What’s the Right Path For Scaling?


The growing challenges of traditional chip scaling at advanced nodes are prompting the industry to take a harder look at different options for future devices. Scaling is still on the list, with the industry laying plans for 5nm and beyond. But less conventional approaches are becoming more viable and gaining traction, as well, including advanced packaging and in-memory computing. Some option... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Foxconn is in talks to build a fab in Zhuhai, China, according to a report from Nikkei. The fab, to cost $9 billion, would make chips for Foxconn and outside companies, the report said, which says the company will enter the foundry business. The European Commission has approved funding for 1.75 billion euros ($2 billion) of public investment for projects in the microelectronics... » read more

AI Market Ramps Everywhere


Artificial Intelligence (AI) has inspired the general populace, but its rapid rise over the past few years has given many people pause. From realistic concerns about robots taking over jobs to sci-fi scares about robots more intelligent than humans building ever smarter robots themselves, AI inspires plenty of angst. Within the technology industry, we have a better understanding about the pote... » read more

Heterogeneous Computing Raises The Bar For Functional Verification


If there’s one thing certain in chip development, it’s that every innovation in architecture or semiconductor technology puts more pressure on the functional verification process. The increase in gate count for each new technology node stresses tool capacity. Every step up in complexity makes it harder to find deep, corner-case bugs. The dramatic growth in SoC designs brings software into p... » read more

Heterogeneous Computing Verification


Raik Brinkmann, CEO of OneSpin Solutions, looks at new architectures involving AI and machine learning, what changes in these multi-accelerator, multi-memories designs, and where problems can crop up both in design and verification. https://youtu.be/0Trtfq8_hKg       See other tech talk videos here. » read more

AI Chip Architectures Race To The Edge


As machine-learning apps start showing up in endpoint devices and along the network edge of the IoT, the accelerators that make AI possible may look more like FPGA and SoC modules than current data-center-bound chips from Intel or Nvidia. Artificial intelligence and machine learning need powerful chips for computing answers (inference) from large data sets (training). Most AI chips—both tr... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools & Standards Mentor uncorked a PCB design platform for non-specialist PCB engineers focused on multi-dimensional verification. The Xpedition platform can integrate a range of verification tools within a singular authoring environment, providing automatic model creation, concurrent simulation, cross probing from results, and error reviews to identify problems at the schematic or layout... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade SEMI has voiced support and encouragement for trade discussions between U.S. President Donald Trump and the People's Republic of China President Xi Jinping. The talks are planned for Dec. 1 during the G20 Summit in Argentina. SEMI expressed hope for a deal and offered principles beneficial to the microelectronics supply chain. Recent tariffs and trade tensions, on top of rumored expor... » read more

A Crisis In DoD’s Trusted Foundry Program?


The U.S. Department of Defense’s Trusted Foundry program is in flux due to GlobalFoundries’ recent decision to put 7nm on hold, raising national security concerns across the U.S. defense community. U.S. DoD and military/aerospace chip customers currently have access to U.S.-based “secure” foundry capacity down to 14nm, but that's where it ends. No other foundries provide similar “s... » read more

The Building Blocks Of Future Compute


Eric Hennenhoefer, vice president of research at Arm, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about privacy, security, high-performance computing, accelerators, and Arm’s research. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Privacy, cybersecurity, silicon photonics, quantum computing are all hot topics today. What do you find really interesting with these emerging areas? ... » read more

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