Scaling Anti-Tamper Protection To Meet Escalating Threats


Anti-tamper tends to be one of those catchall phrases encompassing any countermeasure on a security chip. A more precise definition would be that anti-tamper protection is any collection of countermeasures that serves to thwart an adversary’s attempt to monitor or affect the correct operation of a chip or a security core within a chip. Given that, it can be useful to think about a hierarchy o... » read more

What Makes A Chip Tamper-Proof?


The cyber world is the next major battlefield, and attackers are busily looking for ways to disrupt critical infrastructure. There is widespread proof this is happening. “Twenty-six percent of the U.S. power grid was found to be hosting Trojans," said Haydn Povey, IAR Systems' general manager of embedded security solutions. "In a cyber-warfare situation, that's the first thing that would b... » read more

Blog Review: June 3


Cadence's Paul McLellan takes a look at how Ethernet came to dominate wired networking and is now taking on automotive to provide the bandwidth necessary for the increasing number of sensors in modern vehicles. Mentor's Colin Walls notes the difficulty of assessing the quality of software, some key areas to pay attention to when assessing quality or trying to write quality code, and the bottom... » read more

Hardware Security For AI Accelerators


Dedicated accelerator hardware for artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms are increasingly prevalent in data centers and endpoint devices. These accelerators handle valuable data and models, and face a growing threat landscape putting AI/ML assets at risk. Using fundamental cryptographic security techniques performed by a hardware root of trust can safeguard these as... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Synopsys released a range of IP for TSMC's 5nm process technology. It includes interface PHY IP such as 112G/56G Ethernet, Die-to-Die, PCIe 5.0, CXL, and CCIX; memory interface IP for DDR5, LPDDR5, and HBM2/2E; die-to-die PHYs for 112G USR/XSR connectivity and High-Bandwidth Interconnect; and foundation IP including logic libraries, multi-port memory compilers, and TCAMs. Sma... » read more

Enabling Chiplet And Co-Packaged Optics Architectures With 112G XSR SerDes


Conventional chip designs are struggling to achieve the scalability, as well as power, performance, and area (PPA), that are demanded of leading-edge designs. With the slowing of Moore’s Law, high complexity ASICs increasingly bump up against reticle limits. The demise of Dennard scaling means power consumption is a growing challenge. In this context, disaggregated architectures such as chipl... » read more

‘More Than Moore’ Reality Check


The semiconductor industry is embracing multi-die packages as feature scaling hits the limits of physics, but how to get there with the least amount of pain and at the lowest cost is a work in progress. Gaps remain in tooling and methodologies, interconnect standards are still being developed, and there are so many implementations of packaging that the number of choices is often overwhelming. ... » read more

Big Changes For eFPGAs


Geoff Tate, CEO of Flex Logix, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the state of embedded FPGAs, why this is easier for some companies than others, why this is important for adding flexibility into an ASIC, and what are the main applications for this technology. » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive Imagination Technologies and BAIC Capital have formed an automotive joint venture to create a new automotive fabless semiconductor company focused on China as a client. The JV will be headquartered in the Zhongguancun Integrated Circuit Design Park in Beijing, China, with Bravo Lee serving as CEO. The JV will license IP and software from Imagination to create automotive-grade SoCs. ... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & IP Ansys' RedHawk-SC multiphysics signoff software was certified for all TSMC advanced process technologies, including N16, N12, N7, N6 and N5. The certification includes extraction, power integrity and reliability, signal electromigration (EM) and thermal reliability analysis and statistical EM budgeting analysis. Aldec launched a new FPGA accelerator board for high performance... » read more

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