Why Chiplets Are So Critical In Automotive


Chiplets are gaining renewed attention in the automotive market, where increasing electrification and intense competition are forcing companies to accelerate their design and production schedules. Electrification has lit a fire under some of the biggest and best-known carmakers, which are struggling to remain competitive in the face of very short market windows and constantly changing requir... » read more

The Seven Pillars Of IC Package Physical Design


Today’s heterogeneously integrated semiconductor packages represent a breakthrough technology that enables dramatic increases in bandwidth and performance with reduced power and cost compared to what can be currently achieved in traditional monolithic SoC designs. Figure 1. A heterogeneously integrated device with 47 chiplets. (Image Source: Intel) The evolving landscape of packagin... » read more

AI Tradeoffs At The Edge


AI is impacting almost every application area imaginable, but increasingly it is moving from the data center to the edge, where larger amounts of data need to be processed much more quickly than in the past. This has set off a scramble for massive improvements in performance much closer to the source of data, but with a familiar set of caveats — it must use very little power, be affordable... » read more

Re-architecting Hardware For Energy


A lot of effort has gone into the power optimization of a system based on the RTL created, but that represents a small fraction of the possible power and energy that could be saved. The industry's desire to move to denser systems is being constrained by heat, so there is an increasing focus on re-architecting systems to reduce the energy consumed per useful function performed. Making signifi... » read more

SRAM Scaling Issues, And What Comes Next


The inability of SRAM to scale has challenged power and performance goals forcing the design ecosystem to come up with strategies that range from hardware innovations to re-thinking design layouts. At the same time, despite the age of its initial design and its current scaling limitations, SRAM has become the workhorse memory for AI. SRAM, and its slightly younger cousin DRAM, have always co... » read more

IC Package Physical Design Best Practices


Historically IC package design has been a relatively simple task which allowed the die bumps to be fanned out on a package substrate to a floorplan geometry suitable for connecting to a printed circuit board (PCB). But today the industry is moving to disaggregation of traditional monolithic SoC functions into chiplets often interfaced with local high-speed memory to avoid silicon reticle limits... » read more

Memory’s Future Hinges On Reliability


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about the impact of power and heat on off-chip memory, and what can be done to optimize performance, with Frank Ferro, group director, product management at Cadence; Steven Woo, fellow and distinguished inventor at Rambus; Jongsin Yun, memory technologist at Siemens EDA; Randy White, memory solutions program manager at Keysight; a... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 7


Synopsys' Ian Land, Kenneth Larsen, and Rob Aitken find that a new approach will be required to ensure that higher volume 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI) designs can function reliably and successfully in aerospace, defense, and government systems. Siemens' John Golding provides a primer on the fundamental concepts related to signal integrity, including key topics such as transmission lin... » read more

Software-Defined Vehicles Ready To Roll


Software-defined vehicles are driving a swell of activity across the automotive ecosystem, including new methodologies and technology approaches that could significantly reduce costs and shorten time to market for advanced features. The SDV approach encompasses more than a single concept. It helps to think of it more as a modeling approach that connects EVs, driver assistance technology, and... » read more

Role For ICs Expands In Humanoid Robots


Semiconductors play a crucial role in the development and functionality of humanoid robots. Humanoid robots are advanced machines designed to resemble and perform tasks similar to humans. The integration of semiconductors in humanoid robots contributes to their sensory perception, processing capabilities, and overall functionality. Robots are used in everything from security and defense, to ... » read more

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