The Changing Foundry Landscape: Trends and Challenges!

This will be a year of change for the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Last year we were wondering how Samsung Mobile was going to compete with the China clones and other low end smart phones. We now know the answer to that question thanks to the Chipworks tear down of the Galaxy S6. SemiWiki IP expert Dr. Eric Esteve blogged about it first HEREbut I can assure you we will see more blogs and Forum posts in the coming days because this is REALLY big news. Samsung has not only served notice to the fabless chip companies and mobile device makers, they have also sent a shot across the bow of the the mighty TSMC. Great timing too since I will be moderating a panel at the Mentor U2U Conference here in San Jose next week discussing just that:

The Changing Foundry Landscape: Trends and Challenges
Giorgio Cesana | Director of Technology | STMicroelectronics
Jack Harding | Co-Founder, President & CEO | eSilicon
Lluis Paris | Deputy Director of Worldwide IP Alliance | TSMC
Wally Rhines | CEO & COB | Mentor Graphics
Moderated by: Daniel Nenni, CEO & Founder, SemiWiki.com

The System on Chip (SoC) business seriously challenged the semiconductor foundries back at 28nm with increased integration, higher performance requirements, novel packaging methods, and very aggressive delivery targets. SoCs still drive semiconductor manufacturing technology at an increasingly rapid pace. This panel of experts will discuss today’s trends, challenges, and new applications that may drive future generations of semiconductor design and manufacturing.

And if meeting me isn’t enough, there are two very interesting keynotes as well:

“Secure Silicon: Enabler for the Internet of Things”
Keynote presented by: Wally Rhines, Chairman & CEO, Mentor Graphics
As electronic system hackers penetrate deeper—from applications to embedded software to OS to silicon—the impact of security threats is growing exponentially. Viruses and malware in the operating system, or application layer, are major concerns, but only affect a portion of users. In contrast, even small malicious modifications or compromised performance in the underlying silicon can devastate system security for all users. Growth of the Internet of Things magnifies the impact of the security problem by orders of magnitude.

Since hardware is the root of trust in an electronic product, EDA companies will be increasingly pressured to solve the silicon security problems for their customers. This requires a new paradigm in silicon design creation and verification. The traditional EDA role is to design and then verify that the silicon does what it is supposed to do. Creating secure silicon, however, requires that verification ensure that the chip does nothing that it is NOT supposed to do.

The industry is at the first stage of Secure Silicon awareness; it’s going to become big business as future events unfold. Join Wally Rhines as he examines the growing threats to silicon security and EDA’s possible solutions.

“Mega Trends Driving Architectures of Mobile Computing and IoT devices”
Keynote presented by: Karim Arabi, VP of Engineering, Qualcomm
The mobile computing and communication industry has been characterized by constant changes and rapid expansions. Aggressive silicon integration technology scaling, advanced low power design techniques, efficient mobile wireless and connectivity solutions and advances in a plethora of sensor technology have been critical in enabling mobile computing in a ubiquitous and cost-effective manner. Mobile computing continues to drive innovation in technologies that will enable new use cases and applications in an energy and cost efficient manner. The industry is now evolving quickly to leverage these capabilities to address the emerging wearable and IoT opportunities expected to sustain growth for the next decade. Choice of device architectures and features are impacted by market requirements and mega trends. In this presentation mega trends, opportunities and challenges driving next generation mobile and IoT devices will be reviewed.

This is a FREE CONFERENCE so I hope to see you there!