81 posts published in 2025.
Semiconductor physics, AI hardware, HBM, photonics, advanced packaging, RF engineering, and the technologies shaping the semiconductor industry.
Welcome to the 2025 research library.
During 2025, Vik’s Newsletter expanded from semiconductor fundamentals and RF engineering into deeper coverage of AI hardware, memory, optical networking, semiconductor manufacturing, and datacenter infrastructure.
The common theme across these articles is understanding technology from first principles. I start with the underlying physics or engineering problem, examine the available solutions and their trade-offs, and then connect those decisions to the companies and industries involved.
This library organizes my writing by subject rather than publication date. Some articles are foundational tutorials; others examine emerging architectures, industry developments, and the competitive implications of new technologies.
If you’re new to a subject, I recommend following the articles in sequence.
1. Semiconductor Physics and Device Fundamentals
Start here if you want to understand how semiconductor devices work before exploring the technologies built around them.
The Joy of Semiconductor Devices — Why semiconductor device physics remains such a fascinating subject.
Understanding Energy Bands in Semiconductors — The foundation for understanding electron behavior in semiconductor materials.
Semiconductor Doping, Electron Affinity, Work Function and Anderson’s Rule — Essential concepts for understanding interfaces and semiconductor junctions.
How Electrons Move in Semiconductors: The Science of Carrier Drift — How electric fields produce carrier transport.
Carrier Diffusion, Generation and Recombination in Semiconductor Devices — The mechanisms controlling carrier populations and transport.
How Dennard Scaling Allowed Transistors to Shrink — The physical assumptions behind transistor scaling and the limits that eventually emerged.
2. Semiconductor Manufacturing, Lithography, and Advanced Packaging
How semiconductor manufacturing determines what can actually be designed, built, and economically deployed.
A Comprehensive Primer on Advanced Semiconductor Packaging — A technical introduction to advanced packaging and its role in semiconductor scaling.
Why Yield Without Die Area is Meaningless — Understanding defect density, chip area, and manufacturing yield.
NVIDIA CuLitho and the Future of Inverse Lithography — How accelerated computing is changing computational lithography.
An In-Depth Look at the Viability of X-rays as an Alternative to EUV Lithography — Evaluating an alternative lithography technology and its physical limitations. Companion video essay.
The Manufacturing Challenge Behind NVIDIA’s Plan to Mount AI Chips Directly on PCB Platforms — The challenges of replacing conventional advanced packaging approaches.
Ruthenium: The Next Step in Interconnects for Advanced Logic Nodes? — Evaluating alternative interconnect metals as copper scaling becomes more difficult.
When Semiconductor Manufacturing Went East and Chip Design Followed — How the geography of manufacturing influences the broader semiconductor ecosystem.
3. AI Compute Architectures and Inference
Understanding the workloads, architectures, and hardware choices that determine AI inference performance and economics.
A Primer on Transformer Architecture: Model Parameter Calculations, Estimating GPT-5 Architecture — A quantitative introduction to transformer models and their architecture.
How Edge-AI Chips Can Solve the Cocktail Party Problem — Using edge AI hardware for challenging real-world signal-processing problems.
How d-Matrix’s In-Memory Compute Tackles AI Inference Economics — The engineering and economic trade-offs behind an in-memory compute architecture. Executive brief and video essay.
NVIDIA-Groq: The Occam’s Razor Explanation — Assessing NVIDIA’s Groq technology licensing agreement and competing explanations for its strategic significance.
4. High Bandwidth Memory, DRAM, NAND, and Storage
Why memory bandwidth, capacity, manufacturing complexity, and the memory hierarchy matter so much for AI systems.
Why Is High Bandwidth Memory So Hard to Manufacture? — The engineering challenges involved in producing HBM stacks.
Why Faster PHY Design is the Low-Hanging Fruit in Custom HBM4 Base Dies — The potential for logic-process base dies and improved PHY design to increase HBM performance.
How AI Demand Is Driving a Multi-Year Memory Supercycle — Examining the relationship between AI infrastructure demand and the memory market.
High Bandwidth Flash: NAND’s Bid for AI Memory — Whether NAND-based technologies can occupy a larger role in the AI memory hierarchy.
Role of Storage in AI, Primer on NAND Flash, and Deep-Dive into QLC SSDs — NAND fundamentals, SSD architecture, and storage requirements for AI. Executive summary.
Why Memory Defines AI Hardware Supremacy — A contribution published on AI Supremacy examining the importance of memory to AI hardware.
5. Photonics, Optical Interconnects, and Datacenter Networking
Understanding when copper works, when optics becomes necessary, and what determines the architecture of optical networking systems.
Networking and interconnect fundamentals
A Beginner’s Guide to Interconnects in AI Datacenters — A foundation for understanding the technologies connecting AI accelerators.
Plastic Cables for AI Clusters: Can Point2’s E-Tube Disrupt Copper and Optics? — Evaluating an alternative transmission medium for AI networking.
A Complete Guide to Optical Transceiver Nomenclature — A reference for understanding transceiver form factors, reach, modulation, and wavelength configurations. Executive brief, summary tables, and video.
The Gigabit Wall: No More Need for Speed — Examining the limits and practical value of further communications speed increases.
Lasers, photonic integration, and CPO
The Silicon Photonics Moonshot: Group IV Integrated Lasers — The difficulty of creating efficient integrated light sources using Group IV materials.
Why Co-Packaged Optics Uses External Lasers Instead of Integrated Sources — The physical and reliability considerations behind external laser architectures. Executive brief and video.
Interview: Indium Phosphide Lasers and Photonic Integration with Prof. Martijn Heck — A technical discussion covering InP, heterogeneous integration, manufacturing yield, quantum-dot lasers, and the photonics supply chain.
CPO Fears, Credo, and Role of AEC in 1.6T Networking — Examining active electrical cables and the transition toward optical integration.
Is Optics Really the Next Memory? — Looking at growing investor interest in optical networking and the underlying technology trends.
Specialty optics
Why Earth’s Best Optical Fiber Can Only Be Made in Space — ZBLAN optical fibers, material processing under microgravity, and the emerging in-space manufacturing ecosystem.
January 2025: Margin Notes on Optics — Short technical observations and developments in optical technologies.
6. Power Electronics and Power Delivery
The electrical engineering behind higher-voltage systems, semiconductor material selection, and energy-efficient power conversion.
Understanding High-Voltage DC Power Architectures for AI Megafactories — The architecture of high-voltage power delivery for large AI datacenters.
The Rise of 800V Electric Vehicles and Role of Silicon Carbide — Why EV architectures are moving to higher voltages and how SiC devices make the transition possible.
7. RF Engineering, Satellite Communications, and Sensing
RF engineering fundamentals and the emerging technologies reshaping wireless systems.
Why 50 Ohms Became the RF Standard — The historical and engineering reasons behind a ubiquitous RF impedance standard.
Why the Future of RF Amplification in Satellites is Solid-State Devices on GaN — Comparing GaN solid-state power amplifiers with traditional traveling-wave-tube solutions.
IMS 2025: AI for RF, Heterogeneous Integration, 100 GHz+ Systems, RF GaN — Technical developments and observations from the International Microwave Symposium.
IMS 2025: Why LEO Satellite Markets Are Brutally Exclusive and What to Do About It — Understanding technical and commercial challenges in satellite communications.
Has RF Lost Its Spark? Rethinking Innovation in the AI Era — A reflection on innovation and the direction of the RF engineering profession.
Why Fathom Light Uses LiDAR in Long Range Airborne Applications — The technology behind long-range airborne optical sensing.
8. Electronic Design Automation, AI Tools, and Engineering Practice
Practical guides and explorations of the tools engineers use to design, simulate, measure, and validate hardware.
How to Learn Chip Design With Open-Source EDA Tools — A learning path for semiconductor design using open-source software.
A Comprehensive Guide to Installing Open Source Tools for Integrated Circuit Design — Practical setup instructions for an open-source IC design environment.
Can You Vibe Your Way Through Chip Design? — Testing the possibilities and limitations of AI-assisted chip development.
Why Documentation is the Missing Link Between AI and Chip Design — The importance of accessible technical documentation in AI-assisted engineering.
Why Building Smarter EDA Tools Is Key to Winning the AI Era — The opportunity to improve semiconductor design productivity through better automation.
Using AI to Break the Black Magic of RF Design — Applications of AI to RF engineering workflows.
How Cracked Engineers Recreated World-Class RF Research in 30 Hours on Social Media — A case study in engineering collaboration and accelerated research.
A Practical Roadmap to AI Fluency for Hardware Designers — Developing useful AI skills for semiconductor engineering.
The Decline of MATLAB: What Engineers Should Learn Instead — Evaluating alternatives to traditional engineering software.
The Engineer’s Guide to Measurement Precision — Fundamentals of accuracy, precision, and interpreting measurements.
What Chip Design Can Learn from Supersonic Jets — Exploring connections between engineering design challenges across different industries.
9. Engineering Careers and Professional Development
Lessons on building technical expertise, navigating a semiconductor career, and becoming a more effective engineer.
Why the Chip Industry Is Struggling to Attract the Next Generation — The structural problems facing semiconductor engineering careers.
Why Getting a Semiconductor Job Is Harder Than It Should Be — Exploring the semiconductor industry’s hiring challenges.
How to Escape the Corporate Rut for Midcareer Chip Engineers — Career development for experienced engineers.
Passion versus Practicality in Engineering Careers — Balancing professional opportunity with personal technical interests.
7 Unwritten Rules for High-Impact Engineering Careers — Practical lessons for engineers seeking greater effectiveness and influence.
A Detailed Playbook to Leveling Up Your Meetings, Mentorship, and Career Conversations — Practical frameworks for improving professional interactions.
10. Industry Strategy, Technology Trends, and Emerging Markets
Engineering-driven perspectives on industry structure, supply chains, company strategy, and technological uncertainty.
The Four Horsemen of the AI Infrastructure Buildout — Potential constraints and failure scenarios for AI infrastructure expansion.
The Boring Chips That Brought Europe to Its Knees — The importance of mature-node and less glamorous semiconductor supply chains. Executive brief.
NVIDIA Buys Into Intel, Apple’s Modem Gamble, Corporate Jobs, and the Billion-Dollar Cable Race — Industry developments and their implications.
QCOM AI Accelerators, NVIDIA in 6G, X-Ray Litho as EUV Killer?, Skyworks-Qorvo Merger — A collection of semiconductor industry observations.
Are You Quantum Ready? — Examining the promise of quantum computing and the questions surrounding its practical applications.
11. Conference Notes and Technical Interviews
Reports and firsthand perspectives on developments presented at leading semiconductor conferences.
First Impressions from ISSCC 2025 — The major technical themes, architectures, and discussions from ISSCC.
IMS 2025: AI for RF, Heterogeneous Integration, 100 GHz+ Systems, RF GaN — RF technology research and conference observations.
IMS 2025: Why LEO Satellite Markets Are Brutally Exclusive and What to Do About It — Satellite industry observations from IMS.
Interview with Prof. Martijn Heck on InP Lasers and Photonic Integration — A detailed conversation about emerging semiconductor photonics.
12. Essays, Quizzes, and Other Writing
The Hidden Art Inside Your Microchips — A guest essay about the intersection of semiconductor technology and artistic expression.
Secrecy in the Sistine Chapel — Technology, RF shielding, and security in an unusual setting.
Semi Pub Quiz #1 — Test your semiconductor knowledge.
Semi Pub Quiz #1 Answers — Answers, explanations, and suggested reading.
Publication updates and milestones
These historical posts document the development of the newsletter. Subscription and discount information in older posts may no longer be current.
You can also explore the complete chronological publication archive.
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