Improving PPA When Embedding FPGAs Into SoCs

By Ed Sperling - 31 Jan, 2023 - Comments: 0

Embedded FPGAs have been on everyone’s radar for years as a way of extending the life of chips developed at advanced nodes, but they typically have come with high performance and power overhead. That’s no longer the case, and the ability to control complex chips and keep them current with changes to algorithms and various protocols is significant step. Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks a... » read more

HBM3 In The Data Center

By Ed Sperling - 17 Oct, 2022 - Comments: 0

Frank Ferro, senior director of product management at Rambus, talks about the forthcoming HBM3 standard, why this is so essential for AI chips and where the bottlenecks are today, what kinds of challenges are involved in working with this memory, and what impact chiplets and near-memory compute will have on HBM and bandwidth. » read more

Can Analog Make A Comeback?

By Brian Bailey - 09 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 3

We live in an analog world dominated by digital processing, but that could change. Domain specificity, and the desire for greater levels of optimization, may provide analog compute with some significant advantages — and the possibility of a comeback. For the last four decades, the advantages of digital scaling and flexibility have pushed the dividing line between analog and digital closer ... » read more

Zero Dark Silicon

By Ed Sperling - 09 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

Planning for AI requires an understanding of how much data needs to be processed and how quickly that needs to happen. Nick Ni, senior director of data center AI and compute markets at AMD, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about data bubbles and domain-specific designs, why dark silicon is no longer as useful as in the past, and how to optimize power and performance in both the data center ... » read more

Architecting Faster Computers

By Brian Bailey - 14 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 3

To create faster computers, the industry must take a major step back and re-examine choices that were made half a century ago. One of the most likely approaches involves dropping demands for determinism, and this is being attempted in several different forms. Since the establishment of the von Neumann architecture for computers, small, incremental improvements have been made to architectures... » read more

Better Video Compression

By Ed Sperling - 11 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 0

Video data is increasing, but bandwidth is not increasing quickly enough. One solution is to compress that data, but the challenge is to do that without impacting resolution. Rob Green, AMD’s senior manager for Pro AV, Broadcast & Consumer, talks about what’s changing in video compression, from new standards to better analytics, virtualization, what impact AR/VR will have, and a compari... » read more

Power Now First-Order Concern In More Markets

By Ann Mutschler - 10 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

Concerns about energy and power efficiency are becoming as important as performance in markets where traditionally there has been a significant gap, setting the stage for significant shifts in both chip architectures and in how those ICs are designed in the first place. This shift can be seen in a growing number of applications and vertical segments. It includes mobile devices, where batteri... » read more

Improving Performance And Simplifying Coding With XY Memory’s Implicit Parallelism

By Synopsys - 08 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

Instruction-level Parallelism (ILP) refers to design techniques that enable more than one RISC instruction to be executed simultaneously in the same instruction, which boosts processor performance by increasing the amount of work done in a given time interval, thereby increasing the throughput. This parallelism can be explicit, where each additional instruction is explicitly part of the instruc... » read more

Design Technology Co-Optimization

By Ed Sperling - 18 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 0

Rising complexity is making it increasingly difficult to optimize chips for yield and reliability. David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, examines the benefits of automated rules to manage the relationship between layout and design requirements on one side, and process flows and rules/checks on the other. Benefits include reduced margin, shortened time to market,... » read more

SOT-MRAM To Challenge SRAM

By Bryon Moyer - 13 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 1

In an era of new non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies, yet another variation is poised to join the competition — a new version of MRAM called spin-orbit torque, or SOT-MRAM. What makes this one particularly interesting is the possibility that someday it could supplant SRAM arrays in systems-on-chip (SoCs) and other integrated circuits. The key advantages of SOT-MRAM technology are the pr... » read more

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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

NAND Flash Targets 1,000 Layers

New techniques go beyond improved deposition and etching, but challenges stack up, too.

by Bryon Moyer

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

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.