Packaging Biz Faces Challenges in 2019

By Mark LaPedus - 10 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

The IC packaging industry is bracing for slower growth, if not uncertainty, in 2019, even though advanced packaging remains a bright spot in the market. Generally, IC packaging houses saw strong demand in the first part of 2018, but the market cooled in the second half of the year due to a slowdown in memory. Going forward, the slower IC packaging market is expected to extend into the first ... » read more

Looking Beyond The CPU

By Brian Bailey - 29 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 0

CPUs no longer deliver the same kind of of performance improvements as in the past, raising questions across the industry about what comes next. The growth in processing power delivered by a single CPU core began stalling out at the beginning of the decade, when power-related issues such as heat and noise forced processor companies to add more cores rather than pushing up the clock frequency... » read more

IP Tracking and Management

By Brian Bailey - 29 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss IP tracking and management with Ranjit Adhikary, VP of marketing for ClioSoft; Jim Bruister, director digital systems (since retired) at Silvaco; Marc Greenberg, product marketing group director at Cadence; and Kelvin Low, VP of Marketing at Arm. What follows are excerpts from that conversation. SE: What is the scope of the problem? What are ... » read more

Getting Down To Business On Chiplets

By Ed Sperling - 26 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 0

Government agencies, industry groups and individual companies are beginning to rally around various chiplet models, setting the stage for complex chips that are quicker and cheaper to build using standardized interfaces and components. The idea of putting together different modules like LEGOs has been talked about for the better part of a decade. So far, only Marvell has used this concept co... » read more

What’s Next In R&D?

By Mark LaPedus - 21 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 1

Luc Van den hove, president and chief executive of Imec, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss R&D challenges and what’s next in the arena. The Belgium R&D organization is working on AI, DNA storage, EUV, semiconductors and other technologies. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Moore’s Law is slowing down. And it is becoming more expensive to move fr... » read more

The Big Race

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

An estimated 74.39 million automobiles are forecast to be sold this year, according to Statista. That's up about 2.8% over 2015, which on the surface doesn't look like fabulous growth. What isn't apparent in the numbers, though, is the amount and type of semiconductor content. Electronic control units, which are primarily driven by MCUs, increasingly are being replaced by SoCs. Automotive co... » read more

What’s After Smartphones?

By Ed Sperling - 25 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 2

One of the unique things about the semiconductor industry is that it has fueled the digital revolution almost entirely by focusing on its core competencies of performance, power and area. There are few, if any, industries that can tie global growth and success to what amounts to an almost isolationist business model. Salespeople have to sell those chips, of course. Marketers have to create ... » read more

Getting Paid More

By Ed Sperling - 27 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

Consolidation is a regular news item in the semiconductor industry, and has been for years, but most of those deals have been relatively small. What's changing is the amount of consolidation involving big companies, fueled partly by a massive M&A fund in China, partly by an arms race in preparation for the IoE, and partly by the kind of thinking that if other companies are doing it, it's dan... » read more

The Next Big Things

By Ed Sperling - 30 Jul, 2015 - Comments: 0

Progress in electronics has always been about combining more functions into devices and making access to information more convenient. This is what drove the PC revolution in the 1980s, when centralized data was made available on desktops, and it's what drove the notebook PC revolution in the 1990s as computers became untethered from the desktop, as long as you could find an Ethernet connecti... » read more

Tech Talk: Silicon Photonics

By Ed Sperling - 21 May, 2014 - Comments: 2

Mentor Graphics' John Ferguson explains why light is getting so much attention for inter-chip communications, where it excels, and why it has limitations. This is the first part in a two-part series. [youtube vid=0ydkDmrSrF4] » read more

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