The book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” is now available in the Kindle (mobi) and iBooks (ePub) formats. We are really looking forward to your feedback before we go to print in March. This was truly a Tom Sawyer experience for me. As the story goes Tom made whitewashing a fence seem like fun so his friends… Read More
Author: Daniel Nenni
TSMC Responds to Intel’s 14nm Density Claim!
TSMC responded to Intel’s 14nm density advantage claim in the most recent conference call. It is something I have been following closely and have written about extensively both publicly and privately. Please remember that the fabless semiconductor ecosystem is all about crowd sourcing and it is very hard to fool a crowd of semiconductor… Read More
Digital @ Nano-Scale while Analog Hovers @ 65nm and Above
Who’s going to DesignCon next week? I am, absolutely. Dr. Hermann Eul, Vice President & General Manager, Mobile & Communications Group, Intel Corporation will be keynoting on Tuesday. This one I want to hear! Intel missed mobile at 32nm, 22nm, and 14nm. Lets see what they have planned for 10nm. Something good I hope!… Read More
Intel is NOT Transparent Again!
Recent headlines suggest that Intel was not transparent about some of the products they showed at the CES keynote. Intel confirmed on Friday that they used ARM-based chips for some of the products but would not say which ones. When your company’s tag line is “Intel Inside” and you hold up a product during your keynote wouldn’t… Read More
Positive Semiconductor Job Outlook in 2014!
Based on local traffic patterns and my experience in Silicon Valley over the last 30 years we are looking at a much higher employment rate inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Jobs are being filled more so than I have seen in the past ten years. The challenge of course is finding the right people for the right job… Read More
Is Intel the Concorde of Semiconductor Companies?
An Intel executive recently told me that my Intel articles on SemiWiki are used to motivate employees to work hard and prove me wrong. The converse is also true. The senseless Intel fabless ecosystem bashing motivates me to continue to write so it is a win-win scenario, absolutely. In fact, I should credit Intel’s Mark Bohr… Read More
Migrating SOCs from 8051 to 32-bits
The 8051 processor has been widely used in many embedded applications over the past 30 years. While the 8051 core is small and simple-to-use, the newest generation of consumer electronics being developed today often require more than the 8051 MCU can reasonably deliver. New SOC applications such as flash drives, power management… Read More
Sidense Beats Kilopass in Court Again!
The technology headlines in 2013 were often stolen by frivolous legal actions that made little or no sense to me at all. Patent Trolling is at an all-time high inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and as a result litigation reform is coming to Silicon Valley, believe it.
Currently working its way through the legislative process… Read More
Low Power @ DesignCon 2014
Taking place annually in Silicon Valley, DesignCon is the premier educational conference and technology exhibition for electronic design engineers in the high speed communications and semiconductor communities.
Created by engineers for engineers, DesignCon is the largest gathering of chip, board and systems designers… Read More
Innovations that will change our lives in the next five years
The theme of our book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” comes from the Steve Jobs quote,“You can’t really understand now if you don’t know what came before.” After chronicling the rise of the semiconductor industry and transformation to the fabless business model we ask in the final chapter, … Read More
TSMC N3 Process Technology Wiki