Lots of Foundries and Fabless Companies do exist - what about standards for their interface?

DATE 2010 ET-P3 PANEL SESSION

Date: Thu, 2010-03-11; Time: 12:45-13:45
Room: Exhibition Theatre, Ground Floor

Organizers: Manfred Dietrich, Fraunhofer IIS/EAS, and Rene Schueffny, TU Dresden

Companies like Broadcom and Nvidia have shown that the Fabless model conquers the semiconductor market. Today all IDM’s use foundries as second source or use it as part of their volume production Because of the high cost of new manufacturing facilities IDM’s become Fablight and concentrate with their production on highly sophisticated processes. How is it possible to handle even more complex circuits if their processes cannot any more be deeply influenced by the internal design team? Today the value chain of the semiconductor market isolates and dominates more and more the vertical companies like EDA, Design house, Fabless, IP provider, Foundry Test & Packaging. Do we have already enough standards or do we need more and where do we need more standards and how can we make it happen? Who will be the driver or who should be the driver? This panel should offer some answers or even create more questions! It is fact - Fabless companies will have more and more impact in the whole IC logic market and Foundries increase their market share every year! Is it time for standards? [more]

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Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics

Fundamentals, Biomedical Applications, and Bio-inspired Systems
Rahul Sarpeshkar; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hardback (ISBN-13: 9780521857277)

This book provides, for the first time, a broad and deep treatment of the fields of both ultra low power electronics and bioelectronics. It discusses fundamental principles and circuits for ultra low power electronic design and their applications in biomedical systems. It also discusses how ultra energy efficient cellular and neural systems in biology can inspire revolutionary low power architectures in mixed-signal and RF electronics. The book presents a unique, unifying view of ultra low power analog and digital electronics and emphasizes the use of the ultra energy efficient subthreshold regime of transistor operation in both. Chapters on batteries, energy harvesting, and the future of energy provide an understanding of fundamental relationships between energy use and energy generation at small scales and at large scales. A wealth of insights and examples from brain implants, cochlear implants, bio-molecular sensing, cardiac devices, and bio-inspired systems make the book useful and engaging for students and practicing engineers.

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