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Car Wars 2021

Car Wars 2021
by Roger C. Lanctot on 01-10-2021 at 10:00 am

Car Wars 2021

A strange narrative took hold in the U.S. at the end of 2020 that vehicle sales were in decline, that cars weren’t selling. The reality is something quite different. In spite of nearly two solid months of auto factory and dealership shutdowns, automotive sales surged back in 2020 – a phenomenon that manifested globally with regional

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The Complexities of the Resolution Limits of Advanced Lithography

The Complexities of the Resolution Limits of Advanced Lithography
by Fred Chen on 01-10-2021 at 6:00 am

The Complexities of the Resolution Limits of Advanced Lithography

For advanced lithography used to shrink semiconductor device features according to Moore’s Law, resolution limits are an obvious consideration. It is often perceived that the resolution limit is simply derived from a well-defined equation, but nothing can be further from the truth.

Optical Lithography: the fine print

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Podcast EP2: Moore’s Law, Dead or Alive?

Podcast EP2: Moore’s Law, Dead or Alive?
by Daniel Nenni on 01-08-2021 at 10:00 am

Dan and Mike are joined by Dr. Walden Rhines for a scenic tour of Moore’s Law. The genesis and evolution of Moore’s Law are discussed, along with the fundamental processes that have driven it. How the technology world continues to grow and innovate in spite of a slowing of Moore’s Law is a central theme of the discussion.… Read More


IEDM 2020 – Imec Plenary talk

IEDM 2020 – Imec Plenary talk
by Scotten Jones on 01-08-2021 at 6:00 am

Imec Figure 1

On Monday morning at IEDM, Sri Samavedam of Imec opened the technical program with a plenary talk entitled “Future Logic Scaling: Towards Atomic Channels and Deconstructed Chips”. I am not generally a fan of plenary talks, I think the presenters often try to cover too much in their talks and end up not providing enough detail to be… Read More


The Growing Chasm in Electronic System Design

The Growing Chasm in Electronic System Design
by Rahul Razdan on 01-07-2021 at 10:00 am

supply chain block diagram

Since the formation of the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry in the 1970s, Moore’s law has increased functionality onto a semiconductor die dramatically.  In response,  EDA tools for semiconductor design have also grown in functionality and the design processes for semiconductors have moved forward at a breakneck… Read More


Conference: Embedded DevOps

Conference: Embedded DevOps
by Daniel Payne on 01-07-2021 at 6:00 am

embedded devops min

The catchy phrase DevOps is defined by Agile advocates as, “The practice of operations and development engineers participating together in the entire service lifecycle, from design through the development process to production support.

I’ve been developing software since the stone ages, which means… Read More


Technology Optimization for Magnetoresistive RAM (STT-MRAM)

Technology Optimization for Magnetoresistive RAM (STT-MRAM)
by Tom Dillinger on 01-06-2021 at 6:00 am

profile simulations

Spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive RAM (STT-MRAM) has emerged from several foundries as a very attractive IP option.  An introduction to MRAM technology from GLOBALFOUNDRIES was provided in this earlier SemiWiki article. [1]

Briefly, STT-MRAM is a non-volatile storage option with the following attractive characteristics… Read More


The Coming Evolution in Electronics Design Automation

The Coming Evolution in Electronics Design Automation
by Rahul Razdan on 01-05-2021 at 10:00 am

Electronics MegaTrends

Electronics design mega-trends have been a transformational force for the world. As shown in blue in Figure 1, the first wave of electronics consisted of centralized computing and the leaders in the field included companies such as IBM, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Wang, and others.  Fundamentally, these technologies… Read More


PLDA is at the Leading Edge with Advances in Both PCIe 5.0 and CXL

PLDA is at the Leading Edge with Advances in Both PCIe 5.0 and CXL
by Mike Gianfagna on 01-05-2021 at 6:00 am

PLDA is at the Leading Edge with Advances in Both PCIe 5.0 and CXL

There are significant advances in communication protocols happening all around us. The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen 5 standard is delivering the needed device-to-device performance to support artificial intelligence and machine learning applications as well as cloud-based workloads. The rapidly… Read More


Author Interview: Bernard Murphy on his latest book

Author Interview: Bernard Murphy on his latest book
by Daniel Nenni on 01-04-2021 at 10:00 am

The Tell Tale Entreprenuer

Over the last 40 years, Bernard has worked with semiconductor and EDA companies in hands-on, management and consulting roles in engineering, sales and marketing. He most recently co-founded Atrenta where he created and led the development of SpyGlass, retiring as CTO when Atrenta was acquired by Synopsys. Post-retirement,… Read More