There has been much interest in Huawei’s and SMIC’s plans for 5nm production in the near future. Since there is no use of EUV in China, immersion DUV lithography (with a 76 nm pitch resolution) is expected to be used along with pitch quartering to achieve pitches in the 20-30 nm range expected for the 5nm and 3nm nodes [1].… Read More
How Secure-IC is Making the Cyber World a Safer Place
Securing the data and all the associated transactions that comprise our hyper-connected world is a daunting task. Security touches the hardware, software and all the channels connecting every device and every transaction. Threats can be embedded in software, hardware or systems can be compromised externally using a large … Read More
Not all Smartphones are Created Equal
TechInsights recognizes Earth Day 2024 by lifting the screen on smartphone semiconductor sustainability
Smartphones are typically compared based on screen size, processor speed, and camera resolution. But when TechInsights looked at carbon footprints for manufacturing just the semiconductors of three flagship phones,… Read More
Lifecycle Management, FuSa, Reliability and More for Automotive Electronics
Synopsys recently hosted an information rich-webinar, modestly titled “Improving Quality, FuSa, Reliability, and Security in Automotive Semiconductors”. I think they undersold the event; this was really about managing all of those things through the lifecycle of a car, in line with auto OEMs strategies for the future of the… Read More
Podcast EP219: How Synopsys Addresses Debug and Coverage Closure Challenges with Robert Ruiz
Dan is joined by Robert Ruiz, product management director responsible for strategy and business growth of several verification products at Synopsys. Robert has held various marketing and technical positions for leading functional verification and test automation products at various companies including Synopsys, Novas… Read More
ASML- Soft revenues & Orders – But…China 49% – Memory Improving
ASML- better EPS but weaker revenues- 2024 recovery on track
China jumps 10% to 49%- Memory looking better @59% of orders
Order lumpiness increases with ASP- EUV will be up-DUV down
“Passing Bottom” of what has been a long down cycle
Weak revenues & orders but OK EPS
Reported revenue was Euro5.3B and EPS of Euro3.11… Read More
Semi Market Decreased by 8% in 2023… When Design IP Sales Grew by 6%!
Design IP revenues had achieved $7.04B in 2023, with disparity between license, growing by 14% and royalty decreasing by 6%, and main categories. Processor (CPU, DSP, GPU & ISP) slightly growing by 3.4% when Physical (SRAM Memory Compiler, Flash Memory Compiler, Library and I/O, AMS, Wireless Interface) slightly decreasing… Read More
ECO Demo Update from Easy-Logic
I first met Jimmy Chen from Easy-Logic at #60DAC and wrote about their Engineering Change Order (ECO) tool in August 2023. Recently we had a Zoom call so that I could see a live demo of their EDA tool in action. Allen Guo, the AE Manager for Easy-Logic gave me an overview presentation of the company and some history to provide a bit of context.… Read More
Cadence Debuts Dynamic Duo III with a Basket of Goodies
I am a fan of product releases which bundle together multiple high-value advances. That approach reduces the frequency of releases (no bad thing) in exchange for more to offer per release, better proven through solid partner validation. The Dynamic Duo III release falls in this class, offering improvements in performance, capacity,… Read More
CEO Interview: Khaled Maalej, VSORA Founder and CEO
Khaled Maalej is founder and CEO of VSORA, a provider of high-performance silicon chips for GenerativeAI and L4/L5 autonomous driving (AD) applications based in France. Before founding VSORA in 2015, Maalej was CTO at DiBcom, a fabless semiconductor company that designed chipsets for low-power mobile TV and radio reception… Read More
AI Semiconductor Market