How Mature Are Verification Methodologies?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss differences between hardware and software verification and changes and challenges facing the chip industry, with Larry Lapides, vice president of sales for Imperas Software; Mike Thompson, director of engineering for the verification task group at OpenHW; Paul Graykowski, technical marketing manager for Arteris IP; Shantanu Ganguly, vice president o... » read more

Blog Review: Sept. 14


Synopsys' Godwin Maben, Piyush Sancheti, and Hany Elhak examine some of the top chip design considerations for medical devices and why they require careful analysis of power to reduce the number surgeries to replace batteries, reliability for devices that can be expected to last for ten years or more, and security to protect private medical data and prevent breaches. Siemens' Chris Spear exp... » read more

Minimizing EM/IR Impacts On IC Design Reliability And Performance


By Joel Mercier and Karen Chow As technologies and foundry process nodes continue to advance, it gets more difficult to design and verify integrated circuits (ICs). The challenges become even more apparent in 5nm and below nodes, and as the industry moves away from fin field-effect transistor (finFET) and into gate-all-around field-effect transistor (GAAFET) technologies. There are many prob... » read more

Rethinking Machine Learning For Power


The power consumed by machine learning is exploding, and while advances are being made in reducing the power consumed by them, model sizes and training sets are increasing even faster. Even with the introduction of fabrication technology advances, specialized architectures, and the application of optimization techniques, the trend is disturbing. Couple that with the explosion in edge devices... » read more

Designing For Thermal


Heat has emerged as a major concern for semiconductors in every form factor, from digital watches to data centers, and it is becoming more of a problem at advanced nodes and in advanced packages where that heat is especially difficult to dissipate. Temperatures at the base of finFETs and GAA FETs can differ from those at the top of the transistor structures. They also can vary depending on h... » read more

New Data Management Challenges


An explosion in semiconductor design and manufacturing data, and the expanding use of chips in safety-critical and mission-critical applications, is prompting chipmakers to collect and manage that data more effectively in order to improve overall performance and reliability. This collection of data reveals a number of challenges with no simple solutions. Data may be siloed and inconsistent, ... » read more

Interactive Point-To-Point Resistance Simulations


Point to point (P2P) resistance simulations calculate the effective resistance of the layout traces between points on an IC net trace, and let the designer know that there may be too much parasitic resistance from a particular net trace that would affect the reliability or performance of the circuit. However, traditional P2P simulation runs are time-consuming, and often require multiple iterati... » read more

The Complex Art Of Handling S-Parameters


By Pradeep Thiagarajan and Youssef Abdelkader IC design is transforming at an accelerated pace along with fabrication technology. The need to incorporate more functionality has led to denser dies, multi-die chips, stacked 3D ICs, and advanced packaging. Furthermore, the increasing demand for enhanced connectivity with more and faster access to data continues to drive technology towards highe... » read more

Making 5G More Reliable


The rollout of 5G is a complex and monumental effort involving multiple separate systems that need to function flawlessly together in real-time, making it difficult to determine where problems might arise, or how and when to test for them. Investments in 5G have been underway for the better part of a decade, and the technology is considered the next huge growth opportunity for mobile devices... » read more

Enabling Test Strategies For 2.5D, 3D Stacked ICs


Improved testability, coupled with more tests at more insertion points, are emerging as key strategies for creating reliable, heterogeneous 2.5D and 3D designs with sufficient yield.  Many changes need to fall into place to make side-by-side 2.5D and 3D stacking approaches cost-effective, particularly for companies looking to integrate chiplets from different vendors. Today, nearly all of t... » read more

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