In total we have blogged 41 times about FD-SOI on SemiWiki which has drawn an audience of 202,960 thus far. Of that traffic 31.68% came directly to SemiWiki (Newsletter), 30.13% came from search, 26.17% from social media (LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Google+, Reddit, etc…), and 11.99% came from other referring sites. The most… Read More
Author: Daniel Nenni
Synchronizer Optimization 101
A webinar presented Last week introduced two free aids to evaluating synchronizer Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). The first, MetaACE LTD, is used to characterize the intrinsic parameters needed to calculate MTBF (tau and Tw). This limited version of MetaACE supports up to 250 circuit nodes, which is enough for a typical C-only-extracted… Read More
TSMC 20nm Essentially Worthless?
It happens at every process node, professional journalists write that something is broken and blames TSMC like a worn out record. To be fair they are not semiconductor professionals with access to the fabless semiconductor rank and file and are easily manipulated which is what happened again at 20nm. Remember when NVIDIA suggested… Read More
Do You Need a Silicon Catalyst?
Lately there has been significant concern over the rising costs of designing in silicon and the troubling decline in venture investments in semiconductors. These alarming trends include fewer IPOs, a falloff in the amount and frequency of early stage seed investments, and comparatively low industry organic growth rates. A … Read More
TSMC vs Samsung!
One of the trending topics in Taiwan last week is the escalating conflict between Samsung and TSMC. This time however it is of a legal nature which has been a long time coming for the semiconductor industry. Reverse engineering has been an integral part of the semiconductor business since the beginning, as has intellectual property… Read More
Open Forum for Semiconductor Professionals!
The semiconductor industry has never been more exciting than it is today, at least not in my 30 years of experience. Things are moving faster than ever before making collaboration at all levels a requirement. At SemiWiki we are afforded the privilege of passes to semiconductor conferences around the world. We also have access to… Read More
Has the Semiconductor Industry Gone Mad?
The weather in Taiwan last week was very strange. It was so cold I tried to turn on the heat in my hotel room only to find out it was not possible. If you want more heat they bring a portable heater because who needs central heat in Hsinchu? Even stranger is all of the media hyperbole on the next process nodes:
Intel CFO: We’re so far… Read More
Intel to Launch 10nm Chips in Early 2017?
As I have mentioned before, Intel and the foundries approach process development from different starting points. Intel is committed to Moore’s law in reducing the transistor cost by increasing the process density in a near linear fashion. The foundries on the other hand work closely with partners and customers to determine the… Read More
Qualcomm versus Samsung?
There is an interesting reality show playing in the media featuring Qualcomm and Samsung with supporting actors TSMC, LG, Xaomi, and Apple. As I’m sure we all have read, Samsung is losing massive amounts of money on mobile which was once a very profitable business unit. Let’s take a look at the current landscape and some of the recent… Read More
IBM to Humiliate 20% of Workforce?
There are four big technology companies that I grew up with: Intel, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM. I still follow all four but it is sometimes hard to watch. Last week there was talk of a massive layoff at IBM and I have just confirmed it with my Upstate sources. According to an article in Forbes it will be 25% of the more than 400,000 workforce.… Read More
Rapidus, IBM, and the Billion-Dollar Silicon Sovereignty Bet