Challenges Mount For Interconnect

By Mark LaPedus - 26 Jun, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus There are a plethora of chip-manufacturing challenges for the 20nm node and beyond. When asked what are the top challenges facing leading-edge chip makers today, Gary Patton, vice president of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at IBM, said it boils down to two major hurdles: lithography and the interconnect. The problems with lithography are well documented.... » read more

Bucket Lists

By Ed Sperling - 26 Jun, 2012 - Comments: 0

At 130nm, the introduction of copper interconnects, 300mm wafers and low-k dielectrics left the entire supply chain breathless. There had never been as many changes at a single process node in the history of semiconductors. At 28nm, the number of changes will pale compared to what’s necessary at 20nm, and that will pale to what’s required at 14nm. But unlike 130nm, when most of those cha... » read more

Power Shift

By Ed Sperling - 14 Jun, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling For the past decade, most of the real gains in energy efficiency were developed for chips inside mobile electronics because of the demand for longer battery life. Dark silicon now represents the majority of mobile devices, multiple power islands are commonplace to push many functions into deep sleep, and performance is usually the secondary concern for most applications. Whil... » read more

Packaging Tradeoffs More Complex Than Ever

By Ed Sperling - 24 May, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Driven by high-speed interfaces, the demand for TSVs and the complexities that new process nodes bring, older packaging technologies like wirebonding can’t keep up. The latest and greatest flip chip technologies offer much more flexibility, but at a cost. As such, the package plays a larger role than ever in determining system specifications because, depending o... » read more

Managing Complexity With Advanced Packaging

By Ed Sperling - 22 Mar, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler Engineering teams across the globe continue to pound the process geometry treadmill to stay on the curve of Dr. Moore to achieve better speed or lower power or smaller die—and it all adds up to increased complexity in the design and packaging. However, with advanced forms of die stacking such as package-on-package, silicon-in-package, 2.5D silicon interposer techno... » read more

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

By Ed Sperling - 09 Mar, 2012 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling System-Level Design sat down to discuss electronic-system-level design with Stephen Bailey, director of emerging technologies for the design verification technology group at Mentor Graphics; Michael McNamara, vice president and general manager of Cadence’s System-Level Division; Ghislain Kaiser, CEO of DOCEA Power, and Shawn McCloud, vice president of marketing at Calypto. Wh... » read more

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

By Ed Sperling - 02 Mar, 2012 - Comments: 0

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

By Ed Sperling - 22 Feb, 2012 - Comments: 0

Off The Planar

By Ed Sperling - 15 Dec, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Pallab Chatterjee 3D devices, FinFETs and new memory technologies are not just a future direction anymore. They’re real. That became evident at this year’s IEDM conference, where the focus of a number of sessions was on modeling, failure and reliability models, as well as lower power supply operations for these devices. Because FinFETs are not standard 2D MOS devices, their use i... » read more

Something Old, Something Borrowed

By Ed Sperling - 11 Nov, 2011 - Comments: 0

The basic rule of SoC design is that it needs to be created relatively quickly, work as planned, and that it can be manufactured at a reasonable cost and with good yield ramp. That eliminates revolutionary changes on the technology side, limits the number of new materials, and relegates the most dramatic shifts to the business. That’s why most of the most far-reaching technology research i... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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tag: stacked die

Challenges Mount For Interconnect

Bucket Lists

Power Shift

Packaging Tradeoffs More Complex Than Ever

Managing Complexity With Advanced Packaging

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

Experts At The Table: ESL Reality Check

Off The Planar

Something Old, Something Borrowed