Racing To Design Chips Faster


A shift is underway to develop chips for more narrowly defined market segments, and in much smaller production runs. Rather than focusing on shrinking features and reducing cost per transistor by the billions of units, the emphasis behind this shift is less about scale and much more about optimization for specific markets and delivering those solutions more quickly. As automotive, consumer e... » read more

The Big Shift


The number of chipmakers that truly can differentiate their products by moving to the next process node is falling, and that pool will continue to shrink even further over the next few years. Processor companies such as Intel and IBM always will benefit from scaling and architectural changes. So will GPU companies such as Nvidia, and FPGA vendors such as Xilinx, Microsemi and Altera (now par... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Events DAC is now accepting nominations for the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have visibly helped to advance the profile of women in the EDA industry. Nominations must be received by March 3rd. Tools Cadence unveiled its new Modus Test Solution, which the company says enables design engineers to achieve an up to 3X reduction in test ... » read more

M2M Vs. IoE


For some time now, there has been discussion that the IoE is really nothing more than the M2M infrastructure with a new coat of paint. Are M2M and the [getkc id="260" comment="Internet of Everything"] really just different generations of the same family, or are they completely different? This is more than just a philosophical question. The answer affects everything from technology investmen... » read more

Industry Road Map Under Construction


While most engineers think in terms of PPA—the classic power, performance and area tradeoffs—their bosses tend to see the world in terms of risk vs. opportunity. Until 22nm, these two objectives moved forward at roughly the same pace, despite the growing technical challenges of fitting more functionality into an SoC. Much has changed since then, and even more will change over the next f... » read more

Advanced Packaging Is Real. Now What?


For the past five years, it's been clear that 2.5D, fan-outs and other forms of system-in-package were on the horizon. Exactly when they would arrive no one knew. The most common prediction was that the timing would depend on when one of the big chipmakers decided to go down that route. The theory was that the remainder of the industry would follow, ecosystem issues would be sorted out—partic... » read more

Thinking Outside The Chip


Intel will begin adding 2.5D and 3D packaging into its processors, following the lead set by IBM and AMD in recognizing that new packaging approaches are essential for improving performance and lowering power. This shift won't derail the semiconductor industry's efforts to the reach future process nodes or continually shrink features, but it does add context for other factors that in... » read more

Executive Insight: Sehat Sutardja


Sehat Sutardja, chairman and CEO of Marvell, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about new approaches for design and memory and why costs and time to market are forcing changes in Moore's Law. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What was behind your move into modular packaging? Sutardja: The cost of building chips is getting out of hand. As we make things more ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


EDA & IP EDA revenues increased 7.1% for Q3 2015, according to the EDA Consortium, upping the number to $1957.5 million, compared to $1828.1 million in Q3 2014. The four-quarters moving average also jumped by 8.8%. IC Physical Design & Verification saw the biggest gains, with a 14% increase compared to Q3 2014 and $407.9 million in revenue for the quarter. IP was runner up, with $652... » read more

Sensors Enable ADAS


Under the hood, cars of today look nothing like those of a few decades ago. There are sophisticated safety and drivetrain monitoring features, software for interpreting and interacting with the outside world and modifying the inside environment, and a host of features that might have seemed impossible or even ridiculous in the past. And there's much more to come. Advanced driver assistance s... » read more

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