Microelectronics world news

For fourth-quarter 2022, Riber S.A. of Bezons, France – which manufactures molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems as well as evaporation sources – has reported revenue of €15.6m, up by 2% on €15.4m a year ago...

The 1st prototype boards are here and was able to put one (almost together) over the last few days. Progress : one board partially completed component installation PWM output looks good (5V at 25khz) both thermistor inputs seem very accurate using steinhart-hart algorithm. ToDo : - find some 4pin fan headers that don't cost the earth - get the oled screen Start thinking of a USB protocol for setting fan curves submitted by /u/BuzzBumbleBee [link] [comments]

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POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — a designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer and photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for the data-center, telecom and artificial intelligence (AI) markets — has started sampling 400G FR4 and 800G 2xFR4 receive optical engines (RXOEs). POET will partner with Luxshare Technology Co Ltd (a subsidiary of Luxshare Precision Industry Co Ltd of Dongguan, China, that designs and manufactures datacom facilities and enterprise-level products) as a lead customer to enable the sale of power-efficient and cost-optimized 400G and 800G transceiver solutions...

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Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA and Germany-based ZF Friedrichshafen AG (one of the world’s largest suppliers to the automotive industry) have announced a strategic partnership that includes the creation of a joint innovation lab to drive advances in silicon carbide (SiC) systems and devices for mobility, industrial and energy applications. The partnership also includes a significant investment by ZF to support the planned construction of the world’s largest 200mm silicon carbide device fabrication plant in Ensdorf, Germany...

Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA has announced plans to build a highly automated 200mm-wafer silicon carbide (SiC) device fabrication facility — the largest in the world — in Ensdorf near Saarbrücken, in the south-western German state of Saarland. The firm’s first fab in Europe will be its most advanced, creating an SiC development and production facility in the European Union (EU) to support growing demand for a wide variety of automotive, industrial and energy applications...

According to market research firm TrendForce, Apple is expected to adopt micro-LEDs for its consumer electronic products in the near future. The Apple Watch will likely be the first of its products to feature a micro-LED display, and adoption is expected to occur in 2024. Then, during 2026-2030, the scope of application of micro-LEDs could expand to encompass artificial reality (AR) headset displays, smartphone displays, automotive displays etc...

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Each generation of IC design technology introduces new levels of complexity, and logic verification teams face a host of new challenges due to this dramatic rise in IC design complexity. As a result, design closure, knowing engineers have done enough of the right kind of verification to ensure that design will work flawlessly, has become a key challenge for IC developers.

Industry watchers say that logic verification traditionally consumes over 70% of the overall IC development cycle. A study from Wilson Research acknowledges this premise by stating that verification teams achieving first-silicon success has declined from 31% in 2014 to just 24% in 2022. It represents the lowest level recorded in the past 20 years.

Siemens EDA claims to have a solution to this IC design challenge: Questa Verification IQ software. It’s a data-driven verification solution that accelerates verification closure, streamlines traceability, optimizes resources, and speeds time-to-market. Questa Verification IQ is tightly integrated with Siemens’ Polarion REQUIREMENTS software to facilitate a platform that automatically captures all data from all engines IC designers run across the project cycle.

That, in turn, enables IC designers to manage requirements, coding, testing, and release management across the entire IC design and verification process. The new verification tool, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, unifies coverage data from formal and simulation engines like OneSpin software, Symphony platform for analog and mixed-signal simulation, and Veloce hardware for emulation and prototyping.

Next, the machine learning (ML) functionality in Questa Verification IQ analyzes the data to predict patterns and holes, identify root causes, and prescribe solutions to potential issues. Case in point: wireless and IoT chip supplier Nordic Semiconductor, an early adopter of Questa Verification IQ, has been able to replace the manual effort of gathering regression information with automated live status by using this tool. “Questa Verification IQ provides us with a central portal with high-level trending,” said Christoffer Amlo, verification team leader at Nordic Semiconductor.

Questa Verification IQ is a data-driven solution aiming to speed and simplify the verification process while tied to Siemens’ Polarion REQUIREMENTS software. Source: Siemens EDA

Darron May, product manager for VM, debug and coverage at Siemens EDA, said that a data-driven approach is the answer to the ever-increasing IC design complexity that has amplified functional verification challenges. He added that data is key to any improvement as the amount of data created and consumed over the past decade has increased by 50x.

“Data is now king with the emergence of mass storage capabilities and modern compute infrastructure,” May said. “It’s also key to machine learning-driven approach which will revolutionize verification with analytics and traceability features.”

Besides analytics and traceability, collaboration is the third major driver in the data-centric verification approach. Questa Verification IQ—implemented in a web-based application framework with device and OS independence—allows global engineering teams to collaborate in real-time and thus accelerate the verification process with real-time project visibility. “It enables greater collaboration across teams and geographies during the verification process, significantly reducing closure times,” said Tran Nguyen, senior director of design services at Arm.

Questa Verification IQ supports public, private, and hybrid cloud configurations with native collaboration and centralized data access. It’s also fully integrated with popular Continuous Integration (CI) tools such as Jenkins to automate workflows.

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The post The profile of a data-driven IC design verification tool appeared first on EDN.

Special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Tailwind Acquisition Corp (TWND) and NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA have completed their business combination (announced on 8 August), resulting in NUBURU becoming a publicly listed company. The combined company will operate under the name Nuburu Inc and its common stock and warrants commenced trading on 1 February on the NYSE American Stock Exchange under the new ticker symbols ‘BURU’ and ‘BURU WS’, respectively...

Sorry for jumping on the bandwagon, but I was tempted for long enough submitted by /u/theBestMrBrown [link] [comments]

In an invited talk at SPIE Photonics West 2023 in San Francisco, CA, USA (28 January to 2 February), nanoelectronics research center imec of Leuven, Belgium announced that it has demonstrated the co-integration of its silicon nitride waveguide technology with its silicon photonics platform — without any degradation in performance of the high-bandwidth active devices...

In booth #131 at SPIE AR-VR-MR at Photonics West 2023 in San Francisco (31 January – 1 February), MICLEDI Microdisplays B.V. of Leuven, Belgium — a fabless developer of micro-LED display modules for augmented reality (AR) glasses that was spun off from nanoelectronics research center IMEC in 2019 — is on hand to demonstrate its portfolio of red (R), green (G) and blue (B) gallium nitride (GaN) µLEDs...

The possibility of creating passive and active optoelectronic logic elements simultaneously performing the functions AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, XNOR is considered. Passive logic elements, unlike active ones, do not have their own power sources and are powered by input control signals. The use of optoelectronics means allows for reliable electrical isolation of input and output circuits, including using open-type optical communication channels. In addition, optoelectronic logic elements are much simpler than the usual elements of digital logic.

Wow the engineering world with your unique design: Design Ideas Submission Guide

Passive optoelectronic logic element

Figure 1 shows an example of one of the circuits of a passive optoelectronic logic element of universal purpose. Such an element simultaneously performs the functions of AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, XNOR, contains only 4 optoelectronic pairs U1–U4 and has 9 outputs; 6 of which with high (Y1 and Y2) and 3 with low (Y0) load capacity. Note that to simplify the logic element as much as possible, transistors and their accompanying resistors can be excluded from it and only outputs with low (Y0) load capacity can be used.

Figure 1 Passive input optoelectronic logic element of universal purpose with high (Y1 and Y2) and low (Y0) load capacity.

Consider the operation of a logical element. If no control signals are applied to inputs X1 and X2, current does not flow through the LEDs of the optocoupler pairs U1.1, U2.1, U3.1, U4.1. Accordingly, a high logic level voltage will be present at all outputs Y0 of the logic element.

If a control signal of the “Log. 1” level is applied to the input X1, and “Log. 0” to the input X2, the current will flow through the LEDs of the optocouplers U1.1, U3.1. The voltage will not change at the output Y0 NAND, and at the outputs Y0 NOR and Y0 XNOR the voltage will decrease to the level “Log.0”.

When the control signal of the level “Log. 0” is fed to input X1 and “Log. 1” at the input X2, the current will flow through the LEDs of the optocoupler pairs U2.1, U4.1. The voltage will also not change at the output Y0 NAND, and at the outputs Y0 NOR and Y0 XNOR there will be a level of “Log. 0”.

Finally, if high-level control signals are applied to both inputs X1 and X2, current will flow through the LEDs of the optocoupler pairs U1.1, U2.1. The output of Y0 NAND will have a level of “Log. 0”; the output of Y0 NOR will also have a level of “Log. 0”; and the output of Y0 XNOR will be at the level of “Log. 1”.

Of course, the optoelectronic logic elements NAND/AND, NOR/OR or XNOR/XOR in Figure 1 can be used separately from each other.

The advantages and disadvantages of passive optoelectronic logic elements are obvious. On one hand, there is no external supply voltage source, on the other hand, the LEDs of the optocouplers consume a sufficiently high current from the signal sources.

Active optoelectronic logic element

Next consider the active optoelectronic logic element, Figure 2. Such elements have a high input resistance, but require a power supply E1 (for this, the power supply of the receiving part E2 can be used).

The principle of operation of the optoelectronic logic element in Figure 2 is somewhat different from Figure 1 and the differences is quite obvious. In the absence of input signals, current does not flow through the LEDs of the optocouplers. A low voltage level will be present at all outputs Y0 AND, OR and XOR, see Table 1.

Figure 2 Active optoelectronic logic element of universal purpose with high (Y1 and Y2) and low (Y0) load capacity.

Table 1 The truth table of the universal purpose optoelectronic logic element.

When the control signal of level “Log. 1” is applied to the input X1 and “Log. 0” to the input X2, the current flows through the LEDs of the optocoupler pairs U2.1 and U3.1. The output Y0 AND will have a level of “Log. 0”; the outputs Y0 OR and Y0 XOR will be “Log. 1”.

When “Log. 0” is applied to the input X1 and “Log. 1” to the input X2, the current flows through the LEDs of the optocoupler pairs U1.1 and U3.1. At the output Y0 AND there will be “Log. 0”; at the outputs Y0 OR and Y0 XOR there will be “Log. 1”.

If “Log. 1” is applied to both inputs X1 and X2, the current will flow only through the LED of the optocoupler pair U3.1. At the outputs Y0 AND and Y0 OR there will be a level of “Log. 1”; at the output Y0 XOR there will be “Log. 0”.

Optoelectronic logic element with a passive or active input

Another variant of an optoelectronic logic element with a passive or active input is shown in Figure 3. The receiving part of the device is based on a universal logic element on a single transistor.

Figure 3 Universal purpose optoelectronic logic element with a passive (top left) or active (bottom left) input.

Michael A. Shustov is a doctor of technical sciences, candidate of chemical sciences and the author of over 700 printed works in the field of electronics, chemistry, physics, geology, medicine, and history.

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The post Universal purpose optoelectronic logic elements appeared first on EDN.

Epitaxial deposition and process equipment maker Veeco Instruments Inc of Plainview, NY, USA has acquired Epiluvac AB of Lund, Sweden, which was founded in 2013 and makes silicon carbide (SiC) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) equipment. It is reckoned that Epiluvac’s technology platform, combined with Veeco’s global go-to-market capabilities, create a significant long-term growth driver for Veeco...

TRUMPF Photonic Components GmbH of Ulm, Germany (part of the TRUMPF Group) – which makes vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and photodiodes for the consumer electronics, datacoms, industrial sensing, heating and automotive markets – is industrializing the production of short-wave infrared (SWIR) VCSELs above 1300nm to support high-volume applications such as in smartphones in under-OLED applications...

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In booth 1762 at the SPIE Photonics West 2023 exhibition in San Francisco (31 January – 2 February), Kyocera SLD Laser Inc (KSLD) of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA — which is commercializing gallium nitride (GaN)-based laser light sources for automotive, mobility, specialty lighting and consumer applications — is introducing high-power 5W blue laser diode products for industrial, biomedical, defense and display applications. The firm is also showcasing its new high-brightness white/IR LaserLight SMD products (winner of the 2021 Prism Award)...

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