One of the unavoidable aspects of chip manufacturing is that some dies on a wafer perform differently than others, even though they were made together on the same wafer. This blog dives into that mystery and provides a way to predict and fix these issues.Imagine baking cookies. If your oven has hot and cold spots, some cookies will be perfect; others burnt. That’s what happens in chip man...» read more
Key Takeaways Contamination is becoming much more difficult to identify at the most advanced nodes, forcing fabs to rethink how control is achieved. Issues may show up as electrical or statistical anomalies, not particles, and not at time zero. Reliable classification is needed to identify critical contamination and reduce time and effort spent on nuisance failures.For much...» read more
Key Takeaways Data center build-out is enabling much larger and more complex abstractions. Competition is building for digital/virtual twins across multiple industry segments, including automotive, aerospace, and chip manufacturing. AI, and particularly AI agents, will play a significant role in sorting through data to find potential trouble spots.The frenzy of new data cen...» read more
Intel hired ex-Qualcomm GPU guru Eric Demers for the company's high-performance GPU push, setting the stage for a three-way battle with Nvidia and AMD. The key targets for Intel and AMD will be better power efficiency and a programming model that rivals CUDA, but don't expect Nvidia to stand still.Acquisitions Texas Instruments plans to acquire Silicon Labs for ~$7.5B cash to enhance i...» read more
Siemens' Tova Levy examines thermal management in 3D-IC, including why heat behaves differently in vertical stacks and how to analyze and manage thermal risk earlier and more predictably to ensure a design can meet performance, reliability, and time-to-market targets.Cadence's Reela Samuel finds that known-good-die strategies, standardized die-to-die test access, and vertical reliability mo...» read more
Key Takeaways: Scaling digital logic still provides significant benefits, especially lower power. Multi-die assemblies will be the predominant approach, and most of the circuitry will not be 2nm or below. While these systems are inherently more flexible, the number and complexity of tradeoffs required for optimizing PPA/C are increasing.The rollout of 2nm process nodes and ...» read more
Big deals and fundings Teradyne and MultiLane are forming a joint venture, MultiLane Test Products (MLTP), to accelerate the development of test solutions for high speed data connections. Teradyne will be the majority owner. Ricursive Intelligence raised $300M Series A for AI-driven IC design. IonQ plans to acquire SkyWater for ~$1.8B, creating a "vertically integrated full-stack q...» read more
Synopsys' Dana Neustadter and Vincent van der Leest argue that a hardware-based approach to security is required to fully address the risks introduced by modern AI architectures and the distributed workloads they support.Siemens EDA's Tova Levy examines multiphysics challenges in 3D-IC designs and outlines three design imperatives to identify risks earlier and support PPA, reliability, and ...» read more
Artificial-intelligence workloads are pushing semiconductor design to a point where traditional scaling strategies are running out of room. Performance improvements that once came from shrinking transistors now depend increasingly on how devices are stacked, interconnected, and isolated. Transistor scaling still matters, but advanced device architectures no longer can accommodate the power dens...» read more
Semiconductor companies announced a significant number of facilities in 2025 as global onshoring efforts continued across manufacturing, materials, packaging, design, and R&D.Investments came from both industry and government sources. Organizations worked together to solve current technology challenges, including soaring demand for AI chips and advanced memory, as well as complex applic...» read more
Workflows and the addition of new capabilities are happening much faster than with previous technologies, and new grads may be vital in that transition.
Workflows and the addition of new capabilities are happening much faster than with previous technologies, and new grads may be vital in that transition.
Companies and governments invested heavily in onshoring fabs and facilities over the past 12 months as tariffs threatened to upset the global supply chain.
Memory chip shortages prompt price increases; Israeli chip foundry; 2 acquisitions; Baidu's AI chips; IBM's new quantum processor; GF's GaN push; 3D NAND scaling boosters; U.S. policy recommendations; +$500M in fundings; SiPho and SiGe capacity; EV joint venture.
Growing use cases include life science AI, reducing memory and I/O bottlenecks, data prepping, wireless networking, and as insurance for evolving protocols.
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