Two bits of recent news has excited people in the semiconductor manufacturing space. First TSMC (bit.ly/384joVr) announced their intention to invest $12 B dollars in a Fab in Arizona. Then came the Corona-driven bipartisan proposed $23B federal government investment in semiconductor manufacturing (nyti.ms/2YZzFqnl). … Read More
Should India Invest in Semiconductor Manufacturing?
Cyber security, economic growth, government leadership and industry support must be weighed
The debate
A healthy public debate is underway as to whether India should invest in semiconductor manufacturing. PVG Menon, former chair of the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, supports the objective as part of a full… Read More
Murphy’s Law vs Moore’s Law: How Intel Lost its Dominance in the Computer Industry
Last week, Intel announced its second-quarter financial results which easily beat the analysts’ consensus expectations by a handsome margin. Yet the stock price plummeted by over 16% right after the earnings call with management. Seven analysts downgraded the stock to a sell and the common theme on all the downgrades was that… Read More
Designing AI Accelerators with Innovative FinFET and FD-SOI Solutions
I had the pleasure of spending time with Hiren Majmudar in preparation for the upcoming AI Accelerators webinar. As far as webinars go this will be one of the better ones we have done. Hiren has deep experience in both semiconductors and EDA during his lengthy career at Intel and now with a pure play foundry. He is intelligent, personable,… Read More
Thermo-compression bonding for Large Stacked HBM Die
Summary
Thermo-compression bonding is used in heterogeneous 3D packaging technology – this attach method was applied to the assembly of large (12-stack and 16-stack) high bandwidth memory (HBM) die, with significant bandwidth and power improvements over traditional microbump attach.
Introduction
The rapid growth of heterogeneous… Read More
Intel 7NM Slip Causes Reassessment of Fab Model
Waving white surrender flag as TSMC dominates-
The quarter was a success but the patient is dying-
Packaging now critical as Moore progress stumbles-
Intel reported a great quarter but weak H2 guidance-
But 7NM slip and “fab lite” talk sends shockwaves-
Intel reported a great quarter beating numbers all around with… Read More
Die shrink: How Intel scaled down the 8086 processor
The revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month so I’ve been studying its die.1 I came across two 8086 dies with different sizes, which reveal details of how a die shrink works. The concept of a die shrink is that as technology improved, a manufacturer could shrink the silicon die, reducing… Read More
In-Memory Computing for Low-Power Neural Network Inference
“AI is the new electricity.”, according to Andrew Ng, Professor at Stanford University. The potential applications for machine learning classification are vast. Yet, current ML inference techniques are limited by the high power dissipation associated with traditional architectures. The figure below highlights the … Read More
A Look at the Die of the 8086 Processor
The Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago last month,1 so I made some high-res die photos of the chip to celebrate. The 8086 is one of the most influential chips ever created; it started the x86 architecture that still dominates desktop and server computing today. By looking at the chip’s silicon, we can see… Read More
A Compelling Application for AI in Semiconductor Manufacturing
There have been a multitude of announcements recently relative to the incorporation of machine learning (ML) methods into EDA tool algorithms, mostly in the physical implementation flows. For example, deterministic ML-based decision algorithms applied to cell placement and signal interconnect routing promise to expedite… Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification