We tend to think of cache primarily as an adjunct to processors to improve performance. Reading and writing main memory (DRAM) is very slow thanks to all the package and board impedance between chips. If you can fetch blocks of contiguous memory from the DRAM to a local on-chip memory, locality of reference in most code ensures much… Read More
Sensors Converge: Where Intelligence Meets the EdgeThe Sensors Converge Conference is one of the…Read More
Musk’s Orbital Compute Vision: TERAFAB and the End of the Terrestrial Data CenterAt the TERAFAB launch event in Austin on…Read More
Synopsys Advances Hardware Assisted Verification for the AI EraAt the 2026 Synopsys Converge Event, Synopsys announced…Read More
Chemical Origins of Environmental Modifications to MOR Lithographic ChemistryIn the pursuit of advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV)…Read MoreMachine Learning and Embedded FPGA IP
Machine learning-based applications have become prevalent across consumer, medical, and automotive markets. Still, the underlying architecture(s) and implementations are evolving rapidly, to best fit the throughput, latency, and power efficiency requirements of an ever increasing application space. Although ML is … Read More
SEMICON West Intel 10nm and GF 7nm Update
SEMICON West seemed a little slow last week but maybe it was just me. I’m sure SEMI will come out with record breaking numbers but I did not see it in the exhibit hall (see the video). What I did see was hundreds of exhibitors but I had no idea what they did. San Francisco again was very congested and smelly. I talked to a friend who is in public… Read More
Accelerated Verification with Synopsys
At DAC 2018, Synopsys held a lunch panel discussing verification challenges faced by the industry leaders, their adopted approaches and the overall verification technology trends. This panel of industry experts from Intel, AMD, Samsung, STM and Qualcomm also shared their viewpoints on what drives the SoC complexity and how… Read More
Platform ASICs Target Datacenters, AI
There is a well-known progression in the efficiency of different platforms for certain targeted applications such as AI, as measured by performance and performance/Watt. The progression is determined by how much of the application can be run with specialized hardware-assist rather than software, since hardware can be faster… Read More
VLSIT Conference – imec on CFETs
The 2018 VLSI Technology conference was held in Hawaii in June and is one of the premier conferences covering integrated circuit process technology and circuit design. The Complementary FET (CFET) is an emerging option to continue logic scaling into the next decade. At the conference imec, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Tokyo Electron and… Read More
Semicon Wrap Up holding pattern in turbulent air
The stock market hates uncertainty most of all. In the absence of the known, the market will assume the worst or close to it. Right now there is a lot of uncertainty that continues to have more downside beta than upside beta. Everybody we spoke to at Semicon wakes up in the morning wondering what tweet was sent at 5AM that will impact their… Read More
AMAT talks long term AI but short term is ugly
We attended Semicon West Monday and Tuesday, the annual show for the semi equipment industry. Its very clear from discussions with all our sources in the industry that confirm that Samsung has put the brakes on spending on memory and that message was reinforced by declines in their expected profitability due to weaker memory pricing.… Read More
Black Scholes and IC Design
This is the sixth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”
From the earliest days of my childhood, I was always trying to find ways to make money – paper routes, lawn mowing, coke sales at football games – I did it all. And, except for a motorcycle I bought during junior high school when, at age 14, I could get a driver’s… Read More
Know what 5G is? You’re probably wrong
If you think the transition to 5G will be anything like the transitions before it to 3G or 4G, you are in for a big surprise. Not only will the transition take longer than either of the previous transitions, its ramifications will spread far beyond cell phones and into other areas such as automobiles, AI, healthcare, and commerce. … Read More


Musk’s Orbital Compute Vision: TERAFAB and the End of the Terrestrial Data Center