Where All The Semiconductor Investments Are Going

By Ed Sperling - 17 Nov, 2022 - Comments: 2

Companies and countries are funneling huge sums of money into semiconductor manufacturing, materials, and research — at least a half-trillion dollars over the next decade, and maybe much more — to guarantee a steady supply of chips and know-how to support growth across a wide swath of increasingly data-centric industries. The build-out of a duplicate supply chain that can guarantee capac... » read more

Chip Industry Earnings: A Mixed Bag

By Linda Christensen - 28 Oct, 2022 - Comments: 0

Editor's Note: Updated the week of Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 for additional earnings releases. Although most companies reported revenue growth, this latest round of chip industry earnings releases reflected a few major themes: Lower future quarter guidance to varying degrees, due to the recent U.S. export restrictions related to China; Negative impact of the inflationary environment on corn... » read more

Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test

By Karen Heyman - 21 Oct, 2022 - Comments: 0

Fallout from the new U.S. export controls continues. Under new regulations, companies looking to supply Chinese chipmakers with advanced manufacturing equipment (<14nm) must first obtain a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. In addition, U.S. persons (citizens and permanent residents) are barred from supporting China’s advanced chip development or production without a license. ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test

By Linda Christensen - 20 May, 2022 - Comments: 0

GlobalFoundries launched GF Labs, an “open framework of internal and external research and development initiatives that deliver a differentiated pipeline of market-driven process technology solutions for future data-centric, connected, intelligent and secure applications.” Greg Bartlett, GF's senior vice president of technology, engineering at quality, said the goal is to develop and exp... » read more

Energy Harvesting Starting To Gain Traction

By John Koon - 18 Apr, 2022 - Comments: 4

Tens of billions of IoT devices are powered by batteries today. Depending on the compute intensity and the battery chemistry, these devices can run steadily for short periods of time, or they can run occasionally for decades. But in some cases, they also can either harvest energy themselves, or tap into externally harvested energy, allowing them to work almost indefinitely. Energy harvesting... » read more

GaN ICs Wanted for Power, EV Markets

By Katherine Derbyshire - 17 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

Circuits built with discrete GaN components may get the job done, but fully integrated GaN circuits remain the ultimate goal because they would offer many of the same advantages as integrated silicon circuits. These benefits include lower cost as the circuit footprint is scaled, and reduced parasitic resistance and capacitance with shorter interconnect runs. In addition, improved device perf... » read more

Power Grids Under Attack

By John Koon - 03 Feb, 2022 - Comments: 0

Cyberattacks are becoming as troublesome to the electrical power grid as natural disasters, and the problem is growing worse as these grids become more connected and smarter. Unlike in the past, when a power outage affected just the electricity supplied to homes and businesses, power grids are becoming core elements of smart cities, infrastructure, and safety-related services. Without power,... » read more

200mm Shortages May Persist For Years

By Mark LaPedus - 20 Jan, 2022 - Comments: 2

A surge in demand for chips at more mature process nodes is causing shortages for both 200mm foundry capacity and 200mm equipment, and it shows no signs of letting up. In fact, even with new capacity coming on line this year, shortages are likely to persist for years, driving up prices and forcing significant changes across the semiconductor supply chain. Shortages for both 200mm foundry cap... » read more

Coping With Parallel Test Site-to-Site Variation

By Anne Meixner - 09 Nov, 2021 - Comments: 1

Testing multiple devices in parallel using the same ATE results in reduced test time and lower costs, but it requires engineering finesse to make it so. Minimizing test measurement variation for each device under test (DUT) is a multi-physics problem, and it's one that is becoming more essential to resolve at each new process node and in multi-chip packages. It requires synchronization of el... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 3

By Jesse Allen - 03 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

Efficient ADC Researchers at Brigham Young University, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Texas Instruments, and University of California Los Angeles designed a new power-efficient high-speed analog-to-digital converter. The ADC consumes only 21 milli-Watts of power at 10GHz for ultra-wideband wireless communications, much lower than other ADCs that consume hundreds of milli-Watts to... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

tag: Texas Instruments