Digitizing Memory Design And Verification To Accelerate Development Turnaround Time


By Anand Thiruvengadam, Farzin Rasteh, Preeti Jain, and Jim Schultz Some digital design and verification engineers imagine that their colleagues working on analog/mixed-signal (AMS) chips are jealous. After all, the digital development flow has enjoyed the benefits of increased automation and higher levels of abstraction for many years. Hand-instantiated devices and manual interconnection we... » read more

How Memory Design Optimizes System Performance


Exponential increases in data and demand for improved performance to process that data has spawned a variety of new approaches to processor design and packaging, but it also is driving big changes on the memory side. While the underlying technology still looks very familiar, the real shift is in the way those memories are connected to processing elements and various components within a syste... » read more

DDR Memory Test Challenges From DDR3 to DDR5


Cloud, networking, enterprise, high-performance computing, big data, and artificial intelligence are propelling the development of double data rate (DDR) memory chip technology. Demand for lower power requirements, higher density for more memory storage, and faster transfer speeds are constant. Servers drive the demand for next-generation DDR. Consumers benefit when existing and legacy generati... » read more

3D NAND Virtual Process Troubleshooting And Investigation


Modern semiconductor processes are extremely complicated and involve thousands of interacting individual process steps. During the development of these process steps, roadblocks and barriers are often encountered in the form of unanticipated negative interactions between upstream and downstream process modules. These barriers can create a long delay in the development cycle and increase costs. ... » read more

Memory Design Shift Left To Achieve Faster Development Turnaround Time


As noted in a recent blog post, demand for more memory is a common theme for many semiconductor-driven products. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms rely on fast, plentiful memory for real-time performance, and storage at all levels is key to data-intensive applications. General-purpose memory devices are giving way to customized chips for applications such as AI, ... » read more

Data Integrity For JEDEC DRAM Memories


With the DRAM fabrication advancing from 1x to 1y to 1z and further to 1a, 1b, and 1c nodes along with the DRAM device speeds going up to 8533 for LPDDR5 and 8800 for DDR5, data integrity is becoming a really important issue that the OEMs and other users have to consider as part of the system that relies on the correctness of data being stored in the DRAMs for system to work as designed. I... » read more

Memory Evolution Drives Requirements For Design Technology Co-Optimization


By Ricardo Borges and Anand Thiruvengadam As new technology nodes have become available, memory has been one of the most aggressive semiconductor applications to adopt advanced process technology. The relentless demand by users of electronic devices for more memory has ensured that investments in new nodes and processes would be quickly repaid by massive sales volumes. As each new node came ... » read more

Implementing Memory Encryption To Protect Data In Use


In my blog “The Methods of Memory Encryption to Protect Data in Use,” I discussed how the XTS/XEX mode of encryption was the appropriate choice for protecting data stored in and accessed from memory, also known as, protecting data in use. As a quick recap, XTS/XEX uses two keys, one key for block encryption, and another key to process a “tweak.” The tweak ensures every block of memory i... » read more

DDR5: How Faster Memory Speeds Shape The Future


Faster data processing requires faster memory. Double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory (DDR SDRAM) enables the world’s computers to work with the data in memory. DDR is used everywhere — not just in servers, workstations, and desktops, but it is also embedded in consumer electronics, automobiles, and other system designs. DDR SRAM is used for running applications and d... » read more

DRAM Thermal Issues Reach Crisis Point


Within the DRAM world, thermal issues are at a crisis point. At 14nm and below, and in the most advanced packaging schemes, an entirely new metric may be needed to address the multiplier effect of how thermal density increasingly turns minor issues into major problems. A few overheated transistors may not greatly affect reliability, but the heat generated from a few billion transistors does.... » read more

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