tag: STMicroelectronics

Viable Choices Ahead
By Ed Sperling - 27 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

Two years ago—basically one process node back, wherever companies were on the Moore’s Law road map—there was confusion about what lies ahead and what is the best way to proceed. During that time, three very viable options have been proven to work. Some already are in silicon, while others are coming very soon. The first is the finFET. At the very leading edge of the road map, finFET... » read more

Under One Roof
By Ed Sperling - 12 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Microsoft’s decision to buy Nokia’s phone business, Apple’s move to build its own chips to more effectively run its software, and Google’s effort to develop its own hardware for next-generation platforms such as Google Glass mark an interesting reversal in the electronics industry. Disaggregation was the answer to slow-moving giants such as big-iron companies. Startin... » read more

Materials, Software And Techniques
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

The future of advanced semiconductor technology is about to split evenly into three different areas. On the leading edge of manufacturing, Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter called it correctly—it’s all about materials. Just shrinking features isn’t buying much anymore. In fact, at advanced nodes, with extra margin built into designs, it frequently doesn’t buy anything except extra ... » read more

Foundries Eye 300mm Analog Fabs
By Mark LaPedus - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus In 2009, Texas Instruments changed the semiconductor landscape when it opened the industry’s first 300mm fab for analog chips. Until then, analog chip production was conducted in fabs at 200mm wafer sizes and below. With a 300mm fab, TI potentially could gain a die-size and cost advantage over its analog rivals. On paper, a 300mm wafer provides 2.5 times more chips than a... » read more

MEMS Foundries Play Waiting Game
By Mark LaPedus - 18 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus For years, the foundries in the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) business have been patiently waiting for the MEMS integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) to outsource some or all of their production. The MEMS foundries are still waiting for that development. Because MEMS are custom devices tuned to a proprietary process and toolset, IDMs still prefer to use their own f... » read more

Trading Off Power And Performance
By Ann Mutschler - 11 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler There is no shortage of opinions when it comes to the topic of performance and power tradeoffs. From abstracting the task from engineers to process considerations, engineering teams have a number of tools and approaches at their disposal to make the optimal design choices for their application. Take the MCU application space for instance. Ken Dwyer, director of app... » read more

Dealing With New Bottlenecks
By Ed Sperling - 11 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling While the number of options for improving efficiency and performance in designs continues to increase, the number of challenges in getting chips at advanced process nodes out the door is increasing, too. Thinner wires, routing congestion, more power domains, IP integration and lithography issues are conspiring to make design much more difficult than in the past. So why aren�... » read more

To DVFS Or Not To DVFS
By Ann Mutschler - 11 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

I’m in a great position to hear lots of interesting opinions about technology today and this week was no different. During a discussion with Atrenta CTO Bernard Murphy about power and performance tradeoffs, he mentioned that he is not hearing a lot of engineering teams using DVFS (dynamic voltage and frequency scaling) because it creates complications for clock synchronization and makes the d... » read more

Intel Vs. Everyone Else
By Ed Sperling - 08 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

A report from ABI Research is starting to gain some attention. For cynics, the question of why now seems perfectly reasonable, considering the report was released early last month and promptly fell well under the semiconductor industry’s radar. But cynicism aside, it’s still interesting to compare specs for chips using ARM’s Cortex-A15, A9 and Qualcomm’s ARM-based Krait. The bottom ... » read more

Medical Drives Boom In MEMS
By Ed Sperling - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus At a recent event, an executive from a startup called Proteus Digital Health described the medical benefits of swallowing the company’s ingestible sensors or digital pills. First, a consumer would swallow Proteus Digital’s tiny ingestible sensor, along with one’s current medication. With no battery or antenna, the stomach fluid generates the power in the ingestible sen... » read more

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