BSPDN + more things
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IEDM: DTCO & More than Moore – by Doug O’Laughlin – The future is about Design Technology Co-optimization (DTCO), and Backside Power Deliever Networks (BSPDN) is a huge part of the roadmaps forward post-gate-all-around. A good place to start on what exactly Backside Power Delivery Networks (BSPDN) is is my post I wrote a few months ago about the bold bets Intel is making there. The big takeaway is that BSPDN is clearly going to be inserted in the design processes, and there is a small roadmap of improvements afforded by BSPDN. But after that, BSPDN will change the design process to allow adding more features, like moving functions on to the backside of the chip. By splitting the signal and power layers, there’s a whole new set of ideas of how to design chips with the space afforded from the power layers. This is Design Technology Co-optimization (DTCO) and System Technology Co-optimization (STCO) at it’s best. BSPDN looks like it has several years of obvious scaling potential, so it will be a huge part of the incremental semiconductor process from here until 2030. It will not only improve the energy delivered to the chip, but actually shrink the cell size. Think about it like a new way to organize the room, and now we can fit more in less even though its the same room filled with the same objects. Next, the roadmap in the long term after we have fully achieved backside power contact networks means we could open up the wafer on the other side of the chip. If we are opening up the other side to be a functional signal layer, there’s a potential we can start adding backside devices to the chip! This blew my mind, and the options for stacking layer, memory, and other devices (like energy capacitors) is endless! This is huge! – BSPDN is a key part of Intel’s technology roadmap. BSPDN is a mix of process lithography and logic technology to decouple the power grid from the design.
The proposed technique delivers power from the backside of a thinned device wafer, which allows for greater wafer sizes in terms of the amount of logic in a chip
Business
Jeep-Maker Stellantis Is Laying Off 1,350 Workers, Blaming EVs | Business Insider – interesting and complex picture being painted. In general, electric cars have less parts for assembly than their internal combustion engine powered equivalent cars. The costs must be coming in component costs and or research and development
China
Fashion factory: Mango brings production closer to home in rethink on China | Financial Times – “In this debate about whether 30 years of globalisation will continue or go backwards, the most important thing for us to follow in detail is the China issue,” he said. Asked if Mango would reduce the proportion it buys from the country, Ruiz replied: “I would say yes, but we’ll be very alert to how things evolve.” Mango gains some freedom from the fact it has only six stores in mainland China and consumers there contribute little to total sales, which it predicts will this year surpass its 2019 record of €2.4bn. Other brands have already moved more decisively. The US jeans maker Levi’s and UK bootmaker Dr Martens have been reducing their sourcing from China since before the pandemic.
Economics
Tertiarisation like China | CEPR – which screws future growth numbers
Energy
‘The Godfather, Saudi-style’: inside the palace coup that brought MBS to power | Guardian
Chinese battery makers set to dominate Europe’s car industry | Financial Times – not great given yet another form of dependence that’s being set up
US scientists boost clean power hopes with fusion energy breakthrough | Financial Times – if true its a big moment. The issue is that the diagnostic measurement instruments were damaged during the ‘breakthrough‘
Ethics
Car Brand Tesla, VW, and GM Exposed to Forced Uyghur Labor: Researchers | Business Insider
Health
If you thought business jargon was bad . . . | Financial Times
Masking could fight the ‘tripledemic’, experts say. Will anyone listen? | The Guardian
Hong Kong
Innocent-sounding ‘care teams’ spark fears of heightened surveillance in Hong Kong — Radio Free Asia
Innovation
Why NASA Hasn’t Put Astronauts on the Moon in 50 Years | Business Insider – politics and a lack of money, something that the Chinese space programme won’t suffer from
Is AI Adoption Reaching a Plateau? / Digital Information World
Japan
Asia’s advanced economies now have lower birth rates than Japan | The Economist – japan now has higher birth rate than China
Online
China’s internet darlings seek growth after zero-Covid | Financial Times
My Mastodon profile in case Musk manages to sink twitterSecurity
‘The Godfather, Saudi-style’: inside the palace coup that brought MBS to power | Guardian – this sounds like a Tom Clancy novel
Tools
Cheap Books! – a meta search engine for books
Web of no web
Forty Years After ‘Tron,’ Storytellers Are Moving onto the Metaverse – Variety