Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools, design, chips Altair, a provider of software and cloud services for CAE, HPC, simulation, and data analysis, acquired Concept Engineering, a provider of automatic schematic generation tools, electronic circuit and wire harness visualization platforms that provide on-the-fly visual rendering, and electronic design debug solutions. “Concept Engineering’s advanced, reactive visualizati... » read more

Blog Review: May 18


Coventor's Gerold Schropfer considers taking an approach from the early days of computing and using MEMS technology to create computers based on micro-scale electro-mechanical logic and memory for emerging low-energy computing applications such as autonomous sensor nodes and edge computing. Synopsys' Morten Christiansen explains how USB4 differs from USB 3.2, allowing simultaneous host-to-ho... » read more

Auto Chipmakers Dig Down To 10ppb


How do engineers deliver 10 defective parts per billion (Dppb) to auto makers if they only screen 1 million parts per year? Answer: By comprehending failure mechanisms and proactively screening for them. Modern automobiles contain nearly 1,000 ICs that must perform over the vehicle’s life (15 years). This drives quality expectations ever higher. While 10 Dppm used to be a solid benchmark, ... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 9


Arm's Mark Inskip walks through how the Morello program built a demonstration of the architecture that enables fine-grained memory protection and highly scalable software compartmentalization based on the CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) architectural model, from IP development and SoC design to creating software and a demonstration board. Synopsys' Plamen Asenov and su... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 19


Synopsys' Anand Thiruvengadam examines the memory chip design challenges of optimizing PPA, speeding turnaround time, and improving reliability and how a shift-left approach can help. Cadence's Paul McLellan checks out some of TSMC's recent updates in 3D packaging and the importance of thermal analysis and finding the right balance between IR-drop and TSV usage in multi-chip physical verific... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC has introduced another version of its 4nm process technology. The process, called N4X, is tailored for high-performance computing products. Recently, TSMC introduced another 4nm process, called N4P, which is an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X is also an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X, however, offers a performance boost of up to 15% over TSMC’s N5 pro... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


NASA plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this Saturday, Dec 25, on an European Space Agency (ESA) rocket. Mission-critical radiation-hardened components from IR HiRel, an Infineon company, will go up with the JWST. IR HiRel space-grade DC-DC converters, rad hard MOSFETs and other power control products are in the spacecraft bus subsystems, such as electrical power, altitude co... » read more

China Accelerates Foundry, Power Semi Efforts


China has unveiled several initiatives to advance its domestic semiconductor industry, including a new and massive fab expansion campaign in the foundry, gallium-nitride (GaN), and silicon carbide (SiC) markets. The nation is making a big push into what it calls “third-generation semiconductors,” which is a misnomer. The term actually refers to two existing and common power semiconductor... » read more

End In Sight For Chip Shortages?


The current wave of semiconductor and IC packaging shortages is expected to extend well into 2022, but there are also signs that supply may finally catch up with demand. The same is true for manufacturing capacity, materials and equipment in both the semiconductor and packaging sectors. Nonetheless, after a period of shortages in all segments, the current school of thought is that chip suppl... » read more

Seeking Scale, Semiconductor Companies Embrace IoT Framework


Fragmentation has long been the IoT’s greatest impediment. Even before the "Internet of Things" entered popular lexicon, infinite opportunity had turned into infinite complexity as companies raced to deliver solutions without any common technological framework or set of standards that might have ensured that software could be ported between technologies or hardware platforms. To bring orde... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →