Innovation Matters

By Zining Wu - 09 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Innovation is not something that just happens. It requires a culture that rewards innovation, and the only way to make that happen is with buy-in at every level. What's needed is a climate for building, inventing and designing ICs and systems that push technology boundaries and help move the industry forward. This is a key ingredient for innovation that has been used across the globe to brin... » read more

Memory Hierarchy Shakeup

By Mark LaPedus - 16 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 0

It’s no secret that today’s memory chips and storage devices are struggling to keep up with the growing demands in data processing. To solve the problem, chipmakers have been working on several next-generation memory types. But most technologies have been delayed or fallen short of their promises. But after numerous delays, a new wave of next-generation, nonvolatile memories are finally ... » read more

Executive Insight: Charlie Cheng

By Ed Sperling - 14 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 1

Charlie Cheng, CEO of Kilopass, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about issues with current memory types and why the market is ready for disruptive approaches to reduce power and cost. SE: What's changing in the memory space? Cheng: Memory is a very important building block. It's a foundation and a commodity for a chip and for the system, but if you look at the big picture, ... » read more

Which Memory Type Should You Use?

By Loren Shalinsky - 10 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 1

I continue to get besieged by statements in which memory “latency” and “bandwidth” get misused. As I mentioned in my last blog, latency is defined as how long the CPU needs to wait before the first data is available, while bandwidth is how fast additional data can be “streamed” after the first data point has arrived. Bandwidth becomes a bigger factor in performance when data is stor... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 14 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

Sunit Rikhi, vice president of the Technology and Manufacturing Group at Intel and general manager of Intel’s Custom Foundry unit, has retired. “I left Intel on a sabbatical in late March and ended my career with Intel on June 1,” Rikhi said in an e-mail. Now, Rikhi has started a new company. The company, called Reach for Infinity LLC, “is a management development company devoted to... » read more

The Real Value In Customizing Instructions

By Emerson Hsiao - 06 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

One element that distinguishes devices for the emerging IoT market from the mobile devices of the mature handheld market is power. Specifically, while the latter can accept a battery recharge cycle of days, the former demands years between battery recharge/replacement. Where the two devices resemble one another is their need for high performance. While embedded CPU cores have concentrated o... » read more

The Bumpy Road To 3D NAND

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 1

The NAND flash memory market is dynamic, but it’s also sometimes predictable. Suppliers tend to roll out identical NAND flash chips and then scale them to smaller geometries. And NAND chip prices rise and fall, depending on the supply/demand equation at a given point. Going forward, though, the NAND market is expected to become less predictable, if not chaotic, amid a new and major technol... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 12

By Ed Sperling - 12 Aug, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Is the sky falling on semi capital spending? “We have seen several 2014 industry demand estimates in the 20%+ range, based on the ramps of FinFET and 3D NAND,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. “We expect Samsung to ramp spending in Q4, but we believe foundry and logic spending will remain soft for several quarters. As a result, we are developin... » read more

The Week In Review: July 8

By Mark LaPedus - 08 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Fab tool vendors this week will gather at the annual Semicon West trade show in San Francisco. The mood is expected to be both gloomy and upbeat, at least based on one new and mixed forecast. The semiconductor equipment market is projected to fall 7.4% in 2013, but it will grow 27.1% in 2014, according to VLSI Research. The forecast for semis is up 10% in 2013 and 8.3% growth i... » read more

The Increasing Challenge Of Reducing Latency

By Ed Sperling - 11 Oct, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling When the first mainframe computers were introduced the big challenge was to improve performance by decreasing the latency between spinning reels of tape and the processor—while also increasing the speed at which the processor could crunch ones and zeroes. Fast forward more than six decades and the two issues are now blurred and often confused. Latency is still a drag on per... » read more

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