What’s Holding Back Analog?

By Ann Mutschler - 01 Aug, 2016 - Comments: 2

The uneasy relationship between digital and analog, coupled with tools that are either ineffective or outright ignored by the analog community, may be limiting the growth potential and technological advances in that market. That certainly doesn’t mean analog isn’t growing. In fact, analog is an increasingly critical component of ICs and the electronic devices they inhabit. The global ele... » read more

3D Printing: What Does It Mean For The Semiconductor Industry?

By Adrienne Downey - 21 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

Semico Research was pleased to host the 3D printing TechXPOT at SEMICON West 2016, in conjunction with SEMI. We also hosted the inaugural 3D printing session at SEMICON West 2014. What is striking is how much the 3D printing industry has changed in those two years. In 2014, 3D printing was at the height of media attention; the major questions were when each home would have its own 3D printer. I... » read more

No More Easy IP Money

By Brian Bailey - 14 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 2

The semiconductor intellectual property ([getkc id="43" kc_name="IP"]) industry is two decades old, but questions are still being asked about what's wrong with it and what needs to be fixed. Normally these kinds of issues are reserved for fast-moving, young industries, not one that is the backbone of semiconductors. Design reuse has become an indispensable part of the design of nearly all el... » read more

Why IP Subsystems And Why Now?

By Rich Wawrzyniak - 23 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 0

At the recently concluded DAC 2016 conference in Austin, Texas, I had the opportunity to participate in a tutorial on IP Subsystems on Wednesday the 8th. Also participating were Marco Brambilla, Director of Engineering at Synapse Design and Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. The reality today is that device complexity in many applications has risen to levels that require increasing amounts of disc... » read more

Fab Investment Increases In China

By Mark LaPedus - 02 Jun, 2016 - Comments: 1

By Mark LaPedus & Ed Sperling Fab construction in China is heating up, driven by real and projected demand for IoT devices and the government's push for internally manufactured chips. [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"], UMC and [getentity id="22586" comment="TSMC"] are all actively building up fab capacity inside of China, usually in conjunction with other local governme... » read more

Wafer Shortage? Reality Versus Perception

By Joanne Itow - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

The promise of explosive growth associated with IoT has semiconductor unit forecasts growing at double-digit rates for key product categories. Anything with the word ‘sensors’ seems to be in vogue today. Sensors, image sensors, sensor hubs are all expected to benefit from the billions of connected devices that are forecasted to be in place by 2020. Semico agrees. Unit growth for key product... » read more

10nm Versus 7nm

By Mark LaPedus - 25 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 20

The silicon foundry business is heating up, as vendors continue to ramp their 16nm/14nm finFET processes. At the same time, they are racing each other to ship the next technologies on the roadmap—10nm and 7nm. But the landscape is complicated, with each vendor taking a different strategy. [getentity id="22865" e_name="Samsung"], for one, plans to ship its 10nm [getkc id="185" kc_name="fi... » read more

Foundries Expand Their Scope

By Ed Sperling - 21 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling & Mark LaPedus Major foundries are stepping up their offerings across a wide swath of technology nodes, specialty processes and advanced packaging—a recognition that end markets are fragmenting and that the path forward includes a mix of new and established processes. As the smart phone market flattens, there is no single "next big thing" to drive volume at the most ... » read more

Cadence CDNLive Keynote Address: Thoughts and Implications

By Rich Wawrzyniak - 21 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 0

I attended the Cadence CDNLive conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center on April 5 and 6 and had a chance to listen to four very thought-provoking presentations given by the speakers. These presentations were combined to follow the keynote address given by Cadence CEO, Lip-Bu Tan and addressed several different aspects of the current semiconductor industry landscape. Speakers Lip-... » read more

Blog Review: March 30

By Jesse Allen - 30 Mar, 2016 - Comments: 0

Are we in a new wave of formal? Mentor's Joe Hupcey III highlights several things from DVCon that indicate formal is becoming a cornerstone of mainstream verification flows. Synopsys' Graham Etchells continues his search for more ways to bring greater efficiency to the FinFET layout process, and the downsides to custom routing solutions. Cadence's Paul McLellan takes a look at TSMC's rapi... » 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

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

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

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.

by Bryon Moyer

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