Applied Materials names new CEO; Synopsys adds Dolby on ARC; Arteris wins China deal; Freescale rolls out comms processor with Cadence DFM; Mentor focuses on hybrid and electric vehicles.
By Ed Sperling
Manufacturing Equipment giant Applied Materials added three extra letters company president Gary Dickerson’s title—CEO. Mike Splinter, who has served as the company’s CEO since 2003, will become executive chairman of the board of directors. Dickerson was the CEO of Varian, which Applied Materials acquired in 2011.
Synopsys introduced a Dolby decoder for its ARC processor, which provides makers of TV and set-top box audio processors with support for all Dolby formats.
Arteris won a deal with China’s Allwinner Technology, which licensed its network-on-chip IP for tablet and mobile device SoCs.
Freescale Semiconductor taped out a 28nm 1.8GHz communications processor using Cadence’s DFM and signoff tools. The new SoC has hierarchical blocs and 12 Power Architecture 64-bit processors.
Mentor Graphics unveiled its agenda for the upcoming Integrated Electrical Solutions Forum for the automotive market. New this year is a track for electric and hybrid vehicle design.
Academia, industry partnerships ramp to entice undergrads into hardware engineering.
Pitches continue to decrease, but new tooling and technologies are required.
Buried features and re-entrant geometries drive application-specific metrology solutions.
Issues involving design, manufacturing, packaging, and observability all need to be solved before this approach goes mainstream for many applications.
Global chip sales slump deepens; chipmakers’ data leakage issues; silicon wafer sales down; electronic system design sales up; Techcet wins CHIPS Act contract; Infineon breaks ground on German fab; new research center for SiC; winners of MITRE’s eCTF contest; new biosensing devices.
While terms often are used interchangeably, they are very different technologies with different challenges.
Technology and business issues mean it won’t replace EUV, but photonics, biotech and other markets provide plenty of room for growth.
Commercial chiplet marketplaces are still on the distant horizon, but companies are getting an early start with more limited partnerships.
Existing tools can be used for RISC-V, but they may not be the most effective or efficient. What else is needed?
How customization, complexity, and geopolitical tensions are upending the global status quo.
The industry is gaining ground in understanding how aging affects reliability, but more variables make it harder to fix.
Key pivot and innovation points in semiconductor manufacturing.
Tools become more specific for Si/SiGe stacks, 3D NAND, and bonded wafer pairs.
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