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VLSI Symposium 2020 – Imec Buried Power Rail

VLSI Symposium 2020 – Imec Buried Power Rail
by Scotten Jones on 07-26-2020 at 10:00 am

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The 2020 VLSI Technology Symposium was held as a virtual conference from June 14th through June 19th. At the symposium Imec gave an interesting paper on Buried Power Rails (BPR) and I had a chance to interview one of the authors, Anshul Gupta.

As logic devices continue to scale down metal pitch is reaching a limit. Imec defines a pitch… Read More


The 10 Worst Cybersecurity Strategies

The 10 Worst Cybersecurity Strategies
by Matthew Rosenquist on 07-26-2020 at 8:00 am

The 10 Worst Cybersecurity Strategies

Counting down to the absolutely worst cybersecurity strategies. Sadly, these are all prevalent in the industry. Many organizations have failed spectacularly simply because they chose to follow a long-term path that leads to disaster. You know who you are…

Let’s count them down.

10. Cyber-Insurance

No need for security, … Read More


Cars and COVID-19 Uncertainty

Cars and COVID-19 Uncertainty
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-26-2020 at 6:00 am

Cars and COVID 19 Uncertainty

A funny thing happens when you let car makers make cars and car dealers sell cars – people start buying cars. With the U.S. economy at least partially re-opening nationwide car buyers have returned to the market and, finding a limited supply of new cars and disappointing incentives, have turned, in part, to used cars. This … Read More


How yieldHUB Helps Bring a New Product to Market

How yieldHUB Helps Bring a New Product to Market
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-24-2020 at 10:00 am

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Collecting and analyzing semiconductor test data is a subject that holds a special place for me. Developing a factory data collection and analysis system was my first job out of school. The company was RCA, and the factories were in Findlay, Ohio (analog/mixed signal) and West Palm Beach, Florida (digital). There was a pilot… Read More


Thermo-compression bonding for Large Stacked HBM Die

Thermo-compression bonding for Large Stacked HBM Die
by Tom Dillinger on 07-24-2020 at 8:00 am

HMB stack

Summary

Thermo-compression bonding is used in heterogeneous 3D packaging technology – this attach method was applied to the assembly of large (12-stack and 16-stack) high bandwidth memory (HBM) die, with significant bandwidth and power improvements over traditional microbump attach.

Introduction

The rapid growth of heterogeneous… Read More


Semiconductors up in 2020? Not so fast

Semiconductors up in 2020? Not so fast
by Bill Jewell on 07-24-2020 at 6:00 am

Semiconductor Forecast 2H 2020

Two months ago most forecasts called for a decline in the semiconductor market in 2020 as reported in our Semiconductor Intelligence May 2020 newsletter. The outlook changed in June, as the Worldwide Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) consensus forecast projected 3.3% growth in 2020. This month IC Insights revised its IC

Read More

Intel 7NM Slip Causes Reassessment of Fab Model

Intel 7NM Slip Causes Reassessment of Fab Model
by Robert Maire on 07-23-2020 at 5:00 pm

Intel vs TSMC

Waving white surrender flag as TSMC dominates-
The quarter was a success but the patient is dying-
Packaging now critical as Moore progress stumbles-
Intel reported a great quarter but weak H2 guidance-
But 7NM slip and “fab lite” talk sends shockwaves-

Intel reported a great quarter beating numbers all around with… Read More


The Polyglot World of Hardware Design and Verification

The Polyglot World of Hardware Design and Verification
by Daniel Nenni on 07-23-2020 at 10:00 am

SemiWiki article

It has become a cliché to start a blog post with a cliché, for example “Chip designs are forever getting larger and more complex” or “Verification now consumes 60% of a project’s resources.” Therefore, I’ll open this post with another cliché: “Designers need to know only one language, but verification engineers must know many.”… Read More


Alchip Delivers Cutting Edge Design Support for Supercomputer Processor

Alchip Delivers Cutting Edge Design Support for Supercomputer Processor
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-23-2020 at 6:00 am

MN 3 Supercomputer

Alchip issued a press announcement recently entitled Alchip Provides Supercomputer Processor Design Support. The release is literally a tour de force of technology, with many advanced design and packaging accomplishments. First, let’s examine the basics of the design.

Preferred Networks, Inc (PFN) is the customer. They … Read More


Die shrink: How Intel scaled down the 8086 processor

Die shrink: How Intel scaled down the 8086 processor
by Ken Shirriff on 07-22-2020 at 2:00 pm

Intel 8086 Comparison

The revolutionary Intel 8086 microprocessor was introduced 42 years ago this month so I’ve been studying its die.1 I came across two 8086 dies with different sizes, which reveal details of how a die shrink works. The concept of a die shrink is that as technology improved, a manufacturer could shrink the silicon die, reducing… Read More