In case you missed the TSMC event, ANSYS and TSMC are going to reprise a very important topic – signing-off reliability for ADAS and semi-autonomous /autonomous systems. This topic hasn’t had a lot of media attention amid the glamor and glitz of what might be possible in driverless cars. But it now seems like the cold light of real … Read More
Machine Learning And Design Into 2018 – A Quick Recap
How could we differentiate between deep learning and machine learning as there are many ways of describing them? A simple definition of these software terms can be found here. Let’s look into Artificial Intelligence (AI), which was coined back in 1956. The term AI can be defined as human intelligence exhibited by machines.… Read More
High Performance Ecosystem for 14nm-FinFET ASICs with 2.5D Integrated HBM2 Memory
High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) systems have been successfully used for some time now in the network switching and high-performance computing (HPC) spaces. Now, adding fuel to the HBM fire, there is another market that shares similar system requirements as HPC and that is Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially AI systems doing… Read More
IEDM 2017 – Controlling Threshold Voltage with Work Function Metals
As I have said many times, IEDM is one of the premier conferences for semiconductor technology. On Sunday before the formal conference started I took the “Boosting Performance, Ensuring Reliability, Managing Variation in sub-5nm CMOS” short course. The second module in the course was “Multi-Vt Engineering… Read More
TSMC 5nm and EUV Update 2018
The TSMC Q4 2017 earnings call transcript is up and I found it to be quite interesting for several reasons. First and foremost, this is the last call Chairman Dr. Morris Chang will participate in which signifies the end of a world changing era for me and the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. TSMC announced his retirement… Read More
ISS 2018 – The Impact of EUV on the Semiconductor Supply Chain
I was invited to give a talk at the ISS conference on the Impact of EUV on the Semiconductor Supply Chain. The ISS conference is an annual gathering of semiconductor executives to review technology and global trends. In this article I will walk through my presentation and conclusions.… Read More
Broadcom Versus Qualcomm Update
The Broadcom acquiring Qualcomm drama is still dominating the fabless semiconductor back channel. This week I will be at the SEMI ISS Conference with Scott Jones and several hundred high level semiconductor professionals so it will be interesting to hear the hallway chatter. When it was first announced I was in the minority in … Read More
IEDM 2017 – imec Charting the Future of Logic
At the IEDM 2017, imec held an imec technology forum and presented several papers, I also had the opportunity to interview Anda Mocuta director of technology solutions and enablement. In this article I will summarize the keys points of what I learned about the future of logic. I will follow this up with a later article covering memory.… Read More
IEDM 2017 – Intel Versus GLOBALFOUNDRIES at the Leading Edge
As I have discussed in previous blogs, IEDM is one of the premier conferences to learn about the latest developments in semiconductor technology. … Read More
Advanced ASICs – It Takes an Ecosystem
I remember the days of the IDM (integrated device manufacturer). For me, it was RCA, where I worked for 15 years as the company changed from RCA to GE and then ultimately to Harris Semiconductor. It’s a bit of a cliché, but life was simpler then, from a customer point of view at least. RCA did it all. We designed all the IP, did the physical… Read More
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here