Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 25


Lidar-on-a-chip At the upcoming IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Samsung will present a paper on the industry’s first single-chip lidar beam scanner. (Go to this link and then look for paper 7.2, “Single-Chip Beam Scanner with Integrated Light Source for Real-Time Light Detection and Ranging,” J. Lee et al, Samsung.) Lidar, or light imaging, detection, and ranging, ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 9


Integrated transistor cooling Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) created a single chip that combines a transistor and microfluidic cooling system for more efficient transistor heat management. The team focused on a co-design approach for the electrical and mechanical aspects of the chip, bringing the electronics and cooling design together and aiming to extract... » read more

Startup Funding: October 2020


October 2020 was a big month for startups across the automotive space, with sizeable funding all around. Three startups based out of China brought in over $100M apiece for ADAS and autonomous driving, and a fourth U.S.-based startup saw $125M investment for simulating and testing autonomous driving systems. Two electric vehicle manufacturers also received $100M+ rounds. Collectively, the auto c... » read more

Rethinking The Scaling Mantra


What makes a new chip better than a previous version, or a competitor's version, has been changing for some time. In most cases the key metrics are still performance and power, but what works for one application or use case increasingly is different from another. Advancements are rarely tied just to process nodes these days. Even the most die-hard proponents of Moore's Law recognize that the... » read more

Regaining The Edge In U.S. Chip Manufacturing


The United States is developing new strategies to prevent it from falling further behind Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps even China in semiconductor manufacturing, as trade tensions and national security concerns continue to grow. For years, the U.S. has been a leader in the development of new chip products like GPUs and microprocessors. But from a chip manufacturing standpoint, the U.S. is losin... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 20


Benchmarking quantum layout synthesis Computer scientists at the University of California Los Angeles found that current compilers for quantum computers are inhibiting optimal performance and argue that better quantum compilation design could help improve computation speeds up to 45 times. The team designed a family of benchmark quantum circuits with known optimal depths or sizes, which cou... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 12


More stable quantum states Researchers at the University of Chicago found a way to make quantum systems retain coherency 10,000 times longer. The fragile nature of quantum states remains a challenge for developing practical applications of quantum computing, as they can be easily disrupted by background noise coming from vibrations, temperature changes or stray electromagnetic fields. Ap... » read more

Cerfe Labs: Spin-On Memory


Arm has spun off one of its more intriguing semiconductor research projects, a new non-volatile memory type called correlated electron materials RAM (CeRAM) that holds the potential to substantially reduce the cost of memory in everything from edge devices to high-performance computing. Headed by two former Arm Research insiders — Eric Hennenhoefer, who will serve as CEO and Greg Yeric, wh... » read more

Startup Funding: September 2020


It was a good month for startups, with big rounds in automotive, data centers, and AI. A new startup with big backing is taking aim at energy inefficiency in the data center, and another is looking to make the industrial IoT battery-free. SK Hynix founded a new company to analyze semiconductor manufacturing data, and one of China's EV companies sees a massive cash infusion. This month, we look ... » read more

Security Implications Of Quantum Computing


The US Government just stepped up the push for quantum computing with an award of $625 million in funding to create five quantum information research centers. Industry and academic institutions will contribute $300 million toward this effort with the remainder drawn from the $1.2 billion earmarked in the 2018 law: the National Quantum Initiative Act. The race to quantum computing is a global on... » read more

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