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
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
ASIC and TSMC are the AI Chip Unsung Heroes
One of the more exciting design start market segments that we track is Artificial Intelligence related ASICs. With NVIDIA making billions upon billions of dollars repurposing GPUs as AI engines in the cloud, the Application Specific Integrated Circuit business was sure to follow. Google now has its Tensor Processing Unit, Intel… Read More
TSMC EDA 2.0 With Machine Learning: Are We There Yet ?
Recently we have been swamped by news of Artificial Intelligence applications in hardware and software by the increased adoption of Machine Learning (ML) and the shift of electronic industry towards IoT and automobiles. While plenty of discussions have covered the progress of embedded intelligence in product roll-outs, an… Read More
Deep Learning and Cloud Computing Make 7nm Real
The challenges of 7nm are well documented. Lithography artifacts create exploding design rule complexity, mask costs and cycle time. Noise and crosstalk get harder to deal with, as does timing closure. The types of applications that demand 7nm performance will often introduce HBM memory stacks and 2.5D packaging, and that creates… Read More
Choosing the lesser of 2 evils EUV vs Multi Patterning!
For Halloween this week we thought it would be appropriate to talk about things that strike fear into the hearts of semiconductor makers and process engineers toiling away in fabs. Do I want to do multi-patterning with the huge increase in complexity, number of steps, masks and tools or do I want to do EUV with unproven tools, unproven… Read More
Arm TechCon Preview with the Foundries!
This week Dr. Eric Esteve, Dr. Bernard Murphy, and I will be blogging live from Arm TechCon. It really looks like it will be a great conference so you should see some interesting blogs in the coming days. One of the topics I am interested in this year is foundation IP and I will tell you why.
During the fabless transformation of the semiconductor… Read More
TSMC: Semiconductors in the next ten years!
The TSMC 30th Anniversary Forum just ended so I will share a few notes before the rest of the media chimes in. The forum was live streamed on tsmc.com, hopefully it will be available for replay. The ballroom at the Grand Hyatt in Taipei was filled with cameras, semiconductor executives, and security personnel.
The… Read More