Silicon qubits are ready for scale-up

Silicon-based quantum computers could piggyback on decades of miniaturization and manufacturing experience in the semiconductor industry, but the technology has struggled with high error rates. Now, researchers at Qutech have demonstrated silicon qubits that operate above the long-standing goal of more than 99 percent fidelity.

TSMC throws down a $44B gauntlet

Announcing its 2022 capital budget, TSMC threw a bucket of cold water on its rivals’ ambitions to gain market share.

Connecting the electronic design flow

EDA tools are widely used for PCB, FPGA and IC design. As standalone tools, they work perfectly for many designers and design departments. Product lifecycle management usually isn’t that well integrated into the flow, but that makes it no less essential, argue Richard van der Werf and Niek ten Hove of Dizain-Sync.

ASML scrambles to remedy a chip shortage that nobody saw coming

It’s all hands on deck at ASML to give chipmakers the additional wafer output they all crave. Curiously, no one predicted this massive explosion in demand.

In other news

Bits&Chips podcasts: Jan van Eijk (part 2)

Our editors talk to the innovators driving the high-tech industry. Listen (in Dutch) to researchers, developers and decision-makers speak about trends, technology, business and their motivations. In this week’s edition of the Bits&Chips podcast, professor Jan van Eijk on mechatronics giant ASML.

Why automotive OEMs desperately need Brainport

Automotive OEMs have woken up to the importance of software, but they haven’t yet understood the consequences for their systems engineering. The Brainport can help out.

Platform lesson #5: Distinguish customer-unique and customer-first functionality

Although it’s fine to incorporate customer-first functionality into the platform and then generalize it to other customers over time, we should be very careful to include customer-unique functionality.