Comments for Semiconductor Engineering

Comment on RISC-V Pros And Cons by Ann Steffora Mutschler

Ann Steffora Mutschler — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 13:09:00 +0000

Karl, my guess is that money will talk. When the OEMs decide RISC-V will provide benefit to the bottom line, the ecosystem will quickly emerge. As far as the value, it does seem like there is some momentum, and time will tell.

Comment on Inside Lithography And Masks by memister

memister — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 04:38:00 +0000

Just saw a picture from June 2016 European Mask and Lithography Conference, the pellicle was glowing white-hot under EUV exposure.

Comment on Sourcing Used Equipment by roy yoon

roy yoon — Wed, 31 May 2017 14:23:00 +0000

wow!

Comment on RISC-V Pros And Cons by Karl Stevens

Karl Stevens — Wed, 31 May 2017 13:32:00 +0000

Is it worth the time, cost, and effort to establish an ecosystem? Is there real value or wishful thinking?

Comment on RISC-V Pros And Cons by Karl Stevens

Karl Stevens — Wed, 31 May 2017 13:29:00 +0000

Kent, right on. I spent my career in computers/systems so I know how computers work.
The basic difference among RISC ISAs is the load instruction addressing because data has to be loaded first before being used.
Therefore the key is access to memory, then data can be used in computation using the simple add, subtract, multiply, divide, and, or, xor instructions.
RISC came about because compiler writers could not figure out how to use more complex instructions(IBM 801, circa 1980). NOT because it was better, just REDUCED instruction set.
Of course x86 has been used in a few CPUs recently.
ISA is a minor factor, but most talked about.

Comment on Power/Performance Bits: May 30 by Alan Broadbent

Alan Broadbent — Wed, 31 May 2017 12:09:00 +0000

I dont think the use of piezo as a speaker is overly new I remember some years age (20+) a piece in a magazing possibly ETI where a coated baloon was used as a speaker, a more later event where a thin wire was used to generate electricity (although small) I think Bolton University UK, I have also seen a “piezo tree” which generated power from the wind. while small power can be seen to be generated the trick is to find a use for it, as it is very low ampage. a convertor of this type of power was devised and patented by one of the USA plane engine manufactures boeing or lockhead I also produced a similar type of generator using less components several years ago

Comment on RISC-V Pros And Cons by Ann Steffora Mutschler

Ann Steffora Mutschler — Wed, 31 May 2017 01:57:00 +0000

I agree that much work needs to be done in order to establish an ecosystem, so we will be watching for development in that area, and then adoption.

Comment on Manufacturing Bits: May 30 by mike_fusion

mike_fusion — Tue, 30 May 2017 23:15:00 +0000

The main reason we do not want to find them soon is because retirement is 35 years away.

Comment on RISC-V Pros And Cons by Kent Dahlgren

Kent Dahlgren — Tue, 30 May 2017 18:27:00 +0000

The biggest issue in getting traction will be the hardware ecosystem around the core. The AMBA SoC interconnect specs are the defacto standard for this and I expect to see ARM using these as a weapon.

Comment on Extending EUV Beyond 3nm by memister

memister — Tue, 30 May 2017 10:11:00 +0000

Very interesting discussions. Here are a couple more tidbits:

– The position of the mask multilayer surface also determines where the feature is placed, very sensitively.

– Shot noise would be worse for assist features (much smaller than regular features) and optimized sources (only a small fraction of photons from “key” illumination points).