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“Thinking Outside the Chip”

“Thinking Outside the Chip”
by Students@olemiss.edu on 04-13-2016 at 7:00 am

While pushing Moore’s Law’s boundaries in the world of 2D packaging, companies are starting to explore nontraditional approaches towards designing integrated circuit chips. 2D packaging is currently the most used method in designing chips in the industry, and while it leads in efficiency of power and performance, it lacks … Read More


EUV is coming but will we need it?

EUV is coming but will we need it?
by Scotten Jones on 04-12-2016 at 4:00 pm

I have written multiple articles about this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference describing all of the progress EUV has made in the last year. Source power is improving, photoresists are getting faster, prototype pellicles are in testing, multiple sites around the world are exposing wafers by the thousands and more. Read More


Making PLM Actually Work for for IC Design

Making PLM Actually Work for for IC Design
by Tom Simon on 04-12-2016 at 12:00 pm

The topic of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) conjures up images of usage on airplanes, tanks and cars. That’s because it was developed decades ago to help make product development and delivery more efficient for big expensive manufactured products. It worked well for its intended markets by combining and managing all the … Read More


2.5D supply chain takes HBM over the wall

2.5D supply chain takes HBM over the wall
by Don Dingee on 04-11-2016 at 4:00 pm

SoC designers have hit the memory wall head on. Although most SoCs address a relatively small memory capacity compared with PC and server chips, memory power consumption and bandwidth are struggling to keep up with processing and content expectations. A recent webinar looks at HBM as a possible solution.… Read More


Neural Networks Poised to Make Big Changes in Our World

Neural Networks Poised to Make Big Changes in Our World
by Tom Simon on 04-11-2016 at 12:00 pm

Probably the most interesting thing about Neural Networks is how they can be used for complex recognition tasks that we as people can easily perform but we might have a lot of trouble explaining how. One very good example of a problem that Neural Networks can tackle is determining when people are making a fake smile. Intuitively we… Read More


Custom Layout Productivity Gets a Boost

Custom Layout Productivity Gets a Boost
by Tom Dillinger on 04-11-2016 at 7:00 am

In the 1970’s, when Moore’s Law was still in its infancy, Bill Lattin from Intel published a landmark paper [1]. In it he identified the need for new design tools and methods to improve layout productivity, which he defined as the drawn and verified number of transistors per day per layout designer. He said existing … Read More


Silicon Photonics – Back to the Future – Part Deux?

Silicon Photonics – Back to the Future – Part Deux?
by Mitch Heins on 04-10-2016 at 8:00 pm

I cut my teeth in silicon IC design at Texas Instruments during the early 1980’s working on what would eventually become the ASIC and Fabless IC industries that enabled the explosive growth of the electronics industry over the last three decades. Of late I’ve become involved in the silicon photonics space and I am getting an incredible… Read More


Hyundai Artificial Intelligence Connected Car Insights from Patents

Hyundai Artificial Intelligence Connected Car Insights from Patents
by Alex G. Lee on 04-10-2016 at 4:00 pm

Hyundai announced its plan to develop smart car implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)) communication capability. US9159231 illustrates that Hyundai smart car will collect and transmit neighboring traffic information through the V2V communication.… Read More


Roger Rabbit Redux – Self-Driving Car Edition

Roger Rabbit Redux – Self-Driving Car Edition
by Roger C. Lanctot on 04-10-2016 at 12:00 pm

With General Motors investing $500M in Lyft and buying Cruise Automation (aftermarket self-driving car technology) for $1B, there are some people speculating that the company may be recreating its mid-prior-century effort to monopolize mass transportation. In the 1940’s, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines,… Read More