Chip Market Brightens in 2017. The semiconductor industry may yet have been flat in 2016, but expects it is expected that the electronics industry rebounds in 2017, probably in the first half. Wall Streeter predicts return to 5% growth. Total IC business growth is expected to be around five percents for few years to come.There seems to several promises to this direction, especially in memory business. Chips Execs See Maturing Industry article says that pessimism about immediate revenue and R&D growth is a sign of a maturing industry.
Thanks to both rising prices and volume sales, the memory sector is expected to lead overall semiconductor sales growth. Sales of memory chips will increase 10% next year to a new record high of $85.3 billion, according to the latest report from IC Insights. NAND flash will grow almost as fast at 10% next year. The average annual growth rate for the memory market is forecast to be 7.3% from 2016-2021. Every year we need 5.6% more bits than previous year, and the unit prices are increasing on both DRAM and Flash.
There will be also other growth sectors. The data center will be the fastest growth segment next year, rising 10%, followed by automotive at 9% and communications at 7%. Consumer and industrial markets growing at about 4% in line with the overall industry. PCs will be the big drag on 2017, declining 2%.
China Dominates Planned Chip Fabs as more than 40% of front end semiconductor fabs scheduled to begin operation between 2017 and 2020 are in China, a clear indication that China’s long-stated ambition to build a significant domestic semiconductor industry is taking shape.
Trump Win Could Mean Big Questions for Manufacturing as while Trump vowed to keep American manufacturing jobs, he offered little in the way of stated policy other than the promise to punish companies that sent manufacturing job outside the US. Questions about trade also could directly affect US manufacturing. How that plays out is a big unknown.
Europe will try to advance chip manufacturing, but not much results in 2017 as currently there is almost no leading-edge digital chip manufacturing left in Europe as the local companies have embraced outsourcing of digital semiconductor manufacturing to foundries. The European Commission intends to reconvene a high-level group of European CEOs and executives to exchange views on Europe’s 10/100/20 nanoelectronics and chip manufacturing project and make adjustments as necessary for a wave of European Union investment supposedly starting in 2020. The two most advanced wafer fab locations left in Europe in terms of deep sub-micron miniaturization belong to Intel in Leixlip, Ireland and Globalfoundries in Dresden, Germany.
Smaller geometries are to be taken into use and researched in 2017. Several chipmakers ramp up their 10nm finFET processes, with 7nm just around the corner. As TSMC, GF/Samsung Battle at 7nm the net result is in the course of 18 months chip designers will see at least three variants of 7nm — separate immersion variants from TSMC and Globalfoundries and the EUV version from GF/Samsung. Intel has yet to detail its 7nm node.
At the same time R&D has begun for 5nm and beyond, but Uncertainty Grows For 5nm, 3nm as costs are skyrocketing. Both 5nm and 3nm present a multitude of unknowns and challenges. To put this in perspective, there are roughly two silicon atoms in 1nm of line width in a chip. Etching Technology Advances as atomic layer etch (ALE) moves to the forefront of chip-making technology—finally. TSMC recently announced plans to build a new fab in Taiwan at a cost of $15.7 billion targeted for TSMC’s 5nm and 3nm processes, which are due out in 2020 and 2022.
Moore’s Law continues to slow as process complexities and costs escalate at each node. Moore’s Law is dead, just not in the way everyone thinks. SiFive believes open source hardware is the way forward for the semiconductor industry. Technological advances keep allowing chips to scale, but the economics are another story – particularly for smaller companies that can’t afford chips in the volumes. The solution, according to San Francisco-based startup, SiFive, is open-source hardware, specifically an architecture developed by the company’s founders called RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”). Done right SiFive, which was awarded Startup of the Year at the 2016 Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards, believes that RISC-V will do for the hardware industry what Linux has done for software. For example 5th RISC-V Workshop Points to Growing Interest in the RISC-V Platform.
Sensors are hot in 2017. These tiny, powerful solutions are creating the interface between the analog and the digital world. Data is everywhere, and sensors are at the very heart of that. While no one really knows what technology’s next “killer application” will be, we are confident that any killer app will rely on sensors.Appliance autonomy promises to make life simpler, but this field has still lots of to improve even after year 2017.
Interface ICs will continue to help simplify high-bandwidth designs while making them more robust and reliable. Application areas that will benefit include automotive, communications, and industrial. Both wired and wireless interface solutions have plenty of applications.
Analog’s status is rising as more sensors and actuators are added into electronic devices, pressure is growing to more seamlessly move data seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital circuitry. IoT pushes up demand for analog content and need for communication between these two worlds will continue to grow. Analog and digital always have fit rather uncomfortably together, and that discomfort has grown as SoCs are built using smaller feature sizes. The demand for analog silicon has always existed in the embedded space, but the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing the demand for connected mixed-signal content. At 28nm and 16/14nm, standard “analog” IP includes a fair amount of digital content.
It seems that hardware designer is a disappearing resource and software is the king in 2017. It is becoming less and less relevant in what format the device is used in many applications. Card computers are standard products and are found in many different card formats that can be used in very many applications. Embedded development is changing to more and more coding. More software designers that understand some hardware are needed, but it is not easy to leap to move to the hardware to software.
The power electronics market is moving at very fast pace. Besides traditional industrial, renewable, and traction sectors, new applications such as energy-storage systems, micro-grids, and dc chargers are emerging. As the automotive world moves to electric vehicles, this creates challenges for IGBT and SiC-MOSFET ICs, and their associated gate drivers. New packages for high-voltage IGBTs and high-voltage SiC-MOSFETs are introduced.
More custom power distribution and higher voltages on data center computer systems in 2017. OpenRack and OpenCompute projects are increasing the distribution voltage inside the server itself. This approach, plus transitioning to new materials such as gallium nitride in the power-conversion systems, can reduce overall power consumption by 20% and increase server densities by 30-40%.”
Power Modules and Reference Designs will be looked at in 2017 even more than earlier in power electronics. The semiconductor and packaging technologies used in power modules have advanced considerably, and the industry is developing modules today that are denser, less expensive, and easier to use. Designers want to rely on power modules to speed up designs and optimize space using smaller, easy-to-use power modules. Module manufacturers hope that engineers will increasingly choose a module over a discrete design in many applications.
The bi-directional DC/DC converter has been around for a while, but new applications are quickly emerging which necessitate the use of this architecture in so many more systems. Battery back-up systems need bi-directional DC/DC converters. Applications today require better energy efficiency and such systems as green power with solar or wind generation, need storage so that when there is no wind or sun available the electricity flow is not interrupted.
Power supplies need to become more efficient. Both European Union’s (EU) Code of Conduct (CoC) Tier 1 and CoC Tier 2 efficiency standards are to be taken into use. The European Union’s CoC Tier 1 effectively harmonizes the EU with US DoE Level VI and became effective as a voluntary requirement from January 2014, two years ahead of Level VI. Its adoption as an EU Ecodesign rule is currently under review to become law with an implementation date of January 2017. The key difference between the CoC requirements and Level VI is the new 10% load measure, which imposes efficiency requirements under a low-load condition where historically most types of power supplies have been notoriously inefficient. CoC Tier 2 further tightens the no-load and active mode power consumption limits.
During 2016, wireless-power applications started to pick up across many fields in the semiconductor industry, and it will continue to do so. Wireless power will continue to gain traction with increased consumer demand. Hewlett Packard, Dell, jjPlus, and Witricity have already announced products based on Airfuel standards. And, products based upon the Qi standard will continue to grow at a rapid pace.
Other prediction articles:
In Power & Analog 2017 Forecast: What Experts Are Saying article representatives from major players in the semiconductor industry share their predictions for 2017 regarding power modules, wireless power, data converters, wireless sensing, and more.
Looking Ahead to 2017 article tells on to what SIA is focused on working with. “U.S. semiconductor technology should be viewed as a strategic national asset, and the Administration should take a holistic approach in adopting policies to strengthen this vital sector,” the letter says
Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2017 article collection has EDN and EE Times editors explore some of the hot technologies in 2017 that will shape next year’s technology trends and beyond.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Room-temp Laser-on-CMOS Achieved
ASU-Tsinghua team demonstrates non-III-V optical comms
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332128&
The Nanophotonics Lab at Arizona State University (Tempe), working with Tsinghua University (Beijing), has demonstrated an on-chip CMOS communications laser that the researchers say is the first to lase at room temperature. The team built the proof-of-concept device without III-V compounds by placing a monolayer of molybdenum ditelluride over a nanobeam silicon cavity. Others have achieved monolayer lasing with similar techniques, but only at cryogenic temperatures.
Molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) — a compound of molybdenum and tellurium called a transition-metal dichalcogenide — is a semiconductor that can fluoresce with a bandgap in a region enabling infrared lasing at industry-standard communications wavelengths. When crystallized into atomically thin monolayers, it is flexible, crack-resistant, nearly transparent, and CMOS-compatible.
“Our nanobeam cavity is fabricated from a standard CMOS silicon-on-insulator wafer,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Made in China 2025: AI in U.S. Factories? Not There Yet
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332106
AI is not just for driverless cars, digital assistants, or movie recommendations anymore; in multiple industries, it’s a wave about to break. According to a recent McKinsey Global Institute study surveying 3,000 “AI-aware” companies around the globe, only 20 percent are using AI-related technologies in a core part of the business, but the majority expect to ramp up AI spending in the next three years.
Other studies yield similar results. In an Infosys-funded survey of 1,600 business and IT leaders in seven countries, although only 25 percent said AI technologies were fully deployed and working within their organizations, 76 percent overall called AI critical to their companies’ success. Organizations with partially or fully deployed AI technologies expect them to contribute a 39 percent increase in revenue and a 37 percent reduction in costs by 2020. Businesses on average have been using AI for about two years and expect mature adoption in three more years.
Echoing insights from industry analysts and other observers, these reports conclude that AI in manufacturing is nearing a tipping point in the emerging factories of the future. There is consensus that AI applications ranging from smart and collaborative robotics to virtual assistants will upend how factories operate, requiring a complete rethinking of plant designs, manufacturing footprints, and supply chain models. So it’s not surprising that most AI tech investment has come from internal R&D dollars at big tech-savvy companies like Amazon, Baidu, and Google, according to the McKinsey study.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single molecular layer and thin silicon beam enable nanolaser operation at room temperature
https://asunow.asu.edu/content/single-molecular-layer-and-thin-silicon-beam-enable-nanolaser-operation-room-temperature
For the first time, researchers have built a nanolaser that uses only a single molecular layer, placed on a thin silicon beam, which operates at room temperature. The new device, developed by a team of researchers from Arizona State University and Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, could potentially be used to send information between different points on a single computer chip. The lasers also may be useful for other sensing applications in a compact, integrated format.
“This is the first demonstration of room-temperature operation of a nanolaser made of the single-layer material,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Power Technology Requires Smart Isolated Substrates
http://www.powerelectronics.com/power-management/smart-power-technology-requires-smart-isolated-substrates
SOI technology reduces die size and parasitic capacitance, improving efficiency and enhancing reliability over a wide temperature range. It is particularly useful for power management ICs, including switching power supplies and LED drivers that require a high level of integration and high reliability.
The semiconductor substrate is the foundation of high-technology products, the simplest being the silicon wafer. However, to meet new technical challenges, intelligent substrates such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) are used for making specific types of digital or analog ICs. An example is the SOI substrate for radio-frequency (RF-SOI) applications to provide the necessary connectivity performance for mobile phones. Another is the fully depleted SOI (FD-SOI) to enable ultra-low-power consumption in microprocessor chips. These smart substrates address the new technological challenges facing the design of electronic systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are Solid-State Transformers Ready for Prime Time?
It is possible that “solid-state transformers” could reduce the size and weight of power distribution systems, but we’re not quite there yet.
http://www.powerelectronics.com/alternative-energy/are-solid-state-transformers-ready-prime-time?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20170807_ED-003_421&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12357&utm_medium=email&elq2=7b975cceef6f43e3abc35f93676d4e0e
Several companies are working on technologies that could replace large traditional power transformers with power semiconductors and smaller transformers mounted on circuit boards. Although they are called solid-state transformers, they are really power converters.
The figure below is a conceptual circuit for a “solid-state transformer” that accepts a three-phase 60 Hz high-voltage input and provides a 60 Hz lower-voltage output. The transistors could be SiC or GaN types with the appropriate specifications. The input circuit converts 60 Hz high voltage ac input to a dc voltage. Then, the dc produces an ac voltage of 10 to 20 kHz that is applied to a step-down transformer. The transformer output is converted to dc and applied to an inverter to produce a lower voltage 60 Hz ac output. The transformer is necessary to provide isolation between the input and output. An advantage of this approach is reduction in size and weight of the transformer because it can operate at a much higher frequency than a 60Hz power transformer.
Microgrids could be deployed much more rapidly. Grid efficiency could conceivably be increased by up to 8% to 10% because of lower conversion and transmission losses.”
In describing the advantage of this approach, “that’s 10% less power that you have to generate,” says John Palmour, co-founder and chief technology officer for Power and RF at Cree, a producer of SiCs. “We can replace an 8,000-pound transformer in a substation running at 60 Hz and replace it with one running at 20 kHz in a tiny design. We can shrink it down to [the size of] a suitcase.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Room-temp Laser-on-CMOS Achieved
ASU-Tsinghua team demonstrates non-III-V optical comms
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332128&
The Nanophotonics Lab at Arizona State University (Tempe), working with Tsinghua University (Beijing), has demonstrated an on-chip CMOS communications laser that the researchers say is the first to lase at room temperature. The team built the proof-of-concept device without III-V compounds by placing a monolayer of molybdenum ditelluride over a nanobeam silicon cavity. Others have achieved monolayer lasing with similar techniques, but only at cryogenic temperatures.
Molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe2) — a compound of molybdenum and tellurium called a transition-metal dichalcogenide — is a semiconductor that can fluoresce with a bandgap in a region enabling infrared lasing at industry-standard communications wavelengths. When crystallized into atomically thin monolayers, it is flexible, crack-resistant, nearly transparent, and CMOS-compatible.
As is the usual practice, the proof-of-concept chip used a very low-power conventional laser to pump the molybdenum ditelluride CMOS laser. “Today it is pumped by a continuous-wave helium–neon laser emitting at a 633-nanometer wavelength,” Ning told EE Times, adding that the required threshold for pumping was “much less than that from a red laser pointer.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor Sales Tracking up 21% From 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332126&
Semiconductor sales are up nearly 21 percent year-to-date, punctuated by the highest ever sales total in the second quarter, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).
Chip sales for the second quarter totaled a record $97.9 billion, up 6 percent from the previous quarter and up 24 percent compared with the second quarter of 2016, according to the SIA, which reports sales figures compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.
June’s semiconductor sales rose to $32.6 billion, up 2 percent from May and up 24 percent from June 2016, the SIA said.
“The global semiconductor industry has enjoyed impressive sales growth midway through 2017, posting its highest-ever quarterly sales in Q2 and record monthly sales in June,” said John Neuffer, the SIA’s president and CEO, in a press statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gbit MRAM Debuts at Flash Summit
Everspin adds to the persistent memory pool
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332124
Everspin announced it is sampling a Gbit MRAM chip and will be in production this year with 1-2 Gbyte cards based on its 256 Mbit chip. The news at the Flash Memory Summit here marks a small but significant advance for a growing collection of persistent memories at an event focused on the still rising market for mainstream NAND.
Everspin hopes its products find sockets replacing DRAM in solid state drives and flash-storage arrays as a non-volatile buffer and write cache. The cards will deliver up to seven million I/O operations/second and 2 microsecond latencies using special Windows and Linux drivers Everspin is releasing as open source.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting ready for a lower-power future: the keys to successful adoption of new low-voltage memory ICs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332131&
Today, the circuitry on the board in mainstream industrial and consumer products operates from a wide range of supply voltages: the power rails are most commonly at 5V, 3V, 2.5V, 1.8V and various lower voltages. To ensure compatibility between devices from different manufacturers, and to avoid unnecessarily complicating board-level power system design, merchant semiconductor manufacturers typically design their standard products to run from one or more of these standard power rails. But there is a strong force resisting this general preference for stability and compatibility. It can be summed up in one word: mobility.
Tomi Engdahl says:
UMC Breaks into 14nm
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332073&
United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), Taiwan’s second largest foundry, has started its first production of 14nm products, narrowing a technology gap with its larger competitors such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung.
UMC said that, during the second quarter this year, 14nm accounted for 1 percent of its total revenue for the first time.
In the meantime, the company slashed its 2017 capital expenditure budget to $1.7 billion from the $2 billion it had earmarked earlier this year. UMC’s capex for 2016 was $2.8 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Op Amps: The Most Versatile of All Linear ICs
http://www.electronicdesign.com/analog/op-amps-most-versatile-all-linear-ics?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20170809_ED-003_331&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12399&utm_medium=email&elq2=66661fdc7b684d3d9abe7a7fedaef874
Sponsored by: Texas Instruments. Op amps solve most problems in analog circuit design—if you know how to use them. Here are some resources to help expand your op-amp knowledge base.
Whenever you need an amplifier or have a related linear-circuit design problem, most of you will turn to an op amp as a solution. Op amps are a good choice because of their universal versatility to deal with a wide range of amplification needs. And most designers at least have a working knowledge of op amps.
But how much do you really know outside of the basics taught in EE degree programs? If you said, “not much,” some additional training in op-amp technology may be a good course of action. Now you can get that necessary knowledge from several sources and products available from Texas Instruments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nissan won’t build its own electric car batteries anymore
The automaker agreed to sell that side of its business to a Chinese investment firm.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/nissan-wont-build-its-own-electric-car-batteries-anymore/
Tomi Engdahl says:
In the Silicon Valley, a Flash Memory Summit event has been organized, showing the most exciting new technologies in recording technology for years. This time, for example, the techniques for storing, for example, four bits of the same NAND cell were raised. Samsung announced that it will launch the terabyte V-NAND circuit next year.
Samsung also praised the speed of next-generation circuits next year. Data transfers to the processor 1.2 gigabit per second. The company has the next generation Z-NAND architecture, where the latency can be compressed to Intel and Micron’s Xpoint memory.
Samsung Demos is already in the event of a 1U slot suitable for data of as much as 576 terabytes. The disk consists of 36 SSD disks, all of which are suitable for 16 terabytes of data.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6645-terabitin-flash-piiri-tulee-ensi-vuonna
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron Pushes Capacity Threshold in NVMe SSDs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332136&
Micron Technology unveiled its second generation of NVM Express (NVMe) SSDs at the Flash Memory Summit, using its 3D NAND to push capacities past 10TB.
In an advance telephone briefing with EE Times, Dan Florence, SSD product manager for Micron’s Storage Business Unit, said the 9200 Series of NVMe SSDs were built from the ground up to break the shackles of legacy hard drive interfaces. The new storage portfolio is designed to address surging data demands while at the same time maximizing data center efficiency so customers can improve their overall total cost of ownership, he said, and is the storage foundation for the Micron SolidScale Platform, an NVMe over Fabric architecture ahead of standards development, announced earlier this year.
Florence said the Micron 9200 SSD is up to 10 times faster than the fastest SATA SSDs with transfer speeds up to 4.6 GB/s and up to one million read IOPS, making them ideal for performance, high-capacity use cases as application/database acceleration, high frequency trading, and high-performance computing. “NVMe just as an interface offers a lot advantages over the legacy interfaces that were really built for spinning media,” he said. “It cuts out a huge chunk of latency and obviously because it sits on the PCIe bus it offers a higher bandwidth which allows you to get much higher IOPS.”
NVMe also offers better ease of use of previous iterations of PCIe, Florence added, which had a lot of custom drivers. The industry standard that allows for NVMe to be plugged into pretty much any system with any operating system is helping to fuel its adoption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Promises 2018 Tbit NAND
Z-NAND samples at 15-microsecond latency
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332135
Samsung sketched out plans for a terabit 3D-NAND chip that it will ship next year as well as dense solid-state drives using its current chips. It also said that it is sampling the Z-NAND products that it announced last year at latency levels that match or beat Intel’s 3DXP memories.
Samsung’s Tbit NAND will support data rates up to 1.2 Gbits/second and pack four terabytes in a package that stacks 32 die. The chip will embed peripheral circuits in a new metal bonding layer at the bottom of a cell stack as one way to hit the new density level, said Kye Hyun Kyung, Samsung’s executive vice president of flash products and technology, in a talk at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.
The news was part of Samsung’s keynote at the Flash Memory Summit, where some rivals described chips using 96 layers and four bits per cell. Samsung’s current 512-Gbit chips use nine vertical channels and 64 layers built in a descending stair fashion for stability, up from four channels and 48 layers in the prior generation.
Kyung said that versions of 3D-NAND with up to four bits per cell will fill most of the industry’s non-volatile memory needs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Reasons Manufacturing Jobs Are Returning to the USA
Manufacturing jobs are being reshored to the US. Here are the main drivers behind this trend.
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/4-reasons-manufacturing-jobs-are-returning-usa?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170809.tst004t
American companies outsourcing jobs to other countries has become a major topic in US elections, media debates, and everyday conversations. Lower costs, more flexibility and more favorable regulatory environments are a few of the many reasons American businesses have been sending their manufacturing jobs to workers in other nations.
Recently, though, companies have been bringing their jobs back to the US, a trend known as reshoring. Just like there are a lot of reasons for outsourcing, there are plenty of motives for reshoring.
1. Automotive and Electronics Industry Growth
The two industries that have relocated the most jobs back to the US are the automotive and electronics industries. This is partially because the size of these products makes it more difficult and expensive to transport them.
2. Increased Labor Cost
One of the most common reasons for moving manufacturing jobs overseas is the cheap production and labor costs available there. Wages in other countries, however, have been rising, making outsourcing less lucrative. Wages in China, for example, more than doubled between 2005 and 2016, making production in China more expensive than in other middle-income countries and closer to the cost of production in high-income countries like the United States.
3. Logistical Challenges
Logistical issues are another factor making America more desirable for manufacturing companies. Moving production overseas can complicate the supply chain, and shipping products and materials from overseas to the US can get expensive.
4. Lack of Skilled Workers
As manufacturing equipment becomes more advanced, companies need more technically skilled workers to operate and service it. Finding these kinds of employees can be difficult in some locations. For this reason, a number of manufacturers have decided to move their production back to America, where it is easier to find more highly educated workers.
This rising demand for more skilled workers has also caused wages to rise, especially in areas where finding these workers is more difficult. Some of the demand for skills has shifted to those who know how to work with advanced technologies that use automation or smart technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Following Mobileye acquisition, Intel will build fleet of 100 fully autonomous (Level 4) cars to test in US, Israel, Europe; first cars coming by year’s end — The chipmaker just closed its deal to buy auto-visual startup Mobileye — Fresh off its acquisition of auto-visual company Mobileye …
Intel says it will build a fleet of 100 fully autonomous vehicles
1 comment
The chipmaker just closed its deal to buy auto-visual startup Mobileye
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/9/16119000/intel-mobileye-self-driving-cars-level-4
Fresh off its acquisition of auto-visual company Mobileye, Intel announced today that it will build a fleet of Level 4, fully self-driving vehicles for testing in the US, Israel, and Europe. The first vehicles will hit the road later this year, and the fleet will eventually scale to more than 100 automobiles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Close Timing With An eFPGA Hosted In An SoC
eFPGA timing closure is a complex task, but there are steps to make it achievable.
https://semiengineering.com/how-to-close-timing-with-a-speedcore-efpga-hosted-in-an-soc/
eFPGAs are embeddable IP that include look-up tables, memories, and DSP building blocks, allowing designers to add a programmable logic fabric to their SoC. The Speedcore IP can be configured to any size as dictated by the end application. The SoC supplier defines the number of LUTs, memory resources, and DSP64 blocks for their Speedcore instance. A short time later, Achronix delivers the IP as a GDS plus supporting libraries, models and documentation. Once this custom Speedcore block is embedded in the SoC, the end user can use the Achronix CAD Environment (ACE) design tools which are traditional FPGA design tools and workflows to target the embedded FPGA. For more details on the roles and responsibilities in an eFPGA engagement, see the blog post Who’s Who in the Zoo.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Rising Value Of Data
https://semiengineering.com/the-rising-value-of-data/
Race begins to figure out what else can be done with data. But not all data is useful, and some of it is faulty.
The volume of data being generated by a spectrum of devices continues to skyrocket. Now the question is what can be done with that data.
By Cisco’s estimates, traffic on the Internet will be 3.3 zetabytes per year by 2021, up from 1.2 zetabytes in 2016. And if that isn’t enough, the flow of data isn’t consistent. Traffic on the busiest 60-minute period in a day increased 51% in 2016, compared with a 32% growth in overall traffic.
That’s only part of the picture, too. No one really knows how much data is really being generated because not all of it ends up on the Internet.
But the real issue isn’t the amount of data. It’s how much of that data is useful or valuable, and so far there are no clear answers. It requires sifting through huge quantities of both digital and analog data and enough context to understand the true value. This is like panning for gold across millions of riverbeds that have been mostly picked dry. But with enough compute horsepower and massively parallel tools for sifting through that data—as well as a better perspective for how to apply that data—it still can create some very lucrative business models.
“A lot of industries have figured out that their business, product, and business models could be impacted by a different utilization of the data that is somehow attached to their devices or their business models,” said Aart de Geus, chairman and co-CEO of Synopsys. “If you can harness that in a way that finds shortcuts and efficiencies, or just completely different ways of going about business, that is high impact.”
“Those who own the data, the analytics, and the ability to process the data make all the money,” said Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor, a Siemens Business.
It’s uncertain if it’s a winner-take-all game, but there are certainly some big companies vying for leadership in this space—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and IBM, to name a handful.
“With IoT data, you collect a lot about performance, behavior and use of a device,” said Christophe Begue, IBM‘s sales leader for the Americas. “What we do next is give it to Watson to do analytics with the data. But that data really only makes sense in the context of larger amounts of data that you’re not collecting with these devices. So from trucks you can determine traffic patterns, and you can use those to understand people behavior and social behavior.”
Smarter manufacturing
Still, not all data needs to come from external sources to be useful. Data that is internally generated is particularly valuable for an industrial operation. In fact, the whole concept of smart manufacturing—alternately known in Germany as Industry 4.0, or elsewhere as industrial IoT (IIoT)—is built on better utilization of internal data.
“IIoT is all about improving the factory,” said David Park, vice president of marketing at Optimal+. “Right now these companies have process analytics and just-in-time manufacturing, but what they need is predictive analytics. That has benefits for the factory, but the main beneficiary there is the brand owner. The brand owner and the factory are not necessarily the same thing.”
The problem is that not all data is good, and decisions based upon bad data can lead to unexpected problems.
“If the data is good, you can improve yield by 2% to 3%, which is significant,” said Park. “You also can collect data from every part that is tested in the supply chain and for any time period you want. So if you have scratched wafers, you can trace back where those scratched wafers came from. You also can see how devices age in the field. If there is preventive maintenance for a fleet of vehicles, you can see how that performs one or two years down the road. This even works in finance, where you get hundreds of thousands of invoices and you can’t correlate that every invoice is correct.”
This kind of data analysis is particularly important in a complex supply chain. While semiconductor manufacturing itself is quite sophisticated in its use of data, that’s not the case across the rest of the supply chain.
Machine learning
That is the basis for machine learning, which seeks to cull critical data and to have machines extrapolate from that data within a set of pre-defined parameters. This approach already is being used in the automotive market, where systems are being created to assist and ultimately take over the driving in real-world conditions. Those decisions need to be put into context based upon multiple possible outcomes.
Machine learning is being used in semiconductor design and manufacturing, as well, as a way of improving quality, reliability and yield.
Conclusion
The semiconductor industry sits squarely in the middle of big data analysis. On one hand, it generates and increasingly analyzes large quantities of data for improving the performance, efficiency and reliability of chips. At the same time, it also develops the technology that makes crunching of all of this data possible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PXI cards can now be controlled on the Thunderbolt bus
National Instruments, or NI, as the company now has its own brand, have introduced a control module for controlling PXI-based measuring instruments. The new module has a fast Thunderbolt3 bus that can be attached to a compatible computer.
The PXIe-8301 has two Thunderbolt3 ports, which pass through the PCIe bus up to 2.3 gigabytes per second. The second Thunderbolt3 bus can be used to chain any other Thunderbolt3 or USBC device into the system.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6649-pxi-kortteja-voi-nyt-ohjata-thunderbolt-vaylalla
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron Pushes Capacity Threshold in NVMe SSDs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332136&
Micron Technology unveiled its second generation of NVM Express (NVMe) SSDs at the Flash Memory Summit, using its 3D NAND to push capacities past 10TB.
In an advance telephone briefing with EE Times, Dan Florence, SSD product manager for Micron’s Storage Business Unit, said the 9200 Series of NVMe SSDs were built from the ground up to break the shackles of legacy hard drive interfaces. The new storage portfolio is designed to address surging data demands while at the same time maximizing data center efficiency so customers can improve their overall total cost of ownership, he said, and is the storage foundation for the Micron SolidScale Platform, an NVMe over Fabric architecture ahead of standards development, announced earlier this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gbit MRAM Debuts at Flash Summit
Everspin adds to the persistent memory pool
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332124&
Everspin announced it is sampling a Gbit MRAM chip and will be in production this year with 1-2 Gbyte cards based on its 256 Mbit chip. The news at the Flash Memory Summit here marks a small but significant advance for a growing collection of persistent memories at an event focused on the still rising market for mainstream NAND.
Everspin hopes its products find sockets replacing DRAM in solid state drives and flash-storage arrays as a non-volatile buffer and write cache. The cards will deliver up to seven million I/O operations/second and 2 microsecond latencies using special Windows and Linux drivers Everspin is releasing as open source.
At least one other company will provide a second source for Everspin’s cards. The company has stated it has one pilot customer for the chips that it hopes will take them to production within a year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Synthetic Biology Creates Living Computers
http://hackaday.com/2017/08/09/synthetic-biology-creates-living-computers/
Most people have at least a fuzzy idea of what DNA is. Ask about RNA, though, and unless you are talking to a biologist, you are likely to get even more handwaving. We hackers might have to reread our biology text books, though, since researchers have built logic gates using RNA.
Sometimes we read these university press releases and realize that the result isn’t very practical. But in this case, the Arizona State University study shows how AND, OR, and NOT gates are possible and shows practical applications with four-input AND gates and six-input OR gates using living cells. The key is a construct known as an RNA toehold switch (see video below). Although this was worked out in 2012, this recent study shows how to apply it practically.
In the cellular world (that’s biological cells, not mobile phone cells), the DNA is almost like a disk drive–it contains information about what to do. RNA has a similar chemical structure, but–unlike DNA–is usually single-stranded. It can copy segments of the DNA using a transcription process.
Living computers: RNA circuits transform cells into nanodevices
https://www.biodesign.asu.edu/news/living-computers-rna-circuits-transform-cells-nanodevices
The interdisciplinary nexus of biology and engineering, known as synthetic biology, is growing at a rapid pace, opening new vistas that could scarcely be imagined a short time ago.
In new research, Alex Green, a professor at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, demonstrates how living cells can be induced to carry out computations in the manner of tiny robots or computers.
The results of the new study have significant implications for intelligent drug design and smart drug delivery, green energy production, low-cost diagnostic technologies and even the development of futuristic nanomachines capable of hunting down cancer cells or switching off aberrant genes.
“We’re using very predictable and programmable RNA-RNA interactions to define what these circuits can do,” says Green. “That means we can use computer software to design RNA sequences that behave the way we want them to in a cell. It makes the design process a lot faster.”
The study appears in the advance online edition of the journal Nature.
Using RNA toehold switches, the researchers produced the first ribocomputing devices capable of four-input AND, six-input OR and a 12-input device able to carry out a complex combination of AND, OR and NOT logic known as disjunctive normal form expression. When the logic gate encounters the correct RNA binding sequences leading to activation, a toehold switch opens and the process of translation to protein takes place. All of these circuit-sensing and output functions can be integrated into the same molecule, making the systems compact and easier to implement in a cell.
The computer within
According to Green, the next stage of research will focus on the use of the RNA toehold technology to produce so-called neural networks within living cells — circuits capable of analyzing a range of excitatory and inhibitory inputs, averaging them and producing an output once a particular threshold of activity is reached, much the way a neuron averages incoming signals from other neurons. Ultimately, researchers hope to induce cells to communicate with one another via programmable molecular signals, forming a truly interactive, brain-like network.
“Because we’re using RNA, a universal molecule of life, we know these interactions can also work in other cells, so our method provides a general strategy that could be ported to other organisms,” Green says, alluding to a future in which human cells become fully programmable entities with extensive biological capabilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Back-Biased Packaging (SE, SG, SH, and SJ versus SA and SB)
https://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/allegro_microsystems/back-biased-packaging-se-sg-sh-and-sj-versus-sa-and-sb
This application note introduces an advancement in packaging for back-biased devices that results to a lower system costs for manufacturers. These packages include SA, SB, SE, SG, SH, and SJ that have produced smaller and more powerful devices.
SA and SB Packaging
Allegro’s SA and SB represent the first generation of back-biased packages. The SA and SB are composed of mechanically assembled components that are ultrasonically welded into a finished package. The molded Hall-effect IC provides the brain of the system, the pole piece and rare-earth pellet enhance the magnetic circuit, while the housing and end cap provide the package shell.
The SA and SB differ only in their size; the SB is 7 mm long while the SA is 9 mm long.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Design Innovation Slowing?
https://semiengineering.com/is-design-innovation-slowingis-design-innovation-slowing/
The answer appears to be a resounding no, but innovation isn’t necessarily happening in the same places as in the past.
Paul Teich, principal analyst for Tirias Research, gave a provocative talk at the recent DAC conference entitled, “Is Integration Leaving Less Room for Design Innovation?” The answer isn’t as simple as the question might suggest.
“Integration used to be a driver for increasing the functionality of silicon,” Teich said. “Increasingly, it will be used to incorporate more features of an entire system on top of the hardware system.”
Teich talked about IP becoming complicated. He explained that the processes needed to produce optimal memory, or radio, or logic are becoming different enough that we are moving from system on chip (SoC) to system in package (SiP). “For SoCs, where you are integrating everything on the same die, access to IP is important. For SiPs what is important are partnerships and packaging technology. What we are seeing is a lot of innovation on the packaging front and a lot of folks trying partnerships so they have access to somebody else’s state-of-the-art known good die. Trying to integrate everything onto one die every time you turn the crank doing a system design is a losing proposition in terms of design engineering resources.”
After discussing some high-profile SiP products, he then looked at higher levels of systems and services built on top of hardware. “As we look at where the innovation is going, I don’t think it is going as much toward integrating onto a system on chip design as it is toward packaging individual chips, venting the heat, and making sure that you get a clean radio signal out of it. Everyone designing for the Internet of Things (IoT) has to remember that the ‘I’ in IoT means the product is not standalone. When you are making decisions about what to put in the product, you have some local decisions and you have the cloud behind you that provides access to a deeper context. Your competitive arena is that everyone is going back to the cloud to do data collection, analytics and draw some kind of pattern-level conclusion about the data you are gathering from your IoT sensor.”
So what does the rest of the industry think about this and where do they see innovation happening? Semiconductor Engineering talked with people from all aspects of hardware and systems design—and found a number of different places where innovation is still alive and well.
Service products
It is certainly true that the media concentrates on new markets and revenue streams, particularly those associated with the cloud. Services have become the money maker rather than products. But from a chip level, each of these markets requires customized or semi-customized hardware and software. And while integration is a key part of that, this is hardly cookie-cutter design.
System choices
The system is what many people see as the horizontal platform, but even here there are huge choices to be made that have very wide ranging impacts. “An industry executive shared with me a recent study that showed that the best power efficiency and performance comes from a system with centralized processing and no processing at the edge,” said Graham Bell, Vice President of Marketing for Uniquify, Inc.. “Local processing at the edge requires its own software stack. By eliminating the software stacks at the edge and pulling all the input directly to the central processor, a more efficient closed system is possible. This approach is more application-specific, and therefore more customized for innovation to be realized.”
New avenues of innovation
While Moore’s Law may be slowing down, this is unlikely to stop advancement and innovation in chip design. The threat of that slowdown initiated innovation in other areas such as packaging. “It is possible that the next evolution of system design will be in the area of substrate-based multi-chip systems, where some chips will be 10/7nm and others will remain at 26/16nm,” said Tom Wong, director of marketing, design IP at Cadence. “We have already seen mass adoption of POP (package-on-package) and low-cost 2.5D interposer as dictated by the form factor, performance and low-power needs of the smartphone. And in the datacenter and enterprise space, we see the adoption of very high-end 2.5D interposer technology, as well as 3D packaging in high-performance memory subsystems for networking applications.”
Innovation within the chip
There is plenty of room for innovation and differentiation within chips. “The SoC architecture, hardware/software partitioning, design methodology and packaging all offer avenues for innovation,” said Ravi Thummarukudy, CEO for Mobiveil. “Performance, Power and cost also provide great differentiation.”
Innovation within blocks
There is room for innovation at the block level, too. “IP is at the bottom rung of that value chain, so I see more and more opportunities for innovation at the IP level as a result,” said Savage. “In addition, IP companies are offering services to their customers to customize IP to allow them to add some differentiation. Often this customization is driven by their customers (the systems companies).”
Even the most basic blocks are changing. “It is all about memory,” contends Lanza. “This is the fundamental unit. Connecting memories and their contents, quickly. That is the way our brains work and this needs to happen in computers. Memory technology is moving faster than any other technology.”
Tools, methodologies and flows
The tools necessary for innovation are also changing. “While still highly dependent on ‘chips,’ our industry is rapidly moving past the ‘chip centric’ era, where EDA was king, to a new era of system-centric design,” said Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance. “Expect to see more startups address the automation of system design by leveraging the increasing popularity of IP as the building blocks.”
Conclusion
Technology plays two roles. New markets are created from existing technology foundations, and those platforms evolve over time. The hardware industry may not know what is being enabled. That was the case with the PC, the smart phone, and more recently with a communications infrastructure that connects sensor nodes that some call the IoT. The semiconductor industry created these platforms, even though new applications are sparse.
The second opportunity technology brings is that once a market has shown itself to exist and be robust enough, technology optimizes it to make it smaller, cheaper, and lower power. It feeds on the success of the market.
“There is a virtuous cycle between both of them,” said Wingard. “Sometimes the technology is truly enabling. The economics or the use model just doesn’t work until you get certain combinations of technology together and sufficiently optimized to enable the market.”
Added Wong: “In today’s complex systems, innovation can occur in the system, in software, in architecture, in hardware acceleration, or in packaging.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Single Pole SSR
https://www.eeweb.com/company-news/ixys/smart-single-pole-ssr
IXYS annouced the immediate production release of the CPC1511 device. It is a current limit 1-Form-A normally open Solid State Relay (SSR) that replaces electromechanical devices while enhancing the performance of switching applications. CPC1511 device is an integrated powered driver with active current limiting and thermal shut down circuitry and Power MOSFET switches.
The 230V COC1511 is manufactured with an optically isolated control input, and an integrated monolithic die for the output current and fabricated with ICD’s HVIC SOI technology. It incorporates thermal shutdown circuitry for improved survivability in harsh environments and is designed to pass regulatory voltage surge requirements when provided with appropriate over voltage protection circuitry. This device is designed specifically for harsh AC or DC applications where printed circuit board space is at a shutdown features offer automatic recovery to the appropriate switch state, as determined by the input control current, once the fault condition is removed. This fault protection circuitry provides excellent robustness in high stress switching environments.
The CPC1511 relay provides current limiting for unidirectional DC applications, in addition to typical AC applications. This current limiting 1-Form-A normally open SSR is ideal for general power switching applications in instrumentation. IoT products, industrial controls, peripherals, security, and medical equipment. Key features include built-in current-limiting protection circuitry, thermal shutdown, linear AC/DC operation, low power consumption, clean, bounce-free switching, and an extended operational lifetime over electromechanical relays.
IXYS Introduces a Smart Single Pole SSR
with Thermal Shutdown and Current Limiting Capabilities
http://www.ixysic.com/Newsroom/2017PR/PR_Aug102017.htm?utm_source=eeweb&utm_medium=tech_community&utm_term=news&utm_content=ixys&utm_campaign=source
Blocking voltage: 230Vp
Load Current: 450 mAdc/mArms
On-Resistance: 4 ohms
CPC1511 is a single-pole, normally open (1-Form-A)
optically isolated Solid State Relay with integrated
current limit and thermal shutdown features. Perfect
for replacing electromechanical relays while enhancing
the robustness of wireline-interface applications, the
CPC1511 can carry loads up 450mA
CPC1511 incorporates thermal shutdown circuitry
for improved survivability in harsh environments,
and is designed to pass regulatory voltage surge
requirements when provided with appropriate over
voltage protection circuitry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mouser – Y1 Safety Certified SMD ceramic capacitors suitable for low-profile power supplies (Murata DK1E3EA152M86RAH01)
http://www.electropages.com/2017/08/mouser-y1-safety-certified-smd-ceramic-capacitors-suitable-low-profile-power-supplies/?utm_campaign=2017-08-08-Electropages&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=article&utm_content=Mouser+-+Y1+Safety+Certified+SMD+ceramic+capacitors+suitable+for+low-profile+…
Available now from Mouser is the Murata DK1 Series. They are general purpose, resin moulded, surface mount, type IEC 60384-14 Y1 class safety certified, ceramic capacitors for low-profile power supplies. The capacitor uses a structure of plate-shaped terminals on a disc-shaped ceramic dielectric placed within a plastic mould to reduce the terminal thickness.
Safety certified capacitors are deployed at the input side of a power supply line in order to suppress noise that builds up primarily in commercial AC power lines. The capacitors are ideal for all AC/DC switching power supplies where a low-profile is sought for compact AV equipment, LED illumination, or 1U rack-mounted equipment. The ceramic capacitors can be used as Class X or as a Class Y capacitor for Class 2 power supplies and as a capacitor for primary and secondary couplings, the DK1 capacitors contribute to the downsizing and lower profiles of power supply equipment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Reasons Manufacturing Jobs Are Returning to the USA
Manufacturing jobs are being reshored to the US. Here are the main drivers behind this trend.
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/4-reasons-manufacturing-jobs-are-returning-usa?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170811.tst004t
Tomi Engdahl says:
China’s economic problems are exactly why its global influence is expanding
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/10/chinas-economic-problems-are-exactly-why-its-global-influence-is-expanding.html?recirc=taboolainternal
Slowing economic growth in China is spurring its top leadership to expand the country’s influence beyond its shores
China’s efforts follow similar longstanding efforts by neighbors Japan and South Korea
China is also trying to buy its way into influence with its massive investment
Slowing economic growth in China is spurring its top leadership to expand the country’s influence beyond its shores — a development that was most recently on display at an annual forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Over the weekend meeting, foreign ministers grappled with how to refer to differences in the South China Sea, highlighting divisions within the trade bloc under the shadow of the neighboring economic powerhouse.
Aside from its stunning economic ascent, China’s growing clout overseas is also about bolstering confidence at home.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New ultrathin semiconductor materials exceed some of silicon’s ‘secret’ powers, Stanford engineers find
http://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2017/08/11/new-ultrathin-sens-secret-powers/
Chip makers appreciate what most consumers never knew: silicon’s virtues include the fact that it “rusts” in a way that insulates its tiny circuitry. Two new ultrathin materials share that trait and outdo silicon in other ways that make them promising materials for electronics of the future.
The next generation of feature-filled and energy-efficient electronics will require computer chips just a few atoms thick. For all its positive attributes, trusty silicon can’t take us to these ultrathin extremes.
Now, electrical engineers at Stanford have identified two semiconductors – hafnium diselenide and zirconium diselenide – that share or even exceed some of silicon’s desirable traits, starting with the fact that all three materials can “rust.”
“It’s a bit like rust, but a very desirable rust,”
The new materials can also be shrunk to functional circuits just three atoms thick and they require less energy than silicon circuits. Although still experimental, the researchers said the materials could be a step toward the kinds of thinner, more energy-efficient chips demanded by devices of the future.
Silicon’s strengths
Silicon has several qualities that have led it to become the bedrock of electronics, Pop explained. One is that it is blessed with a very good “native” insulator, silicon dioxide or, in plain English, silicon rust. Exposing silicon to oxygen during manufacturing gives chip-makers an easy way to isolate their circuitry. Other semiconductors do not “rust” into good insulators when exposed to oxygen, so they must be layered with additional insulators, a step that introduces engineering challenges. Both of the diselenides the Stanford group tested formed this elusive, yet high-quality insulating rust layer when exposed to oxygen.
Not only do both ultrathin semiconductors rust, they do so in a way that is even more desirable than silicon. They form what are called “high-K” insulators, which enable lower power operation than is possible with silicon and its silicon oxide insulator.
There is much work ahead. First, Mleczko and Pop must refine the electrical contacts between transistors on their ultrathin diselenide circuits. “These connections have always proved a challenge for any new semiconductor, and the difficulty becomes greater as we shrink circuits to the atomic scale,” Mleczko said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cadence released a set of 7nm Rapid Adoption Kits (RAKs) for Arm’s Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 CPUs and the Mali-G72 GPU. Cadence’s digital and signoff tools have been configured to provide optimal PPA results using the RAKs, which include scripts, an example floorplan, and documentation for Arm’s 7nm IP libraries.
Source: https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-design-92/
More: https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/company/newsroom/press-releases/pr/2017/cadence-full-flow-digital-and-signoff-and-verification-suite-opt.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting ready for a lower-power future: the keys to successful adoption of new low-voltage memory ICs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332131&
Today, the circuitry on the board in mainstream industrial and consumer products operates from a wide range of supply voltages: the power rails are most commonly at 5V, 3V, 2.5V, 1.8V and various lower voltages. To ensure compatibility between devices from different manufacturers, and to avoid unnecessarily complicating board-level power system design, merchant semiconductor manufacturers typically design their standard products to run from one or more of these standard power rails. But there is a strong force resisting this general preference for stability and compatibility. It can be summed up in one word: mobility.
So every milliwatt saved from the power budget is important to product designers. And for them, the industry’s use of power rails at various standard voltages, often at 1.8V or higher, is a problem, not an advantage: that is because many components – particularly those operating in the digital domain – would with some modification be quite capable of operating from a power rail at a voltage lower than 1.8V, resulting in valuable savings in active and stand-by power consumption.
Clear direction of travel
Today, system designers typically have to provide multiple power rails in order to accommodate components operating from different supply voltages. Analogue devices such as sensors commonly have a 3V or — in industrial applications — even a 5V supply. Legacy digital components might have a 3.3V, 2.5V or 1.8V supply. At the low end of the voltage range, the latest applications processors or systems-on-chip built on advanced process nodes, such as 28nm or smaller, might have a core operating voltage as low as 1.0V.
Figure 1 shows how DRAM technologies have led the memory IC industry beyond 1.8V. Standard DDR2 DRAM was the last to use a 1.8V supply. After that, successive generations of DDR DRAM operated at 1.5V (DDR3), then 1.37V (DDR3L) before reaching today’s level, 1.2V (DDR4).
Figure 1 also shows in green the supply requirements of successive families of NOR Flash ICs from Winbond, operating at the standard 3V, 2.5V and 1.8V levels. Now the latest NOR Flash families offer two voltage ranges: one at 1.2V, and another with an extended voltage range nominally at 1.5V.
In supporting the 1.2V voltage and the extended 1.5V level with its newest generation of NOR Flash ICs, Winbond is seeking to harmonise its product offerings with the broader semiconductor industry.
Feature set compatible with 1.8V devices
Winbond has designed the new 1.2V series and extended 1.5V series to match the existing 1.8V devices.
Momentum behind 1.2V and extended 1.5V power rails
Winbond has decided to be first to market in the serial Flash sector with 1.2V and extended 1.5V devices to give early momentum to a trend that seems certain to gain speed as manufacturers of battery-powered devices look for further savings in power consumption.
These 1.2V products have been designed in and endorsed by new chipset companies working in the low power area like Espressif
As a result, the Flash market is ready to standardise on 1.2V and extended 1.5V as the next power node below 1.8V,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gen-Z Points to New Memories
Prototypes, plans for DIMMs emerge
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332147&
The Gen-Z Consortium is showing prototypes of its memory-agnostic interconnect that aims to enable an emerging crop of persistent memories starting in 2019. It may see its first use in a high-performance DRAM modules in the works.
Executives from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), Western Digital (WD), Lam Research and others said new memory types will disrupt memory and processor designs. Some pointed to Gen-Z as a key enabler in talks at the Flash Memory Summit here.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industry’s First MLCCs for RF and Microwave Applications
https://www.eeweb.com/news/industrys-first-mlccs-for-rf-and-microwave-applications
Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. introduces the industry’s first surface-mount multilayer ceramic chip capacitors (MLCCs) for high frequency RF and microwave applications to offer an operating temperature range to +200 °C. For telecom base stations and military communication systems, the Vishay Vitramon VJ HIFREQ HT series provides ultra high Q and low ESR in four compact case sizes.
For high power communication transmitters and high frequency inverters exposed to temperatures of +175 °C or higher, designers previously had to rely on MLCCs only qualified to +150 °C. With their operating temperature range from -55 °C to +200 °C, the devices released today provide reliable, long term performance in these applications. For increased design flexibility, the MLCCs’ small 0402, 0603, 0805, and 1111 case sizes allow for placement close to components with high dissipation, such as SiC and GaN switches.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s The Difference Between ATPG And Logic BIST?
Two test strategies are used to test virtually all IC logic: automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) with test pattern compression and logic built-in self-test (BIST).
http://www.electronicdesign.com/test-amp-measurement/what-s-difference-between-atpg-and-logic-bist?code=UM_Classics08117&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12428&utm_medium=email&elq2=d8669604051e4ee58c93ec762e0c29d4
Tomi Engdahl says:
How do I pick the best voltage regulator for my circuit?
Steve Sandler answers a reader question about selecting the correct voltage regulator.
http://www.powerelectronics.com/community/how-do-i-pick-best-voltage-regulator-my-circuit?HQS=app-lp-vrs-voltageregulator-asset-lp-null-wwe?code=UM_Classics08117&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12428&utm_medium=email&elq2=d8669604051e4ee58c93ec762e0c29d4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Minimizing Temperature Drift in Your Current Measurement
Use a current-sense amplifier that integrates a precisely matched, resistive gain network to minimize the temperature-drift effects of the gain error.
http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/minimizing-temperature-drift-your-current-measurement?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20170814_ED-003_790&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12477&utm_medium=email&elq2=b814c260429342f7b2d1c16c6db3afef
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global graphene battery market projected to grow over next decade
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/global-graphene-battery-market-projected-to-grow-over-next-decade/c9736f38a092ceaae6b99b9d123d3275.html
The graphene battery market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 10% over the next decade as researchers have found that they can be used to develop efficient light solutions for water desalination plants, which will further augment graphene battery market growth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Applying Machine Learning
https://semiengineering.com/applying-machine-learning/
NetSpeed’s CEO talks about the benefits and challenges of using machine learning to optimize on-chip data flow.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Auto Suppliers: More Than Chips
https://semiengineering.com/auto-suppliers-beyond-chips-and-systems/
Not all suppliers to the automotive industry are providing semiconductors and system-level products.
The semiconductor industry is revving up its present and future contributions to advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving. Those areas represent tremendous growth opportunities for chips, modules, and software going into automotive electronics. There’s also the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in automotive design, which are brand new commercial opportunities that have never existed in any market.
Still, there are a number of high-tech companies that provide products and services to the worldwide automotive industry that don’t design or make chips, and they don’t write software for customers.
Robert Bosch GmbH, also known as the Bosch Group, is ranked as the top supplier of OEM parts to the automotive industry, with $46.5 billion in 2016 sales. Bosch Rexroth, a Bosch Group unit, was an exhibitor at last month’s SEMICON West show in San Francisco. The company provides assembly technology, electric drives and controls, gear technology, industrial hydraulics, linear motion technology, mobile hydraulics, molding and casting technologies, tightening technology, and welding technology to multiple industries, including semiconductors and electronics.
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Magna International Inc., Denso Corp., and Continental AG fill out the top five lineup of auto OEM parts suppliers around the world. All are involved in electronics, and some are developing artificial intelligence technology for automated driving, along with vehicle sensors and other components.
There are literally thousands of suppliers to the automotive industry. Most are not as well known as those five corporations.
While Google, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Tesla may grab all the headlines for autonomous vehicle technology, there are many other companies helping to put together the car of the future. And that list continues to grow, incorporating semiconductor IP, EDA tools, chips of all types, as well as advanced cabling and controller chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor Industry Backs Trump’s China Probe
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332157&
The semiconductor industry’s largest trade group reacted quickly to a memorandum by U.S. President Donald Trump authorizing the investigation of China’s trade practices, offering support and saying it has long voiced concern over “market-distorting” aspects of China’s industrial policy.
“The U.S. semiconductor industry stands ready to work with the Trump Administration to protect American intellectual property and critical technology from theft or forced transfer in foreign markets,” said John Neuffer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), in a press statement released Monday.
Neuffer’s statement was issued shortly after Trump announced the memorandum in widely televised event at the the White House. The memorandum directs U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to investigate China’s laws, policies practices and actions that may be unreasonable or discriminatory and that may be harming American intellectual property, innovation and technology.
“This is just the beginning,” Trump said of the memo.
China’s stance on intellectual property rights has long been criticized by the semiconductor industry and other U.S. high-tech industries. Chip makers have complained about being enticed by the Chinese government to establish joint ventures with local companies as a condition for setting up manufacturing in China, which they say ultimately results in intellectual property theft.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NAND Clash Spans Chip to Code
Terabit chips will pack four bits/cell
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332153
NAND flash has become a wonderful mess. Vendors are tripping over each other to deliver new chips in new form factors with new software faster than users can figure out what to do with them.
That was the view from the Flash Memory Summit, where a small but significant early-morning fire set off sprinklers and drenched hopes of an exhibit floor. A reporter snapped a shot of a melted computer rack attributed to a faulty extension cord at an Innodisk booth. No one was hurt.
No one needed a demo to see that the main stars of this show were a handful of 3D-NAND chips. Samsung promised a Tbit chip next year; Toshiba showed a 96-layer, 768-Gbit chip also shipping next year; and Micron described its 512-Gbit chip. All three said that they will deliver versions packing four bits per cell, along with Western Digital, which shares the Toshiba design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Filtering EMI And RFI Noise
http://www.mwrf.com/test-amp-measurement/filtering-emi-and-rfi-noise?code=UM_Classics08117&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12407&utm_medium=email&elq2=e24f21a601e442cfa98e2def2637e9c9
The increased complexity of modern electronic components, circuits, and systems often results in elevated EMI and RFI levels which must be brought into proper compliance.
Noise can not only degrade the performance of electronic equipment, it can also prevent new electronic equipment designs from passing compliance testing. A combination of factors, such as increasing digital processing speeds, shrinking electronic package sizes, and more densely spaced electronic components, are contributing to increased amounts of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio-frequency-interference (RFI) noise, and boosting the needs to understand such noise sources and how to protect against them. Fortunately, as noise sources have become more complex, filtering solutions, such as filtered connectors, have been developed to help keep EMI and RFI in check.
Filter inserts represent a low-cost, practical solution for many EMI/RFI problems.
Filter connectors can be supplied in a wide range of configurations to control EMI and RFI.
Filter modules are sophisticated EMI/RFI filtering approaches and can be supplied with additional components.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Some Engineering Jobs Will See Double-Digit Growth Over Next 7 Years
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/some-engineering-jobs-will-see-double-digit-growth-over-next-7-years?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170815.tst004t
Employment of mechanical engineers is projected to grow 5 percent through 2024, while some other engineering focuses will see higher employment growth and some will see lower or no growth, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Server DRAM Supply Expected to Remain Tight
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332155&
Server DRAM revenue among the top three DRAM vendors — Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology — rose by 30 percent sequentially in the second quarter as the tight supply of DRAM chips continued to lift average selling prices, according to market watcher DRAMeXchange. The firm expects server DRAM supply to remain tight throughout the remainder of 2017.
Despite product mix adjustments, suppliers had trouble meeting the various growing demands of the DRAM market, said DRAMeXchange, a unit of market research firm TrendForce that tracks memory chip pricing.
“Thanks to the increase in the average memory density of server systems, as evidenced by the adoption of high-density 32GB RDIMMs and 64GB LRDIMMs in this year’s first half, the profit margin of server DRAM surged,” said Mark Liu, a DRAMeXchange analyst, in a press statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zinc-air batteries: Three-stage method could revolutionise rechargeability
https://m.techxplore.com/news/2017-08-zinc-air-batteries-three-stage-method-revolutionise.html
University of Sydney researchers have found a solution for one of the biggest stumbling blocks preventing zinc-air batteries from overtaking conventional lithium-ion batteries as the power source of choice in electronic devices.
Zinc-air batteries are batteries powered by zinc metal and oxygen from the air. Due to the global abundance of zinc metal, these batteries are much cheaper to produce than lithium-ion batteries, and they can also store more energy (theoretically five times more than that of lithium-ion batteries), are much safer and are more environmentally friendly.
While zinc-air batteries are currently used as an energy source in hearing aids and some film cameras and railway signal devices, their widespread use has been hindered by the fact that, up until now, recharging them has proved difficult. This is due to the lack of electrocatalysts that successfully reduce and generate oxygen during the discharging and charging of a battery.
Published in Advanced Materials today, a paper authored by chemical engineering researchers from the University of Sydney and Nanyang Technological University outlines a new three-stage method to overcome this problem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Reliable Are FinFETs?
https://semiengineering.com/how-reliable-are-finfets/
Chipmakers wrestle with EOS, ESD and other power-related issues as leading-edge chips are incorporated into industrial and automotive applications.
Stringent safety requirements in the automotive and industrial sectors are forcing chipmakers to re-examine a number of factors that can impact reliability over the lifespan of a device.
Many of these concerns are not new. Electrical overstress (EOS), electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electromigration (EM) are well understood, and have been addressed by EDA tools for years. But as chip complexity and density grows, they are becoming much bigger issues for a couple of reasons. First, some chips developed for these markets are expected to last for 10 to 15 years. And second, the chips themselves are more complicated, so automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers now require more granularity than for other markets.
“Before, the analog blocks were small, the chips were smaller, and you could kind of feel good just running a few handful of SPICE simulations,” noted João Geada, chief technologist at ANSYS. “But when designs have billions of transistors, that’s not a scalable answer anymore.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
May the “Force” be with You: Tap into a Wealth of Power-Supply Design Resources
http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/may-force-be-you-tap-wealth-power-supply-design-resources?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20170816_ED-003_791&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12513&utm_medium=email&elq2=a217dc457f7b427cab21d33c3a0f19e5
Sponsored by: Texas Instruments. Power supplies have rapidly progressed from simple linear designs to complex switched-mode topologies, and designers are turning to resources like those assembled by TI for support.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Use Current to Drive Solenoid, Relay from Array of Voltages
http://www.electronicdesign.com/power/use-current-drive-solenoid-relay-array-voltages?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20170816_ED-003_791&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12513&utm_medium=email&elq2=a217dc457f7b427cab21d33c3a0f19e5
Rather than use a fixed-rail voltage source, it’s more efficient and flexible to utilize a current source so that performance remains consistent while supply rail and coil resistance change.
Relays and solenoids are available with many different voltage ratings. Most factory- and process-automation equipment operates from 24-V supplies. However, customers may have control signals for a wide range of ac or dc voltages, such as 12 V, 24 V, 36 V, 48 V, or even 120 V or 220/240 V for some valves and contactors. For each voltage, the coil designs of the variants must be different. Having coils to accommodate all of the possible voltage adds to inventory, BOM, and spare-part headaches.
One solution could be to design one coil for 12 V, then use a resistor to limit the current into the coil for each voltage option. However, this wastes energy and dissipates heat from the resistor, especially if the 12-V coil is used for the 220/240-V design.
A more energy-efficient solution is to use pulse-width modulation (PWM) driving and a freewheeling diode to regulate the current in the solenoid. In addition, you could add current-sense feedback with PWM and control the current in the solenoid.
While PWM driving without current-sense feedback is easy to implement, variations in coil resistance, temperature, supply voltage, and the other factors can cause unintended solenoid de-actuation. As temperature increases, the resistance of the coil will increase. According to Ohm’s law, the increased resistance will cause the current to decrease. Since current is responsible for generating the magnetic force, when the current decreases, so will the magnetic force.
Thus, using PWM driving with current-sense feedback is a more reliable driving method for the coils and relays. With current control, the driver regulates the coil current to the required value independent of resistance, which makes the system more robust over temperature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who Are China’s Biggest Fabless Chipmakers?
http://www.mwrf.com/semiconductors/who-are-chinas-biggest-fabless-chipmakers?NL=MWRF-001&Issue=MWRF-001_20170817_MWRF-001_448&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12517&utm_medium=email&elq2=1d61badbbe2f4171a1ec5457851ab09e
Over the last two years, American officials have grown wary of the Chinese government’s plot to boost the country’s chip industry. But executive and government advisors from inside China have also moved to contextualize the efforts.
The hand wringing centers upon the $150 billion fund – also called the Big Fund – that China has amassed to subsidize fabs, fuel acquisitions, and support other tactics that foreign officials say are reminiscent of China’s meddling in the steel and solar markets
A report published by the Obama administration last year denounced China for only punching tickets to companies that fork over chip technology. The report, written by former semiconductor executives, said that China’s tactics could cut into the research budgets of American firms and erode their competitiveness.
In China, there is growing competition for semiconductor smarts. The number of fabless chipmakers in China rose from 500 to 1,300 over the last five years, and they generated revenues of $24.1 billion in 2016.
Warning against China, White House Report Urges Faster Chip Innovation
http://www.electronicdesign.com/microprocessors/warning-against-china-white-house-report-urges-faster-chip-innovation
“China has gained from global openness but has been less committed to sustaining it – and in some cases, has worked against it,” the report said.