Manufacturing Bits: March 17

By Mark LaPedus - 17 Mar, 2015 - Comments: 0

EUV source firm seeks help In 2012, a startup called Zplasma came out of stealth mode and introduced its first technology—a next-generation power source for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. But after much fanfare and hope, Zplasma has been unable to commercialize its EUV source technology. The company has also been unable to attract a development partner or outside funding. And t... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT

By Ed Sperling - 23 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

Legal A U.S. District Court invalidated three patents related to emulation, which were part of a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Synopsys against Mentor Graphics. The fourth patent will be reviewed by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Synopsys said it is evaluating an appeal and criticized the decision. "Synopsys strongly disagrees with the court's decision," said a Synopsys spokesp... » read more

What Will Change In Design For 2015?

By Brian Bailey - 15 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain

By Brian Bailey - 17 Oct, 2014 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

Big Memory Shift Ahead

By Brian Bailey - 22 May, 2014 - Comments: 1

System architecture has been driven by the performance of [getkc id="22" kc_name="memory"]. Processor designers would have liked all of the memory be fast [getkc id="92" kc_name="SRAM"], placed on-chip for maximum performance, but that was not an option. Memory had to be fabricated as separate chips and connected via a Printed Circuit Board (PCB). That limited the number of available I/O ports ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 17

By Mark LaPedus - 17 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

Implantable TFETs At the recent IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in Washington, D.C., a number of companies, R&D organizations and universities described new breakthroughs in perhaps the next big thing in semiconductors--the tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET). Aimed for the 5nm node, TFETs are steep sub-threshold slope transistors that can scale the supply voltages bel... » read more

What’s After 3D NAND?

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Planar NAND flash memory is on its last scaling legs, with 3D NAND set to become the successor to the ubiquitous 2D technology. Samsung Electronics, for one, already has begun shipping the industry’s first 3D NAND device, a 24-level, 128-gigabit chip. In addition, Micron and SK Hynix shortly will ship their respective 3D NAND devices. But the Toshiba-SanDisk duo are the lo... » read more

Universal Memories Fall Back To Earth

By Ed Sperling - 20 Sep, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Ten years ago, Intel Corp. declared that flash memory would stop scaling at 65nm, prompting the need for a new replacement technology. Thinking the end was near for flash, a number of companies began to develop various next-generation memory types, such as 3D chips, FeRAM, MRAM, phase-change memory (PCM), and ReRAM. Many of these technologies were originally billed as “uni... » 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.