In this article, we will explore the use of self-aligned litho-etch-litho-etch (SALELE) double patterning for BEOL metal layers in the 7nm node (40 nm minimum metal pitch [1]) with DUV, and 5nm node (28 nm minimum metal pitch [2]) with EUV. First, we mention the evidence that this technique is being used; Xilinx [3] disclosed the… Read More
Arteris Highlights a Path to Scalable Multi-Die Systems at the Chiplet SummitAt the recent Chiplet Summit, presentations, discussions and…Read More
Captain America: Can Elon Musk Save America's Chip Manufacturing Industry?Intel has posted three consecutive years of falling…Read More
WEBINAR: Reclaiming Clock Margin at 3nm and BelowAt 3nm and below, clock networks have quietly…Read More
WEBINAR: HBM4E Advances Bandwidth Performance for AI TrainingThe rapid proliferation of LLMs and other AI…Read More
Siemens Wins Best in Show Award at Chiplet Summit and Targets Broad 3D IC Design EnablementThe recent Chiplet Summit in Santa Clara was…Read MorePodcast EP13: The Three Pillars of Verification with Adnan Hamid
Dan goes on a scenic tour of verification with Adnan Hamid, founder and CEO of Breker Verification Systems. We discuss the rather unusual way Adnan got into semiconductors and SoC verification. Adnan then breaks down the verification task into its fundamental parts to reveal what the three pillars of verification are and why … Read More
Foundry Fantasy- Deja Vu or IDM 2?
– Intel announced 2 new fabs & New Foundry Services
– Not only do they want to catch TSMC they want to beat them
– It’s a very, very tall order for a company that hasn’t executed
– It will require more than a makeover to get to IDM 2.0
Intel not only wants to catch TSMC but beat them at their own … Read More
Intel Takes Another Shot at the Enticing Foundry Market
Intel made a big splash on March 23, 2021 by doubling down on manufacturing with the creation of Intel Foundry Services (IFS). The big announcement was supported by potential customers such as Qualcomm, Cisco, Ericsson, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM. With an accompanying $20B investment, the EDA and equipment industries,… Read More
Flex Logix Closes $55M in Series D Financing and Accelerates AI Inference and eFPGA Adoption
Flex Logix is a unique company. It is one of the few that supplies both FPGA and embedded FPGA technology based on a proprietary programmable interconnect that uses half the transistors and half the metal layers of traditional FPGA interconnect. Their architecture provides some rather significant advantages. I wrote about their… Read More
Reducing Compile Time in Emulation. Innovation in Verification
Is there a way to reduce cycle time in mapping large SoCs to an FPGA-based emulator? Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Jim Hogan (RIP) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always, feedback welcome.
The Innovation
This month’s pick is Improving FPGA-Based Logic Emulation Systems through Machine Learning… Read More
Smarter Product Lifecycle Management for Semiconductors
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for electronic systems has moved from a passive ‘fire and forget’ approach to one that is intimately involved not only during design, but also throughout the entire life of every unit delivered to the field. Siemens EDA has a white paper titled “Tessent Silicon Lifecycle Solutions” that talks… Read More
SoC Integration – Predictable, Repeatable, Scalable
On its face System-on-chip (SoC) integration doesn’t seem so hard. You gather and configure all the intellectual properties (IPs) you’re going to need, then stitch them together. Something you could delegate to new college hires, maybe? But it isn’t that simple. What makes SoC integration challenging is that there are so many… Read More
Intel’s IDM 2.0
In January I presented at the ISS conference a comparison of Intel’s, Samsung’s and TSMC’s leading edge offerings. You can read a write-up of my presentation here.
With the problems going on at Intel, that article generated a lot of interest in the investment community, and I have been holding a lot of calls with analysts who are trying… Read More
Intel Will Again Compete With TSMC
New Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is not wasting any time in changing the course of the largest semiconductor company the world has ever seen. Today he announced the IDM 2.0 strategy which will better leverage Intel’s manufacturing abilities. There is a lot to talk about here but let’s focus on the new Intel Foundry Services because the… Read More


Silicon Insurance: Why eFPGA is Cheaper Than a Respin — and Why It Matters in the Intel 18A Era