A Different Kind Of Material World


The semiconductor manufacturing world is poised for big change, and the driver will be materials. Materials always have been a critical factor in semiconductors. Silicon is so important that an entire region of California is named after it. Rare earths have raised fears about nationalistic monopolies. And the shift from aluminum to copper interconnects at 130nm caused one of the most painful... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Apple purchased a portfolio of eight granted and pending patents that belonged to Lighthouse AI, a smart home security camera startup that ceased operations near the end of 2018. The portfolio was acquired at about the same time, according to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office; financial terms weren’t revealed. Also not disclosed, as usual, is what Apple will do with t... » read more

Micro-Mobility Market Potential Widens


The mobility market is beginning to splinter into more segments as advanced technology gets applied to devices such as e-bikes, e-scooters, and even tiny e-vehicles with three or four wheels. This doesn't mean that existing pieces of the mobility market are falling off. The automotive electronics market is booming as carmakers race to build more assisted and ultimately autonomous features in... » read more

System Bits: March 11


Cryptography IC for the IoT Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers report their development of a cryptographic circuit that could be used to protect low-power Internet of Things devices when quantum computing takes hold. [caption id="attachment_24144905" align="alignleft" width="300"] Image Credit: MIT[/caption] The research team presented a paper at the 2019 International Sol... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Dialog Semiconductor is shifting its product portfolio away from smartphones following its pending $600 million deal with Apple. The chip company is looking toward connected-health products and video-game consoles for future growth. The connected-health devices, developed in collaboration with pharmaceutical firms, would monitor blood pressure and check glucose levels, accor... » read more

The Other Side Of Makimoto’s Wave


Custom hardware is undergoing a huge resurgence across a variety of new applications, pushing the semiconductor industry to the other side of Makimoto's Wave. Tsugio Makimoto, the technologist who identified the chip industry’s 10-year cyclical swings between standardization and customization, predicted there always will be room in ASICs for general-purpose processors. But it's becoming mo... » read more

Hidden Signals: The Memories And Interfaces Enabling IoT, 5G, And AI


This IDC Technology Spotlight Report, sponsored by Rambus, highlights key, often hidden, memory and interface technologies that are enabling high performance electronic systems to serve the disruptive trends of the next decade like IoT, 5G, and Artificial Intelligence. The report discusses: Data and the importance of connectivity, both from the physical (analog) world to the digital wor... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Yingzi Technology of Guangzhou, China, has developed a “future pig farm” to demonstrate what technology can do to make keeping pigs more profitable in a country that is trying to reduce the number of small farms raising pigs and consolidate them into larger operations. China is also contending with an outbreak of African swine fever that has spread out of the country thr... » read more

Follow The Data


What does antitrust mean in the age of data? Data is in many cases gathered for free and has huge value to those who can turn that data into information and make decisions based on it. Amazon has become an example in retail because they see more sales data than any other retailer – not just what they sell, but what others choose to sell on their platform. Amazon gets to see all the data an... » read more

Can Debug Be Tamed?


Debug consumes more time than any other aspect of the chip design and verification process, and it adds uncertainty and risk to semiconductor development because there are always lingering questions about whether enough bugs were caught in the allotted amount of time. Recent figures suggest that the problem is getting worse, too, as complexity and demand for reliability continue to rise. The... » read more

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