Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Is Google developing a Pixel Watch wearable? Perhaps, if recent job listings are any indication. The company recently was looking to hire someone as vice president of hardware engineering, wearables. Last month, Fossil Group sold smartwatch technology intellectual property to Google for $40 million, while Google hired certain members of Fossil’s wearables R&D team. ... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 13


UltraSoc’s Rupert Baines notes that awareness is rapidly increasing for the value of embedded insights and system data. Cadence’s Paul McLellan reviews the highlights of the upcoming SPIE conference in San Jose. Synopsys’ Taylor Armerding discusses the key findings of a report on cybersecurity practices for the automotive industry, including what components of vehicles pose the hi... » read more

January ’19 Startup Funding: $100M+ Rounds Abound


Sixteen companies received private funding rounds of $100 million or more during the month of January, with two privately held companies, Infor and Verily Life Sciences, taking in rounds of $1.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively. The market segments represented in the January rounds were varied. Multiple companies using artificial intelligence technology in their offerings and cloud-based... » read more

China’s Foundry Biz Takes Big Leap Forward


China continues to advance its foundry industry with huge investments in new fabs and technology, despite trade tensions and a slowdown in the IC market. China has the most fab projects in the world, with 30 new facilities or lines in construction or on the drawing board, according to data from SEMI’s World Fab Forecast Report. Of those, 13 fabs are targeted for the foundry market, accordi... » read more

Variation’s Long Tentacles


Today, most design engineers don't pay much attention to variation. It's generally considered to be a manufacturing problem. Even within the fab, various job functions are segmented enough that variation in one part of the process, such as the photomask shop, doesn't necessarily come to the attention of the people doing deposition and etch or those polishing the wafers. But increasingly, ... » read more

Variation Issues Grow Wider And Deeper


Variation is becoming more problematic as chips become increasingly heterogeneous and as they are used in new applications and different locations, sparking concerns about how to solve these issues and what the full impact will be. In the past, variation in semiconductors was considered a foundry issue, typically at the most advanced process node, and largely ignored by most companies. New p... » read more

What’s the Right Path For Scaling?


The growing challenges of traditional chip scaling at advanced nodes are prompting the industry to take a harder look at different options for future devices. Scaling is still on the list, with the industry laying plans for 5nm and beyond. But less conventional approaches are becoming more viable and gaining traction, as well, including advanced packaging and in-memory computing. Some option... » read more

Fundamental Shifts In 2018


What surprised the industry in 2018?  While business has been strong, markets are changing, product categories are shifting and clouds are forming on the horizon. As 2018 comes to a close, most companies are pretty happy with the way everything turned out. Business has been booming, new product categories developing, and profits are meeting or beating market expectations. "2018 was indeed a... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers GlobalFoundries has announced that its advanced silicon-germanium (SiGe) offering is available for prototyping on 300mm wafers. GF’s SiGe technology has been shipping on its 200mm production line in Burlington, Vt. The technology, a 90nm SiGe process, is moving to 300mm wafers at GF’s Fab 10 facility in East Fishkill, N.Y. The SiGe technology is called 9HP. “The increasing ... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Lowe’s, the home improvement retailer, is giving up on the smart home market. The company is putting its Iris Smart Home business up for sale as part of a reorganization. The retailer made a big splash at CES 2015 with its Innovation Lab offerings, which included retail service robots and the Holoroom “home improvement simulator.” The Iris product line includes multipl... » read more

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