RISC-V Unleashes Your Imagination


Since October 2020, Renesas has been officially active in the RISC-V microcontroller space and successfully launched two ASSP products, for motor control and voice-driven HMI systems. Now a general-purpose MCU enhances the RISC-V portfolio. It is the first MCU using a RISC-V core developed internally at Renesas. The R9A02G021 general-purpose microcontroller features an interesting mix of an... » read more

Changes And Challenges In Auto MCUs


Microcontrollers have been a key component in automotive for years, starting with single-core devices with limited on-chip memory for very basic functions, and evolving toward multi-core systems with more memory for more complex tasks. But as vehicles become increasingly automated, microcontrollers are changing significantly, and so is the perception of how to utilize them. These new devices ne... » read more

Project Centauri: Driving Rapid, Exponential IoT Growth With Arm-Based Microcontrollers


Project Centauri is Arm's microcontroller (MCU) platform software initiative, designed to solve common industry problems, reduce barriers to deployment, and enable scale across the Arm Cortex-M ecosystem. Read this white paper to explore: The components and deliverables of Project Centauri How this initiative addresses the needs of the MCU software ecosystem How to get involved wi... » read more

A Minimal RISC-V


Microcontrollers exist in almost everything, but can RISC-V satisfy the needs of this market? Is it small enough to replace 8-bit processors? What might help people migrate to a more modern processor architecture? RISC-V defines a 32-bit processor instruction set architecture (ISA) that is open source and free to be implemented in any number of ways. It is touted for being a very small and e... » read more

Why TinyML Is Such A Big Deal


While machine-learning (ML) development activity most visibly focuses on high-power solutions in the cloud or medium-powered solutions at the edge, there is another collection of activity aimed at implementing machine learning on severely resource-constrained systems. Known as TinyML, it’s both a concept and an organization — and it has acquired significant momentum over the last year or... » read more

What’s Ahead For DRAM, NAND?


For the last year, the semiconductor industry has been in the midst of a boom cycle. But if you look close enough, there are mixed signals in the market, especially in memory. Still, it’s a banner year for semiconductors. In total, the semiconductor market is expected to grow by 18.1% in 2021, according to Semico Research. That compares to 6.6% growth in 2020, according to Semico. Today... » read more

The “Natively Flexible” Processor Has Arrived: Here’s What We Need To Make It Mainstream


The microprocessor is one of history’s pivotal inventions, ranking in influence with breakthroughs such as the wheel, the transistor, and the printing press. There is no escaping their popularity or usefulness either: with tens of billions of processors produced each year they have revolutionized industries such as health care, media, retail, transportation, and of course information manageme... » read more

Chip Shortages Grow For Mature Nodes


The current wave of chip shortages is expected to last for the foreseeable future, particularly for a growing list of critical devices produced in mature process nodes. Chips manufactured at mature nodes typically fall under the radar, but they are used in nearly every electronic device, including appliances, cars, computers, displays, industrial equipment, smartphones, and TVs. Many of thes... » read more

The Challenge Of Keeping AI Systems Current


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss AI and its move to the edge with Steven Woo, vice president of enterprise solutions technology and distinguished inventor at Rambus; Kris Ardis, executive director at Maxim Integrated; Steve Roddy, vice president of Arm's Products Learning Group; and Vinay Mehta, inference technical marketing manager at Flex Logix. What follows are excerpts of that ... » read more

The MCU Dilemma


The humble microcontroller is getting squeezed on all sides. While most of the semiconductor industry has been able to take advantage of Moore's Law, the MCU market has faltered because flash memory does not scale beyond 40nm. At the same time, new capabilities such as voice activation and richer sensor networks are requiring inference engines to be integrated for some markets. In others, re... » read more

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