Executive Briefing: Andrew Yang


By Ed Sperling Andrew Yang, president of ANSYS subsidiary Apache Design, sat down with Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering to talk about why power is becoming so important and where the future challenges lie. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. LPHP: What’s the most important issue these days for chipmakers? Yang: According to the feedback we’ve gotten from our customer... » read more

The Power Problem


For the past few years, EDA companies have been warning chipmakers that power will become the biggest issue they face at future nodes. They were right. While it may not be the only big problem—after all, the number of issues at each new tick of Moore’s Law is growing—power is certainly one of the most challenging and by far the most pervasive. In fact, the warnings about just how perni... » read more

Experts At The Table: Issues In Metrology And Inspection


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future metrology and inspection challenges with John Allgair, senior member of the technical staff at GlobalFoundries; Kevin Heidrich, vice president of marketing and business development at Nanometrics; Robert Newcomb, executive vice president at Qcept Technologies; and Shrinivas Shetty, vice president of marketing f... » read more

Experts At The Table: FinFET Questions And Issues


By Ed Sperling Low-Power/High-Performance Engineering sat down to discuss the current state and future promise of finFETs, and the myriad challenges, with Ruggero Castagnetti, an LSI fellow; Barry Pangrle, senior power methodology engineer at Nvidia; Steve Carlson, group director of marketing at Cadence; and Mary Ann White, director of product marketing at Synopsys. What follows are excerpts o... » read more

Waiting For 3D Metrology


By Mark LaPedus Over the years, suppliers of metrology equipment have managed to meet the requirements for conventional planar chips. But tool vendors now find themselves behind in the emerging 3D chip era, prompting the urgent need for a new class of 3D metrology gear. 3D is a catch-all phrase that includes a range of new architectures, such as finFET transistors, 3D NAND and stacked-die ... » read more

Experts At The Table: Issues In Metrology And Inspection


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future metrology and inspection challenges with John Allgair, senior member of the technical staff at GlobalFoundries; Kevin Heidrich, vice president of marketing and business development at Nanometrics; Robert Newcomb, executive vice president at Qcept Technologies; and Shrinivas Shetty, vice president of marketing f... » read more

Supply Chain Catch-Up


There always will be a few big companies marching to the latest process node available to them. The problem these days isn’t their commitment to pushing forward. It’s the baggage train following them. It’s getting longer, more diverse, and in some cases, it’s falling out of sync. The foundries are out in front with 14nm finFETs, and they’re already working on 10nm transistors—pos... » read more

Uncertainty Ahead


If finFETs work as planned, it’s likely they will show up in every complex SoC for decades to come. Adding another dimension to transistors has enormous potential at advanced nodes, and maybe even at older nodes. 3D transistors also could be part of stacked die, and they can be combined with fully depleted SOI—two other options for reducing power. Moreover, it’s likely that whatever G... » read more

Throw In The Kitchen Sink


By Ed Sperling The number of options available for reducing power and improving performance are increasing for the first time in a decade. This is good news for chipmakers. It’s far less clear who stands to benefit on the tools, IP, capital equipment and manufacturing side. Choice is always a good thing in design. It allows teams to trade off one IP block for another, based upon the needs... » read more

Executive Briefing: Wally Rhines


By Ed Sperling System-Level Design, as part of its ongoing executive briefing series, sat down with Wally Rhines, Mentor Graphics' chairman and CEO, to talk about future problems, opportunities, and the gray areas that could go either way. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SLD: Is the amount of time spent on verification increasing? Rhines: It depends on how you define who s... » read more

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