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How to prevent Electrical Overstress failure in NFC interfaces

How to prevent Electrical Overstress failure in NFC interfaces
by bkeppens on 06-09-2016 at 12:00 pm

Last year, about 40% of new smartphones included Near Field Communication (NFC). Analysts predict that by 2017 there will be 1 billion NFC enabled phones. Clearly, the use of NFC is ramping up because it can simplify aspects as diverse as communication, secure payments, user authentication, and retail loyalty programs for instance.… Read More


Semiconductor market going negative?

Semiconductor market going negative?
by Bill Jewell on 06-09-2016 at 7:00 am

Several recent forecasts for the 2016 semiconductor market point to a decline. The title of this post is the same as we used for in October 2015. In October, Semiconductor Intelligence projected the market would grow 1.0% in 2015 despite several predictions of the market going negative. 2015 finished with a slight 0.2% decline.… Read More


NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Poised To Claim The Gaming And VR Performance Crown

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Poised To Claim The Gaming And VR Performance Crown
by Patrick Moorhead on 06-08-2016 at 12:00 pm

NVIDIA has been teasing the promise of Pascal for years, but this year Pascal’s performance became much more real. With the announcement of the Tesla P100 based on Pascal, NVIDIA was able to show the neural-network world what Pascal was really capable of. However, that chip is very different from the gaming-focused Pascal chip … Read More


Highlights of the 22nm FD-SOI San Jose Presentations

Highlights of the 22nm FD-SOI San Jose Presentations
by Adele Hars on 06-08-2016 at 7:00 am

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This is part 2 (of 2) of my coverage of the recent FD-SOI Symposium in San Jose (April 2016), this time looking at the 22nm presentations by GlobalFoundries, ARM (finally!!), VLSI Research Inc and Sigma Designs. (Part 1 looked at the 28nm presentations.) Most are now available on the SOI Consortium website – click here to see the full… Read More


IMEC Technology Forum (ITF) – Secrets of Semiconductor Scaling

IMEC Technology Forum (ITF) – Secrets of Semiconductor Scaling
by Scotten Jones on 06-07-2016 at 4:00 pm

IMEC is a technology research center located in Belgium that is one of the premier semiconductor research centers in the world today. The IMEC Technology Forum (ITF) is a two-day event attended by approximately 1,000 people to showcase the work done by IMEC and their partners.… Read More


Is GaN Disruptive? Revisiting the Criteria

Is GaN Disruptive? Revisiting the Criteria
by Alex Lidow on 06-07-2016 at 12:00 pm

In March 2010 Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) proudly launched our GaN technology at the CIPS conference in Nuremberg, Germany. Parts and development kits were readily available off-the shelf and therefore designers could immediately get started with a new state-of-the-art semiconductor technology.
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The Guiding Light & Other Photonic Soaps

The Guiding Light & Other Photonic Soaps
by Mitch Heins on 06-07-2016 at 7:00 am

I’m a child of the sixties and seventies and on the occasion when I was sick and couldn’t go to school I got to experience the world of daytime TV soap-operas. Back then we only got 3 channels and it wasn’t until the late 60’s that we got color TV! I remember titles like “The Guiding Light”, “Secret Storm”, and “As The World Turns”. Forty… Read More


OpenPOWER Keeps On Truckin’ At Annual Development Summit

OpenPOWER Keeps On Truckin’ At Annual Development Summit
by Patrick Moorhead on 06-06-2016 at 4:00 pm

The OpenPOWER Foundation, a collection of companies that have coalesced around IBM’s POWER architecture recently had their OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose, California. OpenPOWER was founded by IBM, Google, Tyan and Mellanox to coalesce around IBM’s approach towards opening up the POWER architecture to anyone that wishes to licenseRead More


The chilling effect Peter Thiel’s battle with Gawker could have on Silicon Valley journalism

The chilling effect Peter Thiel’s battle with Gawker could have on Silicon Valley journalism
by Vivek Wadhwa on 06-06-2016 at 12:00 pm

Gawker infringes on privacy and publishes tabloid-like stories that damage reputations. It is one of the most sensationalist and objectionable media outlets in the country. It also has not been kind to me. So it’s not a company that I would expect to be defending. But I worry that the battle that billionaire Peter Thiel has clandestinelyRead More