The Chip Shortage, Giant Chips, and the Future of Moore’s Law IEEE Spectrum's biggest semiconductor headlines of 2021

With COVID-19 shaking the global supply chain like an angry toddler with a box of jelly beans, the average person had to take a crash course in the semiconductor industry. And many of them didn't like what they learned. Want a new car? Tough luck, not enough chips. A new gaming system? Same. But you are not the average person, dear reader. So, in addition to learning why there was a chip shortage in the first place, you also discovered that you can—with considerable effort—fit more than two trillion transistors on a single chip. You also found that the future of Moore's Law depends as much on where you put the wires as on how small the transistors are, among many other things.

For full article

Prophesee's CEO explains the future of sensors that only see changes

This month, Sony starts shipping its first high-resolution event-based camera chips. Ordinary cameras capture complete scenes at regular intervals even though most of the pixels in those frames don't change from one scene to another. The pixels in event-based cameras—a technology inspired by animal vision systems—only react if they detect a change in the amount of light falling on them. Therefore, they consume little power and generate much less data while capturing motion especially well. The two Sony chips—the 0.92 megapixel IMX636 and the smaller 0.33 megapixel IMX637—combine Prophesee's event-based circuits with Sony's 3D-chip stacking technology to produce a chip with the smallest event-based pixels on the market. Prophesee CEO Luca Verre explains what comes next for this neuromorphic technology.

For full article

There’s something inherently inefficient about the way video captures motion today. Cameras capture frame after frame at regular intervals, but most of the pixels in those frames don’t change from one to the other, and whatever is moving in those frames is only captured episodically.

For full article 

Lumotive, a startup in Bellevue, Wash., says it has a compact, long-range lidar sensor that is at least as capable as the best machines from its rivals but smaller, cheaper to make, and more robust.

For full article