Fab Investments Head Toward Record High

By Marie C. Baca - 27 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 0

Corporations and governments around the globe are making record-breaking investments in chip manufacturing plants amid a major push to make the semiconductor supply chain more robust and less prone to shortages caused by everything from market variations to geopolitical interruptions. These investments — which range from updating existing fabrication facilities to building entirely new fab... » read more

National Security And Artificial Intelligence

By Paul McLellan - 08 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 0

The (U.S.) National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence recently published its final report. The report is 756 pages long, so I am not going to claim that I've read it all. I read the introduction and some of the conclusion, and the chapter on microelectronics (basically, semiconductors and advanced packaging). To give you a flavor, here are the opening paragraphs of the "Letter f... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT

By Jeff Dorsch - 16 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Cybersecurity The United Kingdom government issued a policy report, Secure by Design, calling on Internet of Things device manufacturers to eliminate default passwords, to provide greater transparency in vulnerability disclosure, and to secure credential storage. The report urges shifting cybersecurity responsibility to IoT device vendors, rather than end-users, and protecting the privacy righ... » read more

Meeting The Challenges Of The 2018 National Defense Strategy

By Cadence - 07 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

In Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, he provides a critical framework for driving “urgent change at significant scale.” This paper describes the role that Cadence can play in assisting the nation and its partners in achieving that urgency and scale of change called for in the vision and ... » read more

Xcerra: Back to the Drawing Board

By Jeff Dorsch - 05 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

It’s been nearly two weeks since Xcerra and Hubei Xinyan Equity Investment Partnership announced they have terminated their merger agreement in the face of apparent opposition by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the federal interagency panel that reviews transactions for their impacts on national security. Xcerra and Hubei Xinyan also withdrew their CFIUS application.... » read more

Whither Xcerra?

By Jeff Dorsch - 11 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

Trade tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the Trump Administration could sink a big transaction in the automatic test equipment business. Xcerra, a supplier of semiconductor test systems, board testers, and electronic interconnects, announced in April that it had accepted an offer from Unic Capital Management, an affiliate of Sino IC Capital, to acquire the company for $10.... » read more

Putting The Brakes On Consolidation

By Ed Sperling - 19 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

China's efforts to reduce its trade deficit by acquiring technology outside of its borders—particularly in the areas of process technology and memory—are hitting some snags. Any proposed acquisitions are being closely monitored by government agencies around the globe, and in many cases they have been quietly derailed. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is pa... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer