Industry 4.0: The Smart Industrial Revolution


As consumers, we see evidence of the Internet of Things (IoT) all around us. A growing number of everyday objects in our homes and cars are now digitally connected in a way that allows us to interact with them. Even mundane items such as keychains and wallets can be made smart with trackers and mobile device apps. A similar revolution is occurring in some workplaces, with the growing ability to... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 19


Applied Materials' David Thompson shares the new DARPA program that is focused on using correlated electrons to develop a new type of switch with quantum effects, potentially leading to unprecedented switching speeds. Mentor's Joe Hupcey III argues that for the most effective formal analysis, assertions should be as simple as possible and shares some tips on decomposing big assertions. Ca... » read more

Using AI In Chip Manufacturing


David Fried, CTO at Coventor, a Lam Research Company, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about how AI and Big Data techniques will be used to improve yield and quality in chip manufacturing. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We used to think about manufacturing data in terms of outliers, but as tolerances become tighter at each new node that data may need to b... » read more

3D NAND Flash Wars Begin


3D NAND suppliers are gearing up for a new battle amid a period of price and competitive pressures, racing each other to the next technology generations. Competition is intensifying as a new player enters the 3D NAND market—China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). Backed by billions of dollars in funding from the Chinese government, YMTC recently introduced its first 3D NAND techn... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade wars It’s difficult to keep up with the U.S.-China trade war. In the latest event, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently released a 25% tariff on $16 billion in imports from China. This includes 29 tariff lines that represent the heart of the semiconductor industry, according to SEMI. “SEMI, along with hundreds of companies, including Lam Research and KLA-Tencor, submitted wr... » read more

Next-Gen Memory Ramping Up


The next-generation memory market is heating up as vendors ramp a number of new technologies, but there are some challenges in bringing these products into the mainstream. For years, the industry has been working on a variety of memory technologies, including carbon nanotube RAM, FRAM, MRAM, phase-change memory and ReRAM. Some are shipping, while others are in R&D. Each memory type is di... » read more

Semiconductors In Automotive


It was more than 130 years ago in 1885 when Gottlieb Daimler invented the first prototype for the modern gas engine, and in 1886 Karl Benz patented his three-wheel Benz Motor Car, Model No. 1. Yet even these visionaries might have been surprised by the sophisticated technology running our cars today – and they couldn’t even have imagined the vast range of semiconductor components involved. ... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 15


Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out what's driving the growth of China's semiconductor industry plus the state of fab construction, from a CAPSA presentation by SEMI's Lung Chu. Mentor's Joe Hupcey III has some tips for how to handle inconclusive results in formal verification, starting with how to identify where the analysis got stuck. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding listens in on a presentati... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 8


Cadence's Meera Collier provides a primer on the basics of quantum computing, including how quantum gates work using superpositions and how it could impact chip design. Mentor's Dennis Brophy shares a list of resources to help you get up to speed on the recently-approved Portable Test and Stimulus standard, which enables test scenarios to be run across different execution platforms. Synop... » read more

The Chiplet Race Begins


Momentum is building for the development of advanced packages and systems using so-called chiplets, but the technology faces some challenges in the market. A group led by DARPA, as well as Marvell, zGlue and others are pursuing chiplet technology, which is a different way of integrating multiple dies in a package or system. In fact, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part... » read more

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