Semiconductor And Beyond Newsletter - #179

Author

Chetan Arvind Patil
November 05, 2023

Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) have become the default go-to architecture whenever the requirement is for faster throughput. The primary reason is the massively parallel processing with the help of many cores and how the memories get organized around them.

Due to the benefits of such an architecture, the AI World has also adopted GPUs as its go-to silicon architecture. The goal is to process large amounts of data in the shortest time possible; other technical reasons are reusability and portability, which lower the entry barrier for new companies developing large-scale AI solutions.

Several semiconductor companies provide GPU solutions. However, NVIDIA is winning the GPU race so far, and the main reason is the near-perfect software-to-silicon ecosystem it has created. It enables new and existing customers to adapt to the latest GPU type swiftly and also new AI Frameworks, all while keeping the reusability and portability cost under check.

What does not work in favor of GPU architecture...

THREAD

VC investments in 2020s will be key to leading the innovation around semiconductor. Learn about the current state of VC investments in the semiconductor industry and which country is leading the VC investment race.

Recently, as part of US Chips And Science Act, Semiconductor Research Corporation in collaboration with top professionals, institutes and universities released Microelectronics And Advanced Packaging Technologies Roadmap (MAPT). Read the report to find the opportunities and gaps in the US semiconductor ecosystem.

While, US Chips And Science Act is rightly reestablishing the needed pillars for American Semiconductor Ecosystem. The questions remain whether the existing structure is leading to too many US focused semiconductor programs, and whether there is a need to re-structure these to make it more impactful.

For every 5 million students (including international students) that enter the formal education system (in the US), only 19 thousand end up pursuing semiconductor as a career. Learn more about the reasons student are not pursuing semiconductor as a carer option.

Automotive industry is poised to be the next-big computing platform and will be vital segment for the semiconductor industry's growth. With more than 1.5 billion cars on the road and only 30 million equipped with autonomy, the market opportunity for the semiconductor industry is endless.

VLOG

Watch the insightful video on Analog/Mixed-Signal, or AMS Verification Engineering in the semiconductor industry.

In this video, we are diving deep into the heart of semiconductor design, exploring how AMS verification engineers play a pivotal role in ensuring that integrated circuits, or ICs, function flawlessly in real-world conditions.

With the increasing complexity of today's semiconductor devices, the need for meticulous and thorough verification processes is more crucial than ever, ensuring reliability and top-notch performance in various applications.

There's a growing demand for skilled AMS verification engineers in the semiconductor market, opening doors to exciting opportunities for those ready to take on the challenge. For students aspiring to enter this field, building a solid foundation in nalog and digital circuit design is crucial.

Continuously updating your skills through training and practical experience will set you on the path to success. Remember, as an AMS verification engineer, you are playing a critical role in shaping the future of technology, making it an advantageous career choice.

GOVERNMENT

India's Odisha state has signed multiple MoUs to develop the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.

Vietnam is gearing up to launch the first semiconductor plant and with the high cost associated, US officials have raised concerns.

Singapore with just six million population is beating the world by attracting the global talent.

US government takes steps to prevent critical semiconductor sales to certain global market. This may impact several US semiconductor companies who also cater to such market.

Germany will be another country where TSMC is planning to setup a semiconductor FAB.

Australia is focusing on securing the talent that it will be need, as it plans to revamp its semiconductor industry.

INDUSTRY

The race to build new semiconductor FABs in the US, took another step forward. With Texas Instruments breaking the ground on new 300-mm semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Utah.

Lockheed Martin is working to help the state of Arkansas develop a semiconductor manufacturing industry.

As per Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the global semiconductor sales increased by 1.9%. Thus, setting up industry for positive 2023 year and growth. That is bound to extend further in 2024. 

ACADEMIA

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is gearing up to bid for US federal government to make Illinois state the leader in semiconductor technology development.

Erica R.H. Fuchs, a professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering, has been appointed to the National Semiconductor Technology Center Board (NSTC). The NSTC will be a public-private consortium that provides a platform where government, industry, customers, suppliers, educational institutions, entrepreneurs, workforce representatives, and investors converge to address the semiconductor ecosystem’s most pressing challenges and opportunities.

The University of Texas at Arlington is part of a Texas- and Oklahoma-based consortium, led by Southern Methodist University (SMU), that will serve as a Regional Innovation and Technology Hub (Tech Hub) to catalyze investment in technology critical to economic growth, national security and job creation.

A $390,000 National Science Foundation grant will enable the University of Dayton to purchase equipment to create semiconductor chips and devices in hours rather than weeks, and at a significantly lower cost.

RESEARCH

NVIDIA has released a research paper that focuses on using LLMs for Chip Design. In near future, the assistive GenAI will be key part of silicon chip development with the potential of AI designing the chip on its own.

 

Per NVIDIA's research team: "ChipNeMo aims to explore the applications of large language models (LLMs) for industrial chip design. Instead of directly deploying off-the-shelf commercial or open-source LLMs, we instead adopt the following domain adaptation techniques: custom tokenizers, domain-adaptive continued pretraining, supervised fine-tuning (SFT) with domain-specific instructions, and domain-adapted retrieval models. We evaluate these methods on three selected LLM applications for chip design: an engineering assistant chatbot, EDA script generation, and bug summarization and analysis. Our results show that these domain adaptation techniques enable significant LLM performance improvements over general-purpose base models across the three evaluated applications, enabling up to 5x model size reduction with similar or better performance on a range of design tasks. Our findings also indicate that there’s still room for improvement between our current results and ideal outcomes. We believe that further investigation of domain-adapted LLM approaches will help close this gap in the future."

TOOLS

Andreas Olofsson has created an open GitHub repository that lists several awesome open source hardware tools, generators, and reusable designs. 

This list is very helpful for students who wish to enter the semiconductor industry and looking to pre-align the skills with the industry requirements.

Check the repository here.

JOBS

Update your resumes and CVs.

2024 is going to be a breakthrough year in semiconductor hiring with the industry on track for positive growth. This will increase the hiring across the semiconductor industry and is bound to benefit the graduating students and professionals looking to join the most advanced and at the same time, the most critical industry in the world.

Definitely connect with me on LinkedIn, in case of any open questions.

CONNECT

Whether you are a student with the goal to enter semiconductor industry (or even academia) or a semiconductor professional or someone looking to learn more about the ins and outs of the semiconductor industry, please do reach out to me.

Let us together explore the world of semiconductor and the endless opportunities:

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