You can see a lot just by looking – as Yogi Berra was quoted as saying. The past two weeks we have seen quite a bit that adds intrigue to the true nature of Qualcomm’s 28nm product shortage and how the effects will ripple through the mobile industry for the second half of 2012. Samsung’s bold announcement of their Galaxy S III smartphones… Read More
Book Review – Quantum Physics: A Beginner’s Guide
It’s been 34 years since I graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Electrical Engineering so I was curious about what has changed in quantum physics since then. Alastair Rae is the UK-based author who wrote the book – Quantum Physics: A Beginner’s Guide. I read this on my Kindle Touch e-book… Read More
Next Generation Transistors
We have all heard that planar transistors have run out of steam. There are two ways forward. The one that has garnered all the attention is Intel’s trigate which is their name for FinFET. The other is using thin film SoI which ST is doing. TSMC and Global seem to be going the FinFET way too, although at a more leisurely pace. But … Read More
Introduction to FinFET technology Part II
The previous post in this series provided an overview of FinFET devices. This article will briefly cover FinFET fabrication.
The major process steps in fabricating silicon fins are shown in Figures 1 through 3. The step that defines the fin thickness uses Sidewall Image Transfer (SIT). Low-pressure chemical vapor (isotropic)… Read More
Handsets, what’s up?
So who’s in and who’s out these days in handsets?
It looks as if Samsung has finally achieved a long-held goal to be the largest handset vendor, taking over from Nokia which has been the market leader for 14 years since 1998 when it passed Motorola. Nokia hasn’t reported yet but they cut their forecast. Samsung … Read More
EDA Industry Talks about Smart Phones and Tablets, Yet Their Own Web Sites are Not Mobile-friendly
As a blogger I write weekly about the EDA industry and certainly our industry enables products like Smart Phones and Tablets to even exist, however if we really believed in these mobile devices then what should our web sites look like on a mobile device?
It’s a simple question, yet I first must define mobile-friendly before… Read More
Google Glasses = Darknet!
Google Project Glasses and Augmented Reality will be the tragic end to the world as we once knew it. As we become more and more dependent on mobile internet devices we become less and less independent in life. Consider how much of your critical personal and professional information (digital capital) is stored via the internet and… Read More
Apple’s 4G Field of Dreams Build Out
As Apple begins to flood the market with a full line of mobile devices sporting 4G LTE communications capability, starting with the iPAD and soon to follow with Ivy Bridge based MAC Book Pros and then in the Fall with iPhone 5s, one has to ask will the carriers be able to keep pace in order for customers to have a satisfied user experience.… Read More
No, gosh darn it, I said the NFC is near!
Getting a feature to take off in today’s smartphone market is tricky. It requires a combination of hardware support, OS support, app integration, and maybe most importantly carrier adoption. Ideas that seem ready technologically, like NFC, get stopped in their tracks by silly things like the William J. LePetomaine Thruway… Read More
Apple’s Leveling of the Semiconductor Industry
Holman Jenkins, the distinguished writer of business trends for the Wall St. Journal, recently penned an article entitled “The End of Apple’s Roach Motel?” (Personally, I think that since Apple is in California, he should have used Hotel California in his title), questioning the iPhone and iPAD maker of its ability to continue… Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography