Environmentally Sustainable FPGAs (Notre Dame, Univ. of Pittsburgh)


A new technical paper titled "REFRESH FPGAs: Sustainable FPGA Chiplet Architectures" was published by University of Notre Dame and University of Pittsburgh. Abstract "There is a growing call for greater amounts of increasingly agile computational power for edge and cloud infrastructure to serve the computationally complex needs of ubiquitous computing devices. Thus, an important challenge i... » read more

Shaping A Sustainable $1 Trillion Era


The semiconductor industry remains on course to reach a total of US$1 trillion in global revenue by 2030, with the journey from US$600 billion expected to take just a decade. At the CEO Summit during SEMICON Europa 2023, SEMI Europe President Laith Altimime attributed this remarkable growth to powerful megatrends, most notably artificial intelligence (AI). AI, in turn, is creating new opport... » read more

IC Manufacturing Targets Less Water, Less Waste


Fabs, OSATs, and equipment makers are accelerating their efforts to consume less water while recycling more material waste in a trend toward better sustainability. With chips, sustainability is heavily focused on carbon emissions, and energy consumption is a significant contributor. But there is an equal effort underway to reduce water consumption and pollution. Across the globe, the number ... » read more

Simplifying Power Module Verification Using Compliance Checking


By Wilfried Wessel, Siemens EDA; Simon Liebetegger, University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt; and Florian Bauer, Siemens EDA Current simulation and verification methods for power modules are time-consuming. Each domain has specific solutions based on finite elements analysis, computational fluid dynamics and solvers for electric circuits like SPICE. This article investigates if it is possib... » read more

Sustainable Products For A More Sustainable World


Teradyne’s sustainability journey began three decades ago with a focus on minimizing the environmental impact of our buildings and infrastructure, as outlined in our two part blog series (check out part one and part two). This effort also includes a focus on making our products more sustainable. In this blog, learn how Teradyne’s products and efforts are contributing to a more sustainabl... » read more

Are In-Person Conferences Sustainable?


DAC/Semicon are now over, and while I missed a large part of it due to a stomach bug, I increasingly have a stale taste in my mouth about in-person conferences in general. Let's split things up – an event such as DAC is both an academic conference and a trade show. It has been that way almost since its inception 60 years ago. There are many other conferences that are pure conferences, and the... » read more

Goals of Going Green


The chip industry is stepping up efforts to be seen as environmentally friendly, driven by growing pressure from customers and government regulations. Some manufacturers have been addressing sustainability challenges for more than a decade, but they are becoming more aggressive in their efforts, while others are joining them. A review of sustainability reports across the semiconductor indust... » read more

Heterogeneous Integration As A Path Towards Sustainable Computing, Using Chiplets


A technical paper titled "Towards Sustainable Computing: Assessing the Carbon Footprint of Heterogeneous Systems" was published by researchers at Arizona State University and University of Minnesota. Abstract: "Decades of progress in energy-efficient and low-power design have successfully reduced the operational carbon footprint in the semiconductor industry. However, this has led to an incre... » read more

Managing Water Supplies With Machine Learning


From wet benches to cooling systems, fabs use vast amounts of water — millions of gallons per day at a typical foundry. In this era of climate change, though, water supplies are becoming less reliable and municipal water systems are becoming more restrictive. For example, local utilities might restrict a fab’s ability to draw from the public water supply, or might supply only treated wastew... » read more

A New Year’s Wish


Every year I run a predictions article. It is a mashup of ideas from many people within the industry, and while many predictions are somewhat self-serving, there are other which come more from the heart — or perhaps they are dreams rather than expectations. I see hope in some of those, particularly the ones that look toward sustainability within our industry, and of our industry. Just like... » read more

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