DRAM Choices Becoming Central Design Considerations


Chipmakers are paying much closer attention to various DRAM options as they grapple with what goes on-chip or into a package, elevating attached memory to a critical design element that can affect system performance, power, and cost. These are increasingly important issues to sort through with a number of tradeoffs, but the general consensus is that to reach the higher levels of performance ... » read more

Blog Review: May 11


Ansys' Vidyu Challa checks out how to identify the most important battery metrics for a particular application and trade these off against others with a focus on the important considerations when selecting the right battery for a consumer application, such as rechargeability, energy density, power density, shelf life, safety, form factor, cost, and flexibility. Cadence's Shyam Sharma points ... » read more

Startup Funding: April 2022


Silicon photonics holds the potential to vastly increase bandwidth in chips and systems while reducing power use — and investors are taking note. In April, one of the largest funding rounds went to a startup developing chip-to-chip optical I/O. But that wasn't all. Photonics funding showed up in AI with a photonic Tensor core, in room-temperature quantum computing, and, of course, in lidar an... » read more

Choosing Which Tasks To Optimize In Chips


The optimization of one or more tasks is an important aspect of every SoC created, but with so many options now on the table it is often unclear which is best. Just a few years ago, most people were happy to buy processors from the likes of Intel, AMD and Nvidia, and IP cores from Arm. Some even wanted the extensibility that came from IP cores like Tensilica and ARC. Then, in 2018, John Henn... » read more

Startup Funding: March 2022


Semiconductor manufacturing, test, and inspection equipment startups did well in March. Investors funded a wide variety of equipment companies, including test equipment, materials handling, and those that make parts and components. In the manufacturing space, several companies developing manufacturing execution systems received funding, as well as a startup trying to prevent counterfeit parts f... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Worldwide fab equipment spending for front-end manufacturing is expected to hit $107 billion this year, an 18% year-over-year increase, according to SEMI’s latest World Fab Forecast report. “Crossing the $100 billion mark in spending on global fab equipment for the first time is a historic milestone for the semiconductor industry,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. Investme... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Design services firm SemiFive acquired Analog Bits, a provider of low-power mixed-signal IP. Analog Bits' portfolio includes precision clocking macros, I/Os, SerDes, and sensors to monitor PVT. It was founded in 1995 and based in Sunnyvale, California. “Analog Bits has a solid track record of developing and delivering differentiated and high-quality mixed signal IP addressing multiple market ... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive Suzuki will collaborate with SkyDrive on flying cars. SkyDrive is working on an air taxi service that it wants to launch at the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, Japan. Recalls: The car company Tesla is recalling 947 vehicles in the United States because rearview image lags and does not display immediately when the car is put into reverse, said the National Highway Traffic Safety A... » read more

Chiplets Enter The Supercomputer Race


Several entities from various nations are racing each other to deliver and deploy chiplet-based exascale supercomputers, a new class of systems that are 1,000x faster than today’s supercomputers. The latest exascale supercomputer CPU and GPU designs mix and match complex dies in advanced packages, adding a new level of flexibility and customization for supercomputers. For years, various na... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Intellectual Property Flex Logix inked an agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Sensors Directorate (AFRL/RY) covering any Flex Logix IP technology for use in all US Government-funded programs for research and prototyping purposes with no license fees. “Our first license with AFRL for EFLX eFPGA in GlobalFoundries 12nm process was highly successful, with more than a half dozen pr... » read more

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