What Else Is In A Node?


In part one of this blog, I reported on the 2018 Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) where Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research led a panel with representatives of Synopsys, NVIDIA, Intel, ASML and Applied Materials. The participants discussed how the industry is focused on simultaneously squeezing more capabilities from leading-nodes, inter-nodes and trailing-nodes to drive advances in computing. I to... » read more

Big Trouble At 3nm


As chipmakers begin to ramp up 10nm/7nm technologies in the market, vendors are also gearing up for the development of a next-generation transistor type at 3nm. Some have announced specific plans at 3nm, but the transition to this node is expected to be a long and bumpy one, filled with a slew of technical and cost challenges. For example, the design cost for a 3nm chip could exceed an eye-p... » read more

Blazing-Fast Performance


When it comes to raw performance, there's nothing like a supercomputer. Until recently, though, most of this was simply bragging rights about whose supercomputer was faster. A trillion calculations (petaflop), more or less, doesn't mean that much outside of scientific circles. What's changing is that companies and governments now can utilize these blazing fast machines across a wider swath o... » read more

IBM Takes AI In Different Directions


Jeff Welser, vice president and lab director at IBM Research Almaden, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss what's changing in artificial intelligence and what challenges still remain. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What's changing in AI and why? Welser: The most interesting thing in AI right now is that we've moved from narrow AI, where we've proven you... » read more

Progress And Chaos On Road To Autonomy


Progress in the development of fully autonomous vehicles is incremental and slow, but not for lack of effort. Research and development in self-driving cars is under way all around the globe, from the biggest automotive manufacturers and their Tier 1 suppliers to companies not traditionally involved in the automotive industry. Add to that fleets of startups working on sensor technologies and ... » read more

What’s In A Node?


In an environment where process nodes are no longer consistently delivering the level of improvements predicted by Moore’s Law, the industry will continue to develop “inter-nodes” as a way to deliver incremental improvements in lieu of “full-nodes.” A shift in market requirements, in part due to the rise of AI and IoT, is increasing emphasis on trailing-nodes. When it comes to leading... » read more

Blog Review: May 23


Cadence's Paul McLellan digs into the problems of test for 3D ICs s well as new approaches to cell-aware test, modular test and realistic IR drop at CDNLive EMEA. Mentor's Colin Walls shares four more embedded software tips, including always initializing a variable and when to use ++i instead of i++. Synopsys' Taylor Armerding points to a new way that phishing attacks could get around Mic... » read more

Blog Review: May 9


Mentor's Doug Amos explains the differences (and similarities) between verification and validation, why switching between engines needs to be simpler, and why the limits of verification are driving a growth in validation importance. Synopsys' Melissa Kirschner provides a primer on 5G and the five technologies that will need to work in tandem to bring the promised high speeds and low latency.... » read more

Challenges At The Edge


By Kevin Fogarty and Ed Sperling Edge computing is inching toward the mainstream as the tech industry begins grappling with the fact that far too much data will be generated by sensors to send everything back to the cloud for processing. The initial idea behind the IoT/IIoT, as well as other connected devices, was that simple sensors would relay raw data to the cloud for processing throug... » read more

Blog Review: May 2


Arm's Greg Yeric looks towards the future of 3D ICs with a dive into transistor-level 3D, including the different proposed methods of stacking transistors, power/performance benefits, and challenges such as parasitic resistance. Mentor's Kurt Takara, Chris Kwok, Dominic Lucido, and Joe Hupcey III explain how a custom synchronizer methodology can help avoid CDC mistakes and errors in FPGA des... » read more

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