Data Becomes Key For Next-Gen Chips


Data has become vital to understanding the useful life of a semiconductor — and the knowledge gleaned is key to staying competitive beyond Moore’s Law. What's changed is a growing reliance earlier in the design cycle on multiple sources of data, including some from further right in the design-through-manufacturing flow. While this holistic approach may seem logical enough, the semiconduc... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools, packaging/test VLSI Research has released its 200mm wafer fab equipment (WFE) market share figures for 2019. The top three suppliers--Applied Materials, TEL, and ASML—saw growth in the 2019 200mm WFE business. Lam Research was in fourth place, followed by KLA and Canon. In total, 200mm wafer fab equipment sales were $3.6 billion in 2019, declining 5% from 2018, according to the fi... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


The American Foundries Act, a bipartisan initiative to revive U.S. leadership in the global microelectronics sector, was announced by U.S. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer from New York. “The economic and national security risks posed by relying too heavily on foreign semiconductor suppliers cannot be ignored, and Upstate New York, which has a robust semiconductor sector, is the perfect place... » read more

Blog Review: June 30


Cadence's Paul McLellan examines Fully Homomorphic Encryption, which allows for operations to be performed on encrypted data without decrypting it, and why it's now entering the realm of practicality. Mentor's Shivani Joshi explains the basics of using keepouts to prevent the placement of specific or all design items within a specified area and why they can make or break a first pass at crea... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fast Arm-based supercomputer Japan has taken the lead in the supercomputer race, jumping ahead of the U.S. But China continues to make its presence felt in the arena. Fugaku, an ARM-based supercomputer jointly developed by Japan’s Riken and Fujitsu, is now ranked the world’s fastest supercomputer in the 55th TOP500 list. Fugaku turned in a high performance Linpack (HPL) result of 415.5... » read more

Blog Review: June 24


Cadence's Paul McLellan provides an overview of the new IEEE 1838 standard for manufacturing test of 3D stacked ICs and how it aims to enable testing of multi-die chiplet-based designs. In a video, Mentor's Colin Walls investigates the scope and lifetime of pointers in embedded applications. A Synopsys writer checks out the latest mobile memory standard, JESD209-5A, and the enhancements i... » read more

China Speeds Up Advanced Chip Development


China is accelerating its efforts to advance its domestic semiconductor industry, amid ongoing trade tensions with the West, in hopes of becoming more self-sufficient. The country is still behind in IC technology and is nowhere close to being self-reliant, but it is making noticeable progress. Until recently, China’s domestic chipmakers were stuck with mature foundry processes with no pres... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs At next week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is expected to roll out its long-awaited Arm-based Mac computers. This could provide a boost for Apple’s foundry vendor as well as equipment makers. It’s the worst-kept secret in the industry. As reported by the Apple sites, Apple is moving from Intel’s microprocessors to its own Arm-based chips for th... » read more

The Future Of Mobility: Autonomous, Connected, Electric, Shared


By Bettina Weiss and Sven Beiker As the amount of electronics in automobiles continues to increase, it is becoming more common to hear a vehicle referred to as a “computer on wheels.” To that end, innovation occurs at the intersection of automotive and microelectronics so that leveraging synergies and contemplating joint initiatives becomes crucial in shaping the future of both fields. I... » read more

Blog Review: June 17


Mentor's Chris Spear provides an introduction to SystemVerilog Multidimensional Arrays and shares code samples to follow along. Cadence's Paul McLellan listens in on Sophie Wilson's 2020 Wheeler Lecture that traces the history of the microprocessor from the early days of Moore's Law through to increasing power and economic constraints that are causing a transition from general purpose to spe... » read more

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