed a class-action suit against the three DRAM makers, alleging that they illegally agreed to raise prices for their respective memory products. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Samsung, Micron and Hynix agreed to limit the supply of DRAM, driving up prices for this widely used memory. The pri... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT


Cybersecurity Arm this week introduced the Cortex-M35P processor with anti-tampering technology and software isolation. The company also debuted security intellectual property to protect Internet of Things devices from physical cyberattacks and close proximity side-channel attacks. Paul Williamson, Arm’s vice president and general manager of the IoT Device IP line of business, provides more ... » read more

Challenges At The Edge


By Kevin Fogarty and Ed Sperling Edge computing is inching toward the mainstream as the tech industry begins grappling with the fact that far too much data will be generated by sensors to send everything back to the cloud for processing. The initial idea behind the IoT/IIoT, as well as other connected devices, was that simple sensors would relay raw data to the cloud for processing throug... » read more

Blog Review: May 2


Arm's Greg Yeric looks towards the future of 3D ICs with a dive into transistor-level 3D, including the different proposed methods of stacking transistors, power/performance benefits, and challenges such as parasitic resistance. Mentor's Kurt Takara, Chris Kwok, Dominic Lucido, and Joe Hupcey III explain how a custom synchronizer methodology can help avoid CDC mistakes and errors in FPGA des... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers As reported, Intel is struggling at 10nm. Intel already has encountered some difficulties, as the chip giant late last year pushed out the volume ramp of its new 10nm process from the second half of 2017 to the first part of 2018, according to analysts. Intel continues to struggle with 10nm, and has delayed the volume ramp again, according to multiple reports. During its earnings... » read more

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