Dr. Morris Chang is not my hero. He might be the most important person in the semiconductor industry in our lifetime, but he is not my hero. I have nothing against him. I’ve never met him and probably will never will. Instead, I meet my heroes usually after tape-out,
Simply defined, Latch-Up in VLSI is a functional chip failure associated with excessive current going through the chip, caused by weak circuit design. In some cases Latch-Up can be a temporary condition that can be resolved by power cycle, but unfortunately it can also cause a fatal chip failure.
Read More
How many ASIC service providers are typically included in a shortlist when launching a project?
We’d argue that too few.
There are over 2000 ASIC service providers worldwide that provide a range of services – ASIC design, verification, validation, packaging, testing, or supply chain solutions, which combine multiple services.
Semiconductor foundries claim they release a new technology node every two years. They may be off by a year or two, but on the whole, this is quite impressive, no doubt. Come to think of it, I don’t believe many of us even change our mobile phone every two years. How
Read More
With the increased complexity of SoC designs, high tapeout prices and shrinking time-to-market, ASIC Prototyping has become a key step in ASIC projects. FPGA development boards are being used more often to verify ASIC design, test hardware and software integration, and provide a proof of concept demonstration to potential customers
Read More
Two years ago TSMC announced its plans to expand into IC packaging services. It is unclear how much these plans succeeded up till now, but it definitely seems that TSMC is now in an excellent position to take a big bite into the advanced IC packaging market, enter into direct competition
Read More