Woodstock Wire: EE Wire

November 26, 2023

A holiday shopping guide for engineers: 2023 edition

Aspencore -- EDN - As of this year, EDN has consecutively published my odes to holiday-excused consumerism for a half-decade straight: here are the 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions (I skipped a few years between the 2014 edition and its successors). As in the past,...

November 26, 2023 12:49 AM

November 25, 2023

UCLA Creates First Stable, Fully Solid-State Thermal Transistor

Media -- All About Circuits - The transistor prototype opens doors for more efficient thermal management in integrated circuits-and even presents interesting opportunities in human metabolic research.

November 25, 2023 10:24 PM

IAR Elevates Motor Control Capabilities, Unveiling Comprehensive Support for NXP's S32M2 Motor Control Solution

Media -- eBOM - IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm delivers instantaneous support for NXP's latest addition to its S32 platform, speeding up the development of body and comfort applications for the software-defined car.

IAR, the world leader in software and services...

November 25, 2023 10:21 PM

Starter board accelerates design using "biggest add-on board collection in the world"

Media -- Components in Electronics - MikroElektronika (MIKROE), the embedded solutions company that is said to dramatically cut development time by providing innovative hardware and software products based on proven standards, has unveiled CLICKER 4 the first...

November 25, 2023 10:21 PM

Littelfuse Introduces SMC Automotive Grade 3kA SIDACtor for High Surge Current AC Power Line Protection

Media -- eBOM - High-power density packaging requires approximately 50% less printed circuit board space

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ: LFUS), an industrial technology manufacturing company empowering a sustainable, connected, and safer world, announced the launch...

November 25, 2023 10:20 PM

Exclusive: PowerICS To Establish Manufacturing Facility For GaN Chargers

Media -- ElectronicsB2B - Currently, the company relies upon third-party electronics manufacturing service providers to make its universal charger (USB-C and USB). There's something big the company anticipates will happen when its manufacturing opens up PowerICS...

November 25, 2023 10:15 PM

November 21, 2023

Soitec's SmartSiC to Hit the Road in 2024

Aspencore -- EETimes Europe - Only four years will have passed between Soitec's decision to develop its SmartSiC technology and the launch of SmartSiC wafer production at its new fab in Bernin, France-and Soitec is promising that in less than a year, the first electric...

November 21, 2023 04:21 AM

New 62mm package in Infineon's CoolSiC(tm) portfolio helps engineers to achieve higher efficiency and power density

Electronics -- Infineon - Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) today announced the expansion of its CoolSiC 1200 V and 2000 V MOSFET module families with a new industry-standard package. The proven 62mm device is designed...

November 21, 2023 04:09 AM

New Polymer-Based Semiconductor: Harnessing The Power of Chirality

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - A technical paper titled "Subtle Molecular Changes Largely Modulate Chiral Helical Assemblies of Achiral Conjugated Polymers by Tuning Solution-State Aggregation" was published by researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign...

November 21, 2023 03:57 AM

Toshiba launches first 30V N-Channel Common-Drain MOSFET

Media -- eBOM - New device offers bi-directional power within USB applications

Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH ("Toshiba") has launched their first 30V N-channel common-drain MOSFET. The new SSM10N961L device offers low-loss operation and is specifically intended...

November 21, 2023 03:52 AM

What To Do About Electrostatic Discharge

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Electrostatic discharge is a well-understood phenomenon, but it's becoming more difficult to plan for as single chips are replaced by multiple chips or chiplets in a package, and as the density of components continues to increase...

November 21, 2023 03:46 AM

November 20, 2023

Secure-IC Announces the Integration of SecuryzrTM Technology in MediaTek's New Flagship Smartphone Chip, Dimensity 9300

Business Wire -- Secure-IC announces its embedded cybersecurity solution Securyzr was integrated in MediaTek's flagship smartphone chip, Dimensity 9300.

November 20, 2023 08:13 PM

8-bit MCUs exploit 32-bit development tools

Aspencore -- EDN - BB5x 8-bit MCUs from Silicon Labs join the company's PG2x family of 32-Bit MCUs in sharing a common development environment. The Simplicity Studio software is also the development platform for Silicon Labs' portfolio of wireless SoCs, allowing developers...

November 20, 2023 07:44 AM

IC Manufacturing Targets Less Water, Less Waste

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Fabs, OSATs, and equipment makers are accelerating their efforts to reduce water usage while cutting reducing and recycling material waste in a trend toward better sustainability.

With chips, sustainability is heavily focused...

November 20, 2023 07:26 AM

Synopsys and Microsoft's Copilot for Chip Design

Media -- ElectronicsB2B - If an AI bot "is writing essays or Shakespeare or poetry, you can have a 10% to 15% error and your consumer would know the difference and still be wowed by it." ~ Shankar Krishnamoorthy Microsoft's 'Copilot,' initially introduced as an...

November 20, 2023 07:26 AM

Researchers identify unexpected twist while developing new polymer-based semiconductors

Life -- Phys.org - A new study led by chemists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign brings fresh insight into the development of semiconductor materials that can do things their traditional silicon counterparts cannot-harness the power of chirality,...

November 20, 2023 06:33 AM

32-bit MCUs Handle Heavy ML Workloads on Battery-Operated IoT Devices

Media -- All About Circuits - Alif claims its new Ensemble line of microcontrollers efficiently processes heavy machine learning workloads on battery-powered devices.

November 20, 2023 06:13 AM

Mitsubishi Electric and Nexperia to co-develop SiC power semiconductors

Media -- Semiconductor Today - Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp is entering into a strategic partnership with discrete device designer and manufacturer Nexperia B.V. of Nijmegen, The Netherlands (a subsidiary of Wingtech Technology Co Ltd) to jointly develop...

November 20, 2023 05:13 AM

Cadence and Autodesk Collaborate on Smart Product Design

Business Wire -- Cadence announced a collaboration with Autodesk to accelerate system design by leveraging Autodesk Fusion and Cadence PCB solutions.

November 20, 2023 04:24 AM

November 13, 2023

AI tool minimizes EM/IR impact on IC designs

Aspencore -- EDN - The Cadence Voltus InsightAI platform uses generative AI to identify the root cause of electromigration (EM) and voltage (IR) drop early in the design process. It not only automatically identifies EM/IR violations, but also implements the most efficient...

November 13, 2023 03:09 AM

3 ways low IQ technologies extend battery life without compromising system performance

Electronics -- TI - Power House - With the world more battery-powered than ever, the demand for better and cheaper batteries and battery packs is soaring. And while battery manufacturers are introducing new chemistries and smaller packs, which are putting new and complex...

November 13, 2023 02:47 AM

Infineon extends its ISOFACE product portfolio with quad-channel digital isolators for industrial and automotive applications

Media -- ELE Times - Modern electronic systems in automotive and industrial applications require robust, efficient, and precise data communication capabilities to ensure optimal performance. To meet these needs, Infineon Technologies is introducing its ISOFACE...

November 13, 2023 02:39 AM

Renesas Shares Processor Roadmap for Its Next-Gen Automotive SoCs and MCUs

Media -- All About Circuits - Renesas' R-Car Generation 5 brings new SoCs and MCUs to the automotive domain.

November 13, 2023 02:38 AM

Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs)

EE -- Circuit Cellar - When it comes to high-power switching devices (tens of amps at hundreds of volts) its hard to go past the IGBT. As its name suggests, the Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor combines the low on-state voltage of bipolar transistors with...

November 13, 2023 02:22 AM

An FPGA-to-ASIC case study for refining smart meter design

Aspencore -- EDN - Many embedded system designs are first implemented using FPGAs. This may be for quicker prototyping or to provide a platform for software development. Sometimes, the FPGAs will remain in the design after production begins. But usually, the plan...

November 13, 2023 02:19 AM

Switches controlled by the duration of the input control signal

Aspencore -- EDN - Among the switches of various kinds of loads, the circuit of the switch is of particular interest, controlled by varying signal duration. So, for example, feeding a short pulse to the input will turn on the load, and a longer pulse will turn it...

November 13, 2023 01:24 AM

ROHM's New Ultra-High-Speed Gate Driver IC: Maximizing the Performance of GaN Devices

Media -- eBOM - Class-leading unit of nanoseconds gate drive contributes to greater energy savings and miniaturization in LiDAR applications and data centers

ROHM has developed a gate driver IC - the BD2311NVX-LB. It is optimized for GaN devices and achieves gate...

November 13, 2023 12:39 AM

3D Heterogenous Integration: Design And Verification Challenges

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Next-generation semiconductor products increasingly rely on vertical integration technologies to drive system density, speed, and yield improvement. Due to the increased coupling effects across multiple physics, co-simulation...

November 13, 2023 12:13 AM

Designing Chips For Outer Space

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - If designing chips in cars sounds difficult, try designing them for space. There are huge temperature swings, and more radioactive particles than on Earth, which can cause single-event upsets, transients, functional interrupts,...

November 13, 2023 12:11 AM

New STM32C0: More memory and lower prices will convert more systems to 32-bit

Media -- Electronics Maker - ST is announcing today the launch of STM32C071s with 128 KB of flash and a USB controller, thus further cementing our new series as an entry-level MCU and gateway to 32-bit architectures. We are also divulging a new roadmap with...

November 13, 2023 12:09 AM

Infineon extends MCU portfolio with new PSoCEdge family

Media -- Electronics Maker - Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) today announced a new family of microcontrollers (MCUs) in the PSoC portfolio of Arm(r) Cortex(r)-based high-performance, low-power, secured devices....

November 13, 2023 12:09 AM

Europe's first new PCB plant in two decades

Media -- Evertiq - European PCB production has, for several years, been outcompeted and outperformed by production in Asia. As a consequence, the industry has faced consolidation over the years and there are far fewer production plants than before. But now, Lithuanian...

November 13, 2023 12:08 AM

November 08, 2023

EE Times Europe Magazine - November 2023

Aspencore -- EETimes Europe - The November 2023 Edition of EE Times Europe Magazine is out and opens with exclusive interviews with the influential CTOs of three of the world's top 10 semiconductor companies-Nvidia's Michael Kagan, Intel's Greg Lavender and AMD's...

November 08, 2023 06:12 AM

The next embedded frontier: machine learning enabled MCUs

Aspencore -- EDN - A new microcontroller claims to offer hardware-assisted machine learning (ML) acceleration for the Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial applications such as smart home, security surveillance, wearables, and robotics. That's expected to significantly...

November 08, 2023 06:10 AM

Why advanced packaging is vital to the future of semiconductors

Media -- EE World - The cost and the physics of fitting more transistors in the space available are showing diminishing returns. The concept of "known good die" is much more difficult to quantify. For all the talk in the semiconductor industry about trying to...

November 08, 2023 05:36 AM

November 07, 2023

Automated Constraint Management For Faster Designer Productivity

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Constraints management helps shorten the designer's manual constraints transformation effort across the design cycle with automated constraints management flows. The management of constraints refers to tasks that are not associated...

November 07, 2023 08:48 PM

The Power Of AI To Drive Productivity Gains

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Tuberculosis (TB) has been around for at least 9000 years, and people have been trying to find a cure or treatment for hundreds of years, but it remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world, killing more than...

November 07, 2023 08:47 PM

DRAM Test And Inspection Just Gets Tougher

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - DRAM manufacturers continue to demand cost-effective solutions for screening and process improvement amid growing concerns over defects and process variability, but meeting that demand is becoming much more difficult with the...

November 07, 2023 08:42 PM

New Insights Into IC Process Defectivity

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - Finding critical defects in manufacturing is becoming more difficult due to tighter design margins, new processes, and shorter process windows.

Process marginality and parametric outliers used to be problematic at each new...

November 07, 2023 08:42 PM

Toshiba Launches 30V N-Channel Common-Drain MOSFET Suitable for Devices with USB and for Protecting Battery Packs

Business Wire -- Toshiba launches a low on-resistance 30V N-channel common-drain MOSFET suitable for devices with USB and for protecting battery packs.

November 07, 2023 07:36 AM

The first MCU with an Arm Cortex-M85 processor finally arrives

Aspencore -- EDN - More than a year after Arm unveiled Cortex-M85, its fastest core for standalone microcontrollers (MCUs) and MCU-like subsystems, Renesas has become the first supplier to incorporate this superscalar Cortex-M processor in its RA8 MCUs. Renesas calls...

November 07, 2023 06:21 AM

How OptiFlash memory technology leverages external flash to solve challenges in software-defined systems

Electronics -- TI - Behind the Wheel - In office buildings, factory floors and automobiles, software is replacing mechanical components and fixed electric circuits. For example, replacing a mechanical lock with a smart lock...

November 07, 2023 05:56 AM

Industry's First Ultra-High Performance MCUs Based On Arm Cortex-M85 Processor

EFYTIMES.COM -- Renesas Electronics Corporation has recently unveiled a line of microcontrollers (MCUs), setting a new benchmark in performance with a score exceeding 3000 CoreMark points. These MCUs offer fully deterministic, low-latency, real-time operation, catering...

November 07, 2023 05:49 AM

eFPGA Architectural Improvements That Lower Test Cost And Increase Quality

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - More than 40 chips have been licensed to use EFLX eFPGA and >20 chips are working in silicon. Big customers like Renesas are planning high volume families of chips using embedded FPGA.

As a result, we have gained extensive...

November 07, 2023 05:25 AM

Closing The Performance Gap Between DRAM And AI Processors

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - As the workhorse of semiconductor memory, DRAM holds a unique place in the industry thanks to its large storage capacity and ability to feed data and program code to the host processor quickly.

Lately, this unsung hero of the...

November 07, 2023 05:25 AM

November 03, 2023

Lattice announces CrossLinkU-NX FPGA with USB 3.2 to Unlock Video Applications

Media -- Electronic Engineering Journal - Lattice has marked some new territory in the low-end FPGA market with the CrossLinkU-NX FPGA. While AMD and Intel have signaled renewed interest in this market by previewing the future appearance of the low-end Spartan...

November 03, 2023 03:31 AM

Improving The Retention Characteristics Of 3D NAND Flash Memories

Media -- Semiconductor Engineering - A technical paper titled "3D NAND Flash Memory Cell Current and Interference Characteristics Improvement With Multiple Dielectric Spacer" was published by researchers at Myongji University, Soongsil University, and Seoul National...

November 03, 2023 03:29 AM

Four power supply challenges in ADAS front camera designs

Electronics -- TI - Behind the Wheel - Front camera units are an essential component of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), especially now that New Car Assessment Program requirements include automatic emergency braking...

November 03, 2023 03:16 AM

Champion T-Shirt is here!

Electronics -- MikroElektronika - Are you a true champion of Click boards(tm)? MIKROE proudly presents the Champion t-shirt! Crafted in a rich and vibrant blue color, this 100% cotton T-shirt is designed for those who share ou [...]

November 03, 2023 03:14 AM