The Week In Review: Design


IP Cryptographic flaws have been discovered in the IEEE P1735 standard for encrypting IP and managing access rights. A team from the University of Florida found "a surprising number of cryptographic mistakes in the standard. In the most egregious cases, these mistakes enable attack vectors that allow us to recover the entire underlying plaintext IP." The researchers warn that an adversary coul... » read more

Cheaper Fan-Outs Ahead


Packaging houses continue to ramp up fan-out wafer-level packages in the market, but customers want lower cost fan-out products for a broader range of applications, such as consumer, RF and smartphones. So in R&D, the industry for some time has been developing next-generation fan-out using a panel-level format, a technology that could potentially lower the cost of fan-out. But there are ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: May 9


China’s quantum computer In its latest achievement, China has built a quantum computer. With its technology, the University of Science and Technology of China and Zhejiang University claimed to have set two records in quantum computing. In classical computing, the information is stored in bits, which can be either a “0” or “1”. In quantum computing, information is stored in quant... » read more

What’s Next In Mobile Displays


The next wave of smartphones and wearables is invading the market. These systems will feature a new class of high-resolution displays, and in the near future displays will become foldable and rollable, although there are still some challenges with this technology. To be sure, mobile display technology is advancing on several fronts. On one front, for example, Apple and other systems vendor... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 28


Spintronics gains traction The field of spintronics is gaining interest. The technology could enable a new class of spin-based devices, which combine the switching speeds of logic and the non-volatility of memory. Controlling the magnetism by means of electric fields is the key for future devices, but the ability to switch ferromagnetism technology at room temperature is challenging. Helmho... » read more

Straight Talk On 3D TSVs


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss 3D device challenges and applications with John Lau, a fellow at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a research organization in Taiwan. SMD: What is ITRI doing in 3D TSVs? Lau: At ITRI we have developed the world’s first Applied Materials’ 300mm (3D TSV) integration line. The line was comple... » read more

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