IEDM: What Comes After Silicon?

IEDM: What Comes After Silicon?
by Paul McLellan on 01-09-2024 at 10:00 am

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The annual International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) took place last month. One of the presentations on the short course was by Matthew Metz of Intel titled New Materials Systems for Moore’s Law Continuation. In essence this was a look at some of the possibilities for what comes after silicon runs out of steam.

Matthew started… Read More


5 Things You Need to Plan for System Custom Silicon

5 Things You Need to Plan for System Custom Silicon
by Raul Perez on 12-13-2020 at 10:00 am

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I used to be part of the custom silicon management team at Apple.  I’ve seen how great a challenge it is to pull off a custom silicon strategy within a one year product cycle. Apple is the perfect example of this custom silicon model since they develop the best mobile processors in the world for their products. Which also includes otherRead More


ISO 26262: My IP Supplier Checks the Boxes, So That’s Covered, Right?

ISO 26262: My IP Supplier Checks the Boxes, So That’s Covered, Right?
by Bernard Murphy on 05-24-2018 at 7:00 am

Everyone up and down the electronics supply chain is jumping on the ISO 26262 bandwagon and naturally they all want to show that whatever they sell is compliant or ready for compliance. We probably all know the basics here – a product certification from one of the assessment organizations, a designated safety manager and a few other… Read More


Webinar Alert – Embedded Monitoring of Process and Voltage in SoCs

Webinar Alert – Embedded Monitoring of Process and Voltage in SoCs
by Daniel Payne on 03-13-2018 at 12:00 pm

In the old days to learn about new semiconductor IP you would have to schedule a sales call, listen to the pitch, then decide if the IP was promising or not. Today we have webinars which offer a lot less drama than a sales call, plus you get to ask your questions by typing away at the comfort of your desk, hopefully wearing headphones as … Read More


Using Sequential Testing to Shorten Monte Carlo Simulations

Using Sequential Testing to Shorten Monte Carlo Simulations
by Tom Simon on 12-27-2017 at 7:00 am

When working on an analog design, after initial design specs have been met, it is useful to determine if the design meets specs out to 3 or 4 sigma based on process variation. This can serve as a useful step before going any further. It might not be a coincidence that foundries base their Cpk on 3-sigma. To refresh, Cpk is the ratio of the… Read More


Mentor Webinar Series: Integrating the Systems Engineering Flow

Mentor Webinar Series: Integrating the Systems Engineering Flow
by Bernard Murphy on 10-28-2016 at 7:00 am

Product lifecycle management is probably not the most gripping topic for most design engineers. You want to get on with architecture, design, verification and implementation. But if you are building products for any safety-sensitive application in a car, a medical appliance, avionics, railway applications in Europe – to name… Read More


How TSMC Tackles Variation at Advanced Nodes

How TSMC Tackles Variation at Advanced Nodes
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-27-2016 at 12:00 pm

The design community is always hungry for high-performance, low-power, and low-cost devices. There is emergence of FinFET and FDSOI technologies at ultra-low process nodes to provide high-performance and low-power requirements at lower die-size. However, these advanced process nodes are prone to new sources of variation.… Read More


Webinar: A Tool for Process and Device Evaluation

Webinar: A Tool for Process and Device Evaluation
by Tom Simon on 03-24-2016 at 12:00 pm

Not only are foundries continuing to introduce processes at new advanced nodes, they are frequently updating or adding processes at existing nodes. There are many examples that illustrate this well. TSMC now has 16FF, 16FF+ and now 16FFC. They are also announcing 10nm and 7nm processes. In addition, they are going back to older… Read More


Calibre in the Middle of Semiconductor Ecosystem

Calibre in the Middle of Semiconductor Ecosystem
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-20-2015 at 12:00 pm

Albert Einsteinhad said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”. In today’s world dominated by technology, or I must say internet which has initiated collaborative information sharing, “leading from the middle” is the new mantra of life.… Read More


28nm FD-SOI: A Unique Sweet Spot Poised to Grow

28nm FD-SOI: A Unique Sweet Spot Poised to Grow
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-11-2015 at 12:00 pm

I have been silently watching STMicroelectronics pursuing FD-SOI technology since quite a few years. FinFET was anyway getting more attention in the semiconductor industry because of several factors involved. But from a technology as well as economic perspective there are many plus points with FD-SOI. I remember my debate,… Read More