The introduction of heterogeneous 3DIC packaging technology offers the opportunity for significant increases in circuit density and performance, with corresponding reductions in package footprint. Yet, the implementation of a complex 3DIC product requires a considerable investment in methodology development for all… Read More





5 Things You Need to Plan for System Custom Silicon
I used to be part of the custom silicon management team at Apple. I’ve seen how great a challenge it is to pull off a custom silicon strategy within a one year product cycle. Apple is the perfect example of this custom silicon model since they develop the best mobile processors in the world for their products. Which also includes other… Read More
The Semiconductor Industry Has High Hopes That Biden Will Change Tracks
What is the “right track” for US-China trade relations?
The semiconductor industry has been squarely in the crosshairs of US-China trade tensions for four years. As the US faces a presidential leadership transition, will a Biden administration change the dynamic? The chip industry is counting on it, and China hopes so too.
In … Read More
Tesla: The Eyes Have It
David Zipper of Harvard’s Kennedy School writes in Slate that the incoming Biden Administration should “bring the hammer down” on Tesla Motors for its mis-labeled and therefore misleading Autopilot application and the recently updated Full Self-Driving software beta in the interest of the general public. Zipper’s plan,
HFSS Performance for “Almost Free”
Everyday, engineers are running simulations to deliver the next generation of products to make our lives better. Everyday, they wait for those simulations to finish, wishing that they could get answers instantaneously. While waiting for those simulations or checking on the status of their runs at night, they might indulge in… Read More
Configuration Environment is Make-or-Break for IC Verification
All semiconductor design work today rests on the three-legged stool of Foundries, EDA Tools and Designers. Close collaboration between the three make possible the successful completion of ever more complex designs, especially those at advanced nodes. Perhaps one of the most critical intersections of all three is during physical… Read More
IEDM 2020 Starts this Weekend
As I have discussed before, I believe that IEDM is the premier technical conference for understanding leading edge process technologies. Beginning this coming weekend, this year’s edition of IEDM will be held virtually, and I highly recommend attending.
The conference held a press briefing last Monday. The tutorial and short… Read More
Altair Expands Its Technology Footprint with I/O Profiling from Ellexus
Altair is a broad-based technology company with an ambitious vision. As stated on their website: Our comprehensive, open-architecture solutions for data analytics, computer-aided engineering, and high-performance computing (HPC), enable design and optimization for high performance, innovative, and sustainable products… Read More
Smoother MATLAB to HLS Flow
It hard to imagine design of a complex signal processing or computer vision application starting somewhere other than in MATLAB. Prove out the algorithm in MATLAB, then re-model in Simulink, to move closer to hardware. First probably an architectural model, using MATLAB library functions to prove out behavior of the larger system.… Read More
How Line Cuts Became Necessarily Separate Steps in Lithography
Pretty much all the semiconductor nodes in the last two decades have had at least one layer where the minimum pitch pushes the limitation of the state-of-the-art lithography tool, with a k1 factor < 0.5, i.e., the half-pitch is less than 0.5*wavelength/numerical aperture. A number of published reports [1-4] have touched upon… Read More
Rapidus, IBM, and the Billion-Dollar Silicon Sovereignty Bet