EVs Raise Energy, Power, And Thermal IC Design Challenges


The transition to electric vehicles is putting pressure on power grids to produce more energy and on vehicles to use that energy much more efficiently, creating a gargantuan set of challenges that will affect every segment of the automotive world, the infrastructure that supports it, and the chips that are required to make all of this work. From a semiconductor standpoint, improvements in th... » read more

New Data Management Challenges


An explosion in semiconductor design and manufacturing data, and the expanding use of chips in safety-critical and mission-critical applications, is prompting chipmakers to collect and manage that data more effectively in order to improve overall performance and reliability. This collection of data reveals a number of challenges with no simple solutions. Data may be siloed and inconsistent, ... » read more

Are You Leaving Performance On The Table? Here Is One Sure Way To Find Out


Compute platforms are always hungry for more performance. This is a fact that we simply cannot escape. Whether you are targeting high performance computing, IoT, mobile, or the automotive market, you need to unlock the best performance for your specific workloads. This relentless quest for performance comes with an unwelcome side effect: system complexity. As hardware becomes more capable, the ... » read more

AEK: Powerpoint Is Easy—Change is Hard


A major message to big-name automakers at the Automobil Elektronik Kongress 2022 was, "You old-time car guys don't get it. We have to deliver a smartphone experience in a vehicle. If not, we will be out of our jobs, and someone else will." CARIAD I thought that the most interesting presentation was by Riclef Schmidt-Clausen of CARIAD. CARIAD is a spinout from Volkswagen (VW) of their software... » read more

Transforming AppSec: The Top Three Ways To Build Security Into DevOps


DevOps has changed the way organizations bring software to market, allowing them to deliver new applications and features rapidly and continuously. But it’s also introduced new security challenges as testing and remediation have failed to keep pace. As a result, cybercriminals have developed new attack strategies that intensify their focus on the application layer, including open source and s... » read more

Why Hardware-Dependent Software Is So Critical


Hardware and software are two sides of the same coin, but they often live in different worlds. In the past, hardware and software rarely were designed together, and many companies and products failed because the total solution was unable to deliver. The big question is whether the industry has learned anything since then. At the very least, there is widespread recognition that hardware-depen... » read more

How To Optimize A Processor


Optimizing any system is a multi-layered problem, but when it involves a processor there are at least three levels to consider. Architects must be capable of thinking across these boundaries because the role of each of the layers must be both understood and balanced. The first level of potential optimization is at the system level. For example, how does data come in and out of the processing... » read more

Will Big Competition Attract More Talent For IC Companies?


Google is hiring a chip packaging technologist. General Motors is seeking a wafer fabrication procurement specialist. Facebook Reality Labs wants a materials researcher with experience in photolithography and nanoimprint techniques. Recent job postings by tech and automotive giants are enough to worry any chip company executive struggling to attract talent. But what may seem at first like a ... » read more

Protecting ICs Against Specific Threats


Identifying potential vulnerabilities and attack vectors is a first step in addressing them. Anders Nordstrom, security application engineer at Tortuga Logic, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the growing risk of remote hardware attacks, what to do when a chip is hacked, and where to find the most common weaknesses for chips. » read more

Software-Defined Cars


Automotive architectures are becoming increasingly software-driven, a shift that simplifies upgrades and makes it easier to add new features into vehicles. All of this is enabled by the increasing digitalization of automotive functions and features, shifting from mechanical to electrical design, and increasingly from analog to digital data. That enables OEMs to add or up-sell features years ... » read more

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