Designing For In-Circuit Monitors


In every application space the semiconductor ecosystem touches, in-circuit monitors and sensors are playing an increasing role in silicon lifecycle management and concepts around reliability and resiliency — both during design as well as in the field. The combination of true system-level design, in/on-chip monitors, and improved data analysis are expected to drastically improve reliability... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


GlobalFoundries filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York against IBM, accusing it of unlawfully disclosing IP and trade secrets to IBM partners, including Intel and Rapidus, potentially receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing income and other benefits. The European Union released a €43 billion ($47 billion) plan for jumpstarting its semiconductor manufacturing industry,... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Pervasive computing Broadcom announced delivery of its Jericho3-AI fabric for artificial intelligence (AI) networks, which delivers 26 petabits per second of Ethernet bandwidth. That is roughly four times the bandwidth of the previous generation, at a 40% power savings per gigabit. AMD released the Ryzen Embedded 5000 Series processors for customers requiring power-efficient processors opt... » read more

What Data Center Chipmakers Can Learn From Automotive


Automotive OEMs are demanding their semiconductor suppliers achieve a nearly unmeasurable target of 10 defective parts per billion (DPPB). Whether this is realistic remains to be seen, but systems companies are looking to emulate that level of quality for their data center SoCs. Building to that quality level is more expensive up front, although ultimately it can save costs versus having to ... » read more

Mechanical Challenges Rise With Heterogeneous Integration


Companies integrating multiple chips or chiplets into a package will need to address structural and other mechanical engineering issues, but gaps in the design tools, new materials and interconnect technologies, and a shortage of expertise are making it difficult to address those issues. Throughout most of the history of the semiconductors, few people outside of foundries worried about struc... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test


Samsung announced plans to invest $230 billion (300 trillion won) over the next two decades to construct the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing complex in South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province, reports AP. The complex will consist of five new semiconductor plants producing memory and logic chips. Chips will be the enabling engines, requiring massive investments in new technology, m... » read more

Test Challenges Mount As Demands For Reliability Increase


An emphasis of improving semiconductor quality is beginning to spread well beyond just data centers and automotive applications, where ICs play a role in mission- and safety-critical applications. But this focus on improved reliability is ratcheting up pressure throughout the test community, from lab to fab and into the field, in products where transistor density continues to grow — and wh... » read more

How To Build Resilience Into Chips


Disaggregating chips into specialized processors, memories, and architectures is becoming necessary for continued improvements in performance and power, but it's also contributing to unusual and often unpredictable errors in hardware that are extremely difficult to find. The sources of those errors can include anything from timing errors in a particular sequence, to gaps in bonds between chi... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


General Motors (GM) made a deal with GlobalFoundries (GF) to have chips made at the U.S.-based foundry in upstate New York for GM’s key suppliers. GF will expand its production capabilities exclusively for GM’s supply chain, while GM promises to bring economies of scale through its strategy to reduce the unique types of chips needed in products. J.D. Power released its 2023 U.S. Vehicle ... » read more

Maintaining Vehicles Of The Future


Driving a scalable, consumer-centric vision in the mobility industry, vehicles of thefuture will always be connected and differentiated by software. Advancements in software, hardware and their interaction are expanding the boundaries of performance, providing the foundation for next-generation cars. But the same technology that will make this vision a reality also presents new challenges. O... » read more

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