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IEDM 2019 – TSMC 5nm Process

IEDM 2019 – TSMC 5nm Process
by Scotten Jones on 12-16-2019 at 10:00 am

IEDM is in my opinion the premiere conference for information on state-of-the-art semiconductor processes. In “My Top Three Reasons to Attend IEDM 2019” article I singled out the TSMC 5nm paper as a key reason to attend.

IEDM is one of the best organized conferences I attend and as soon as you pick up your badge you are handed a memory… Read More


Why is the Press Giving AMD a Free Pass?

Why is the Press Giving AMD a Free Pass?
by Daniel Nenni on 12-16-2019 at 6:00 am

The Intel versus AMD rivalry is legendary amongst us Silicon Valley AARP members and is one of the reasons why the semiconductor industry is as competitive as it is today, absolutely.

AMD’s boisterous corporate culture started with AMD’s co-founder and long time CEO Jerry Sanders. Jerry was the ultimate showman but his credo “People… Read More


The Tech Week that was December 9th 2019

The Tech Week that was December 9th 2019
by Mark Dyson on 12-15-2019 at 6:00 am

In a week that finally saw some good news in the trade war between US & China, here is a summary of all the key semiconductor and technical news from around the world that you may have missed.

On Friday, US and China announced agreement on the so called phase one agreement, as a result the extra tariffs due to be imposed on S180billion… Read More


Useful Skew in Production Flows

Useful Skew in Production Flows
by Tom Dillinger on 12-13-2019 at 6:00 am

The concept of applying useful clock skew to the design of synchronous systems is not new.  To date, the application of this design technique has been somewhat limited, as the related methodologies have been rather ad hoc, to be discussed shortly.  More recently, the ability to leverage useful skew has seen a major improvement,… Read More


Another Smart EDA Merger Adds RF Tools

Another Smart EDA Merger Adds RF Tools
by Daniel Payne on 12-12-2019 at 10:00 am

Cadence acquires AWR

Mergers and acquisitions are just a fact of modern business life, so the semiconductor, IP and EDA industries all can benefit, but only when the two companies have complementary products with some actual synergy. Cadence acquired OrCAD back in 1999, adding a Windows-based PCB tool to their product lineup, and here in 2019 some … Read More


Autonomous Driving Still Terra Incognita

Autonomous Driving Still Terra Incognita
by Bernard Murphy on 12-12-2019 at 6:00 am

Whither self-driving?

I already posted on one automotive panel at this year’s Arm TechCon. A second I attended was a more open-ended discussion on where we’re really at in autonomous driving. Most of you probably agree we’ve passed the peak of the hype curve and are now into the long slog of trying to connect hope to reality. There are a lot of challenges, … Read More


Characteristics of an Efficient Inference Processor

Characteristics of an Efficient Inference Processor
by Tom Dillinger on 12-11-2019 at 10:00 am

The market opportunities for machine learning hardware are becoming more succinct, with the following (rather broad) categories emerging:

  1. Model training:  models are evaluated at the “hyperscale” data center;  utilizing either general purpose processors or specialized hardware, with typical numeric precision of 32-bit
Read More

The First Must-Have in 5G

The First Must-Have in 5G
by Bernard Murphy on 12-11-2019 at 6:00 am

Bulk acoustic wave filter

If I was asked about must-have needs for 5G, I’d probably talk about massive MIMO and a lot of exotic parallel DSP processing, also perhaps need for new intelligent approaches to link adaptation and intelligent network slicing in the infrastructure. But there’s something that comes before that all that digital cleverness, in … Read More


The ESD Alliance Honors Mary Jane Irwin

The ESD Alliance Honors Mary Jane Irwin
by Randy Smith on 12-10-2019 at 10:00 am

The Phil Kaufman Award has been given annually since 1994 to individuals who have had a significant impact on Electronic System Design. I have attended several of the award dinners during that time. Most of the time (roughly 70%), the award recipients were either people I knew or people whose textbooks I had read. The award goes to… Read More


IEDM 2019 Press Lunch Exposed!

IEDM 2019 Press Lunch Exposed!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-10-2019 at 6:00 am

One of the many benefits of blogging for SemiWiki is the free conference passes and buffet lunches, absolutely. IEDM is one of the more prestigious semiconductor conferences, now in its 65th year, is being held at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco’s famed Union Square this week. This year more than 1,910 semiconductor professionals… Read More