Contact over Active Gate Process Requirements for 5G

Contact over Active Gate Process Requirements for 5G
by Tom Dillinger on 07-01-2020 at 6:00 am

frequency 5G

Summary
A recent process enhancement in advanced nodes is to support the fabrication of contacts directly on the active gate area of a device.  At the recent VLSI 2020 Symposium, the critical advantages of this capability were highlighted, specifically in the context of the behavior of RF CMOS devices needed for 5G designs.

IntroductionRead More


Optimizing Chiplet-to-Chiplet Communications

Optimizing Chiplet-to-Chiplet Communications
by Tom Dillinger on 06-29-2020 at 6:00 am

bump dimensions

Summary
The growing significance of ultra-short reach (USR) interfaces on 2.5D packaging technology has led to a variety of electrical definitions and circuit implementations.  TSMC recently presented the approach adopted by their IP development team, for a parallel-bus, clock-forwarded USR interface to optimize power/performance/area… Read More


Multi-Vt Device Offerings for Advanced Process Nodes

Multi-Vt Device Offerings for Advanced Process Nodes
by Tom Dillinger on 06-26-2020 at 6:00 am

Ion Ioff

Summary
As a result of extensive focus on the development of workfunction metal (WFM) deposition, lithography, and removal, both FinFET and gate-all-around (GAA) devices will offer a wide range of Vt levels for advanced process nodes below 7nm.

Introduction
Cell library and IP designers rely on the availability of nFET and pFET… Read More


Embedded MRAM for High-Performance Applications

Embedded MRAM for High-Performance Applications
by Tom Dillinger on 06-21-2020 at 10:00 am

embedded memory requirements

Summary
A novel spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive memory (STT-MRAM) IP offering provides an attractive alternative for demanding high-performance embedded applications.

Introduction
There is a strong need for embedded non-volatile memory IP across a wide range of applications, as depicted in the figure below.

The… Read More


Emerging Requirements for Electromagnetic Crosstalk Analysis

Emerging Requirements for Electromagnetic Crosstalk Analysis
by Tom Dillinger on 02-10-2020 at 10:00 am

EM coupling wire segments

This article will describe the motivations for pursuing a new flow in the SoC design methodology.  This flow involves the extraction, evaluation, and analysis of a full electromagnetic coupling model for a complex SoC and its package environment.  The results of this analysis highlight the impact of electromagnetic coupling… Read More


Ultra-Short Reach PHY IP Optimized for Advanced Packaging Technology

Ultra-Short Reach PHY IP Optimized for Advanced Packaging Technology
by Tom Dillinger on 12-18-2019 at 10:00 am

Frequent Semiwiki readers are no doubt familiar with the rapid advances in 2.5D heterogeneous multi-die packaging technology.  A relatively well-established product sector utilizing this technology is the 2.5D integration of logic die with a high-bandwidth memory (HBM) DRAM die stack on a silicon interposer;  the interposer… Read More


Characteristics of an Efficient Inference Processor

Characteristics of an Efficient Inference Processor
by Tom Dillinger on 12-11-2019 at 10:00 am

The market opportunities for machine learning hardware are becoming more succinct, with the following (rather broad) categories emerging:

  1. Model training:  models are evaluated at the “hyperscale” data center;  utilizing either general purpose processors or specialized hardware, with typical numeric precision of 32-bit
Read More

Package Reliability Issues Cost Money

Package Reliability Issues Cost Money
by Tom Dillinger on 11-13-2019 at 6:00 am

Advanced packaging technology is enabling “More Than Moore” scaling of heterogeneous technology die.  At the recent EDPS Symposium in Milpitas, Craig Hillman, Director of Product Development, DfR Solutions, at ANSYS gave a compelling presentation, “Reliability Challenges in Advanced Packaging”.  The key takeaway messages… Read More


5G Deployments – The Analysis Requirements are Ginormous

5G Deployments – The Analysis Requirements are Ginormous
by Tom Dillinger on 10-07-2019 at 10:00 am

The introduction of 5G communications support offers tremendous potential across a broad spectrum of applications (no pun intended).  5G is indeed quite encompassing, across a wide range of frequencies – the figure below illustrates the common terminology used, from low-band, mid-band (“sub 6G”), and high-band (“mmWave”)… Read More


AI Inference at the Edge – Architecture and Design

AI Inference at the Edge – Architecture and Design
by Tom Dillinger on 09-23-2019 at 10:00 am

In the old days, product architects would throw a functional block diagram “over the wall” to the design team, who would plan the physical implementation, analyze the timing of estimated critical paths, and forecast the signal switching activity on representative benchmarks.  A common reply back to the architects was, “We’veRead More