Harry Foster waxes philosophical in a recent white paper from Siemens EDA, in this case on the origins of bugs and the best way to avoid them. Spoiler alert, the answer is not to make them in the first place or at least to flush them out very quickly. I’m not being cynical – that really is the answer though practice often falls short of ideal.… Read More





On-Chip Sensors Discussed at TSMC OIP
TSMC recently held their Open Innovation Platform (OIP) Ecosystem Forum event where many of their key partners presented on their latest projects and developments. This year one of their top IP provider partners, Analog Bits, gave two presentations. Analog building blocks have always been necessary as enabling technology … Read More
Design Technology Co-Optimization for TSMC’s N3HPC Process
TSMC recently held their 10th annual Open Innovation Platform (OIP) Ecosystem Forum. An earlier article summarized the highlights of the keynote presentation from L.C. Lu, TSMC Fellow and Vice-President, Design and Technology Platform, entitled “TSMC and Its Ecosystem for Innovation” (link).
One of the topics that L.C. … Read More
Yep – It’s Still an Analog World in this Digital Age
With all the advances in digital technology to serve mankind’s insatiable appetite for automation, it’s easy to lose sight of the reality that we still live in an analog world. It’s easy to take for granted that somewhere in the chain of events that takes place in the process of applying state-of-the-art computational technology… Read More
Latest Updates to Altair Accelerator, the Industry’s Fastest Enterprise Job Scheduler
Altair is a broad-based company that delivers critical enabling technology across many disciplines that will be familiar to SemiWiki readers. According to its website, Altair delivers open-architecture solutions for data analytics & AI, computer-aided engineering, and high-performance computing (HPC). You can learn… Read More
Highlights of the TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum
TSMC recently held their 10th annual Open Innovation Platform (OIP) Ecosystem forum. The talks included a technology and design enablement update from TSMC, as well as specific presentations from OIP partners on the results of recent collaborations with TSMC. This article summarizes the highlights of the TSMC keynote from… Read More
Lecture Series: Designing a Time Interleaved ADC for 5G Automotive Applications
A recent educational virtual event with the above title was jointly sponsored by Synopsys and Global Foundries. The objective was to bring awareness to state-of-the-art mixed-signal design practices for automotive circuits. The 2-day event comprised of lectures delivered by engineering professors and doctoral students… Read More
SISPAD – Cost Simulations to Enable PPAC Aware Technology Development
I was invited to give a plenary address at the SISPAD conference in September 2021. For anyone not familiar with SISPAD it is a premiere TCAD conference. This year for the first time SISPAD wanted to address cost and my talk was “Cost Simulations to Enable PPAC Aware Technology Development”.
For many years the standard in technology… Read More
Losing Lithography: How the US Invented, then lost, a Critical Chipmaking Process
Lithography is arguably the most important step in semiconductor manufacturing. Today’s state-of-the-art EUV scanners are incredibly complex machines that cost as much as a new Boeing jetliner.
From humble beginnings in 1984 as a joint venture with Philips, ASML has grown to become the world’s second largest chip equipment… Read More
Intel – “Super” Moore’s Law Time warp-“TSMC inside” GPU & Global Flounders IPO
“Super” Moore’s Law- 5 nodes in 4 years- Too good to be true?
Gelsinger said “Intel will be advantaged with High NA EUV”
Ponte Vecchio better with “TSMC Inside”
Global Flounders IPO as price drops on public debut
Lets do the time warp again….(apologies to Riff Raff)
Its just … Read More
Rapidus, IBM, and the Billion-Dollar Silicon Sovereignty Bet