Reliability On The Road: Multiphysics Design For Automotive 3D-ICs


Anyone who has purchased a car over the past decade knows that there has been a huge increase in the amount of compute processing involved in today’s modern automotive industry. Advanced chips for diagnostics and entertainment as well as logic associated with advanced sensor technology and automated assist features have quickly become key requirements that drivers rely on every day to ensure ... » read more

Where Power Savings Really Count


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss why and where improvements in architectures and data movement will have the biggest impact, with Hans Yeager, senior principal engineer, architecture, at Tenstorrent; Joe Davis, senior director for Calibre interfaces and EM/IR product management at Siemens EDA; Mo Faisal, CEO of Movellus; Trey Roessig, CTO and senior vice presi... » read more

The 3D-IC Multiphysics Challenge Dictates A Shift-Left Strategy


As the industry marches forward in a 3D-IC centric design approach (figure 1), we are facing a new problem. Sometimes referred to as “electro-thermal” or “electro-thermo-mechanical,” it really is the confluence of multiple forms of physics exerting impacts on both the physical manufacture and structure of these multi-die designs and their electrical behavior. Fig. 1: Illustration... » read more

Predicting Warpage in Different Types of IC Stacks At Early Stage Of Package Design


A new technical paper titled "Warpage Study by Employing an Advanced Simulation Methodology for Assessing Chip Package Interaction Effects" was published by researchers at Siemens EDA, D2S, and Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CEA, Leti. Abstract: "A physics-based multi-scale simulation methodology that analyses die stress variations generated by package fabrication is employed for warpage study. The ... » read more

Managing Thermal-Induced Stress In Chips


At advanced nodes and in the most advanced packages, physics is no one's friend. Escalating density, smaller features, and thinner dies make it more difficult to dissipate heat, and they increase mechanical stress. On the flip side, thinner dielectrics and tighter spaces make it more difficult to insulate and protect against that heat, and in conjunction with those smaller features and higher d... » read more

Technology Advances, Shortages Seen For Wire Bonders


A surge in demand for IC packages is causing long lead times for wire bonders, which are used to assemble three-fourths of the world’s packages. The wire bonder market doubled last year, alongside advanced packaging’s rise. Wirebonding is an older technology that typically flies under the radar. Still, packaging houses have multitudes of these key tools that help assemble many — but no... » read more

Challenges With Stacking Memory On Logic


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changes in design tools and methodologies needed for 3D-ICs, with Sooyong Kim, director and product specialist for 3D-IC at Ansys; Kenneth Larsen, product marketing director at Synopsys; Tony Mastroianni, advanced packaging solutions director at Siemens EDA; and Vinay Patwardhan, product management group director at Cadence... » read more

How Heterogeneous ICs Are Reshaping Design Teams


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the complex interactions developing between different engineering groups as designs become more heterogeneous, with Jean-Marie Brunet, senior director for the Emulation Division at Siemens EDA; Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for solution marketing at Cadence; Maurizio Griva, R&D Manager at Reply; and Laurent Mai... » read more

Prediction of SRAM Reliability Under Mechanical Stress Induced by Harsh Environments


On the example of a 28nm SRAM array, this work presents a novel reliability study which takes into account the effect of externally applied mechanical stress in circuit simulations. This method is able to predict the bit failures caused by the stress via the piezoresistive effect. The stability of each single SRAM cell is simulated using static noise margin. Finally, the whole array’s behavio... » read more

Betting On Wafer-Level Fan-Outs


Advanced packaging is starting to gain traction as a commercially viable business model rather than just one more possible option, propelled by the technical difficulties in routing signals at 10nm and 7nm and skyrocketing costs of device scaling on a single die. The inclusion of a [getkc id="202" kc_name="fan-out"] package for logic in Apple's iPhone 7, based on TSMC's Integrated Fan-Out (... » read more

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