EDACafe Industry Predictions for 2023 – Alphawave Semi

By Tony Pialis, CEO and cofounder, Alphawave Semi

Tony Pialis

The AI computing war will reach a fever pitch

The race for evermore powerful AI supercomputers will shift into high gear and the industry will see more records being broken and set in 2023. Microsoft and Nvidia just announced plans to build a new Azure-hosted AI supercomputer, Nvidia and IBM releases more powerful chips, and newcomers such as Cerebras raised $720M in funding along with unveiling a 13.5M core AI supercomputer. This AI supercomputer arms race shows no sign of stopping as ML training becomes more complex. One emerging challenge, however, is being able to feed data fast enough with higher bandwidth and low latency to operate AI workloads to their full potential. This will drive the development of more highly customized and optimized silicon solutions with faster chip-to-chip connectivity links in the most advanced process nodes designed in leading-edge foundries like TSMC. The rate of development for connectivity solutions to keep pace with AI computing will be faster and more essential than ever in the next year.

Semiconductors will be at the front of industrial policy among advanced nations, but challenges are ahead

The disruptions in the supply chain brought on by COVID led the world to recognize just how essential semiconductors are to everyday life from powering cars, TVs, and even laundry machines to cutting-edge phones and computers. Having witnessed the impact of a chip shortage, governments of highly industrialized countries are putting semiconductor manufacturing, R&D, and workforces at the center of their industrial policy priorities. Major investments such as the U.S CHIPS Act ($280B) and the anticipated EU Chips Act  ($46B) is just the start in the grand effort to bring home chip fabrication, research, and skilled workers to secure supply chains.

There will be challenges, however, the centralization of semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan has converged technology and a thriving ecosystem around TSMC that has propelled the semiconductor industry forward. Now as new, local on-shore manufacturing emerges (eg. Samsung, GF, Intel), the ecosystem must adapt and ensure manufacturing, IP, EDA, and ASIC technologies are made available across a broader range of manufacturers. The expansion and on-shoring of manufacturing will need to rejuvenate university research and enrollment in hardware engineering and material sciences. Over the last twenty years, there has been a decline in enrollment and research, as semiconductor manufacturing has been moved off-shore, and computer science has taken off. As on-shore western fabs emerge again, they need educated PhDs to manage them. This will require a rejuvenated pipeline of graduate students to manage these factories.

This can be a problem as student interest in entering the semiconductor industry remain low in comparison to other technology fields. It can be partly attributed to public perception of the industry, which usually consists of working in bunny suits working in closed-off and noisy fabs. It’s a much different image compared to the remote work or decorated tech offices and campuses found in software-focused startups/companies. Ambitious individuals would also prefer companies where they can create an impact from the start and perceive the semiconductor industry as too hierarchal or restrictive. Changing the perception of the industry over the next year will be a critical factor in building the next generation of talent.

The rise of the chiplet ecosystem/ the democratization of chiplets

Chiplets have become the answer to extend the benefits of Moore’s law into the future, solving the issue of chips becoming too costly to develop and manufacture in the most advanced technologies. As of today, only large semiconductor players such as Intel, AMD, and Apple have been able to ship chiplets in significant volumes. The next step in this evolution is the creation of an ecosystem where chips from different companies/vendors can interface and interoperate. A major push from governments and the industry is now driving the standardization of chiplet interfaces (i.e UCIe, Bunch of Wires, and OpenHBI). We see a clear trend towards openly available advanced packaging solutions where complete systems with multiple heterogeneous chiplets can be combined into a single package. These trends will facilitate the rapid development of customized silicon systems-in-a-package, opening floodgates of innovation.

About Author:

Tony Pialis, CEO and cofounder of Alphawave Semi

Tony Pialis co-founded Alphawave Semi in 2017 and has since served as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Tony has extensive experience as an entrepreneur in the semiconductor industry, having co-founded three semiconductor IP companies, including Snowbush Microelectronics Inc, which was sold in 2007 to Gennum/Semtech and is currently part of Rambus. He also founded V Semiconductor Inc. where he served as President and CEO, and which was acquired by Intel Corporation in 2012. Tony served as Vice President of Analog and Mixed-Signal IP at Intel Corporation between 2012 and 2017. During his tenure at Intel, Tony and his team won the prestigious Intel Achievement Award for successfully delivering next generation Ethernet and PCI-Express SerDes solutions on Intel’s 22nm and 14nm process technologies. Tony holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Category: Predictions

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2023 at 5:52 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.