Politics And (Low) Power


This week the entire semiconductor market woke up with a severe political hangover. Aside from the initial shock of the election results themselves, the winning platform of "America First" could have far-reaching implications for an industry that has spent decades optimizing a global supply chain the way it has finely tuned other processes to reduce the cost per transistor. There are many un... » read more

2.5D Becomes A Reality


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss 2.5D and advanced packaging with Max Min, senior technical manager at [getentity id="22865" e_name="Samsung"]; Rob Aitken, an [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"] fellow; John Shin, vice president at [getentity id="22903" e_name="Marvell"]; Bill Isaacson, director of ASIC marketing at [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"]; Frank Ferro, senior di... » read more

Tech Talk: 2.5D Issues


Bill Isaacson, director of ASIC marketing at eSilicon, about how viable this packaging approach is, organic vs. inorganic interposers, where the problems are, thermal coupling, interposer cost, and what will change over the next couple years. » read more

The Challenge Of Fitting In


Connections between players in the semiconductor industry are becoming critical for survival. Whether the focus is a connected car, home automation, health care or the energy grid, each company in each of those markets relies on others to build useful products. There are several forces at work here. One is an emphasis on connecting everything, regardless of whether it is inside a single vert... » read more

The Times They Are A-Changin’


Let me start out by saying that I’m not a huge Bob Dylan fan. I’m an American that grew up in the 1960s, so it’s hard to not call some of Dylan’s catalog a soundtrack for your life. The song that I used to title this blog has some special relevance for me and eSilicon. Recently, we’ve heard a lot about changing times, and not-so-good times, when it comes to the worldwide economy and o... » read more

Electronic Gas Concerns On The Rise


In the grand scheme of the semiconductor supply chain, electronic gases are something most engineers and scientists never think about. Behind the gleaming machinery and brightly labeled tubes, however, these gases allow wafers to be etched, kept at optimum temperatures, and prepared for the application of thin films. Electronic gases are remarkably well managed in high-volume fabs, which is ... » read more

DoD Scratches Its Head Over Foundry Security


When the GlobalFoundries deal with IBM to acquire its foundries closes, as it is slated to sometime during 2015, the U.S. Department of Defense has a small problem on its hands. Military programs no longer will have access to a trusted fab to manufacture semiconductors. How do you ensure that the foundry did not modify or alter your design, add backdoor access or implement a remote control mech... » read more

What’s Really Inside?


Is it just paranoia, or do devices ranging from industrial controls to military hardware really contain malicious code, Trojan Horses, and remotely triggered back doors? The answer is "maybe not" if you're an optimist, and "maybe" if you're a pessimist, but no one really knows for sure. And that's what really worries security experts, particularly as more devices are connected to other devices.... » read more

Security Progress In Some Places, Not Others


Security is big business, and it's increasingly part of business done between big businesses in the semiconductor market. The deal that was announced this week between NXP and Qualcomm, adding a secure NFC module to the Snapdragon chip, is certainly good business. But what's really interesting about this arrangement is that it was done between two very prominent companies, which saw a potent... » read more

Challenges For The IIoT


Unlike the [getkc id="76" comment="Internet of Things"], which is largely still a collection of connected devices that don't always play well together, the Industrial Internet of Things ([getkc id="78" kc_name="IIoT"]) already is in heavy use and growing across a number of markets well outside of the usual markets associated with semiconductors. A Morgan Stanley "blue paper" report issued la... » read more

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