Smartphones, cars, and home appliances. The pulsating heart of these advanced devices, nestled in your hand or woven into your daily life, is often a tiny semiconductor chip. This small marvel enables an unimaginable array of complex functionalities. But did you know that the birth of such a "magical&
Do you have a semiconductor design engineer in your family? Before planning your Vacance? ask them for their 'Tape out' schedule. The term “tape-out” harks back to the 1970s when engineers recorded design data on magnetic tapes and physically shipped them to foundries (Tapeout Origin). These tapes held
Introduction The memory hierarchy is a cornerstone of modern computer architecture, enabling systems to balance the competing demands of speed, capacity, and cost. From ultra-fast registers to high-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs), each level of the hierarchy is optimized for specific performance characteristics. However, the growing disparity between processor and
1. Introduction to Physical Verification in VLSI Design Physical verification is a critical step in the VLSI design flow, ensuring that the integrated circuit (IC) layout adheres to the manufacturing constraints defined by the foundry. Among the various checks performed, Design Rule Checking (DRC) is a cornerstone of physical verification,
The High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) roadmap from HBM4 to HBM8 represents a transformative leap in memory architecture to meet the escalating demands of AI supercomputing, particularly for large language models (LLMs), generative AI, and eventual AGI/ASI systems. HBM4 (2026, NVIDIA Rubin, AMD MI400) * Specifications: 8Gbps (HBM4e: 10Gbps), 2048 I/
Introduction to Semiconductor Yield In Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) manufacturing, yield is a cornerstone metric that quantifies the proportion of functional integrated circuits (ICs) produced from a silicon wafer. Defined as the ratio of good chips to total chips, yield directly influences the economic viability of semiconductor production. The
![[Digital design] Latch based Static Timing Analysis](/content/images/size/w600/2025/06/-------------2025-06-15-073417.png)
소개 Latch-based design is used in digital semiconductor design. Cell Transistor count D Latch 12~16 D Flip-Flop 18~32 Compared to Flip-Flop-based design, it offers the advantage of reduced transistor count, which impacts power and area. A key benefit of latches is timing flexibility through time borrowing. However, Flip-Flops
Executive Summary The Trump administration's recent export control measures targeting Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software represent a paradigm shift in semiconductor geopolitics, fundamentally altering the landscape of global chip design capabilities. This comprehensive analysis examines the technical, economic, and strategic implications of restricting Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA
The landscape of semiconductor manufacturing has evolved into a complex ecosystem where foundry selection represents one of the most critical strategic decisions in ASIC development. As process technologies advance beyond the 3nm node and specialized applications demand increasingly stringent requirements, the foundry selection process has transformed from a simple cost-performance
I'll research semiconductors until the day I die. And share everything I learn
Imagine you're in the final interview at your dream company and they ask: "What is a semiconductor? Please explain in detail" 1. Band Theory Explanation A semiconductor is a solid material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor (metal) and an insulator. From a band
With recent changes in the technology industry, the salaries and prospects of engineering positions continue to evolve. In particular, salary levels for engineers in the United States show significant differences based on specialization, region, education level, and experience. This article provides a comprehensive look at US engineers' salary trends
LSF (Load Sharing Facility) Usage Guide: Job Scheduler Program Frequently Used in AI, Simulation, and Semiconductor Design Let's explore LSF (IBM Spectrum LSF), one of the server management programs in detail. To summarize briefly: 1. Companies and research institutes have numerous people using supercomputers. 2. They will request
In my last post, we learned about LSF. Most big tech companies and large corporations use LSF, but LSF licenses are quite expensive. From a user perspective, LSF is convenient, but Slurm can be really good when used properly. People who are proficient with Slurm often find LSF frustrating. So
For engineers and developers new to Kubernetes, I'll briefly explain the basic concepts of Kubernetes along with practical usage examples. For detailed information, please refer to the official documentation! Kubernetes DocumentationKubernetes is an open source container orchestration engine for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. The
During the long holiday, SamPro TV featured some fascinating content. Professor Michael Sandel from Harvard University, famous for "Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?", issued a strong warning about Korean society. He stated that deepening inequality and meritocracy are threatening democracy, which could lead to
Semiconductor Engineers in the AI Era: At the Crossroads of Job Loss and Responsibility Up to 300 million jobs could disappear due to AI by 2030. — Goldman Sachs AI cannot replace people, but people who use AI... can do more work than many others. Ultimately, many people's jobs
I'll avoid spoilers since some people might not have seen it yet. Instead, I want to explore why this movie is more meaningful now in 2025, and how it piques curiosity about the approaching AI era. I watched this movie while relaxing during the holidays, and the lingering
Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering: Is It Worth It for Digital Circuit Design? I've been receiving a lot of emails like this recently: "I'm a job seeker dreaming of becoming an RTL design engineer... I graduated in February this year but couldn'
I never really cared about what cities were on the East or West Coast of America. As I grew up, I learned something important: The East and West Coasts of America are as far apart as Korea and India. And just like that distance... their cultures and laws are different
Today, I'd like to summarize the paper "AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for Scientific and Algorithmic Discovery" published by Google DeepMind in 2025. AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithmsNew AI agent evolves algorithms for math and practical applications in computing by combining the creativity
The presidential election is coming up soon. What I'm primarily interested in is technology policy. After all, 'exports' are Korea's only way to make a living. Korea has grown well as a Fast Follower, but we're still struggling with the next phase—
