Transistors Reach Tipping Point at 3nm

Nanosheets are likeliest option throughout this decade, with CFETs and other exotic structures possible after that. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Technology Advances, Shortages Seen for Wire Bonders

Old tech still accounts for 75% of all packages, and likely will continue to play important role as equipment improves. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

200mm Shortages May Persist for Years

Some 300mm tools are converted to 200mm; equipment prices and chip manufacturing costs are rising. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Causes of Semiconductor Aging

Why this is becoming a bigger issue, and what can be done to mitigate the effects. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Software tooling is necessary to unlock the power of ML hardware

Hardware is faster, but software is easier, and for some applications that may be good enough. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Challenges Spur Growth in Semiconductor Industry

Unexpected upside driving the semiconductor and EDA industries into 2022. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Is programmable overhead worth the cost?

How much do we pay for a system to be programmable? It depends upon who you ask. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

A Minimal RISC-V

Is there room for an even smaller version of a RISC-V processor that could replace 8-bit microcontrollers? | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Securing Short Range RF Communications

More electronic conveniences open door to more hacking. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Will Monolithic 3-D DRAM happen?

New and faster memory designs are being developed, but their future is uncertain. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Using Manufacturing Data to Boost Reliability

Correlation becomes big challenge as data sources and volume increase. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Can Coherent Optics Reduce Data Center Power?

The good and bad of replacing electrical signals with optical ones. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Speeding Up Scan-Based Volume Diagnosis

Where the bottlenecks are, and what can be done to eliminate them. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Will Markets for Machine Learning Models Materialize?

There's a lot of discussion about how this can work, and even some pioneering work, but no firm conclusions. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Why It’s So Difficult – and Costly – To Secure Chips

Threats are growing and widening, but what is considered sufficient can vary greatly by application or by user. Even then, it may not be enough. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Advanced Packaging Shifts Design Focus to System Level

Partitioning and floor-planning become big challenges. What goes on which die? | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

China Accelerates Foundry, Power Semi Efforts

Massive expansion campaign targets wide variety of chips, but export controls limit growth at leading edge. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

The Race to Make Better Qubits

How dopant atoms could make qubits that last much longer. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

End in Sight for Chip Shortages?

Some segments are normalizing, others may be impacted through 2022. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Zonal Architectures Play Key Role in Vehicle Security

Will zonal architectures in automotive applications provide unique benefits to cybersecurity? | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Improving Power Efficiency in Ultra-Low Power Designs

How to design a device with a 25-year battery life. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

AI/ML Workloads Need Extra Security

Faulty models, poison code, and corrupt data could cause widespread disruption. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Changing Server Architectures in the Data Center

Sharing resources can significantly improve utilization and lower costs, but it's not a simple shift. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Complex Chips Make Security More Difficult

Why cyberattacks on the IC supply chain are so hard to prevent. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Easier and Faster Ways to Train AI

Simpler approaches are necessary to keep pace with constantly evolving models and new applications. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

How additive manufacturing is changing packaging and PCB design

How additive manufacturing is changing packaging and PCB design. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

High-Level Synthesis for RISC-V

Abstraction is the key to custom processor design and verification, but defining the right language and tool flow is a work in progress. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Scaling Bump Pitches in Advanced Packaging

Higher density of interconnects will enable faster movement of data, but there's more than one way to achieve that. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Architecting Interposers

It's not easy to include interposers in a design today, but as the wrinkles get ironed out, new tools, methodologies, and standards will enable it for the masses. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

HBM3: Big Impact on Chip Design

New levels of system performance bring new tradeoffs. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

The Convergence of PCBs and Advanced Packaging

Surface mount technology is changing in some surprising ways. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Gearing Up for Next Gen Power Semiconductors

Aluminum nitride, diamond semiconductors, gallium oxide and vertical GaN are all being readied, each with its own pros and cons. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

The Silicon Carbide Race Begins

As SiC moves to higher voltages, BEV users get faster charging, extended range, and lower system costs | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Who Owns In-Chip Monitoring Data?

Rules are still being formulated even though the technology is already deployed. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Designing Chips in a 'Lawless' Industry

Mind-boggling number of options emerge, but which is best often isn't clear. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

The Great Quantum Computing Race

Companies and countries are pouring tens of billions of dollars into different qubit technologies, but it's still too early to predict a winner. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

MicroLEDs Moving from Lab to Fab

Bringing the cost down and yield up on microLED is proving to be formidable, but display companies and LED suppliers are working together toward production-worthy solutions. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Lower Power Chips: What to Watch Out For

Increasing interactions and complexity require more tools and cross-domain techniques. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Debug: The Schedule Killer

Time spent in debug is unpredictable. It consumes a large portion of the development cycle and can disrupt schedules, but good practices can minimize it. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Data Centers on Wheels

Automakers shifting to HPC chips for improved performance and lower system cost. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Continuing Challenges for Open-Source Verification

Is there an open-source business model that works for verification and debug? | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

The Increasingly Uneven Race To 3nm/2nm

An emphasis on customization, many more packaging options, and rising costs of scaling are changing dynamics across the industry. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Developers Turn to Analog for Neural Nets

Replacing digital with analog circuits and photonics can improve performance and power, but it's not that simple. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 2 years ago

Von Neumann Upset

Just because an invention is no longer practical for many applications does not mean it wasn't a good invention at the time. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 3 years ago

Low Power-High Performance: Design for Reliability

How long a chip is supposed to function raises questions design teams need to think about, including how much they trust aging models. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 3 years ago

Making Sense of New Edge-Inference Architectures

How to navigate a flood of confusing choices and terminology. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 3 years ago

2020: A Turning Point in the Chip Industry

An upbeat industry at the start of the year met one of its biggest challenges, but instead of being a headwind, it quickly turned into a tailwind. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 3 years ago

Breaking the 2nm Barrier

New interconnects and processes will be required to reach the next process nodes. | Continue reading


@semiengineering.com | 3 years ago