Spending on semiconductor manufacturing equipment is headed for healthy growth in 2014. The latest data from SEMI and the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) shows March 2014 three-month-average billings for semiconductor manufacturing equipment were up 16% from February 2014 and up 31% from a year ago. Bookings… Read More
GlobalFoundries Gets a 14nm Process
I went to a briefing last Tuesday where Samsung and GlobalFoundries announced that they have the same process at 14nm. Dan already wrote about itso it is old news in one sense. But I really think people underestimate its importance. In essence, reading between the lines, Samsung is licensing GF their 14nm process. This is driven … Read More
Maker Faire San Mateo
A few years ago my then-girlfriend was an artist and she had some friends who were in the maker movement, one who ran a tool “lending library” and so on. So she wanted to go to the Maker Faire, which is a huge event held in San Mateo exhibit center. In those days it was more like an outgrowth of burning man but there were already… Read More
Another Intel Slide Debunked!
This was one of the most memorable keynotes I have seen, absolutely. Probably because it supports my belief that the infamous Intel slide that “projected” Intel will continue a linear manufacturing cost per transistor improvement at 14nm and 10nm is pure marketing fluff. Even more interesting, according to Intel, other semiconductor… Read More
Samsung ♥ GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Had I not been briefed personally I may not have believed it. Samsung and GLOBALFOUNDRIES will work closely together on satisfying 14nm wafer demand while sharing Samsung’s FinFET secret sauce. This tells me two things: Samsung has more 14nm design wins than I had originally reported and the new GF CEO is serious about the… Read More
Intel Lost $1B in Mobile Last Quarter
Intel announced their quarterly results today. Revenue was $12.8B, up 1% from a year ago with operating income of $2.5B also up 1% from last year.
Since the future of the world is mobile and not desktop/laptop, the mobile results are the most interesting. Mobile sales fell 61% to $156M. This includes mobile products and anything … Read More
What, SD doesn’t have enough pins?
I was in a Twitter conversation over the weekend with some very smart people, and one of the discussion points was how slow and painful the formal standardization process can be. One suggestion was that IoT companies should “just do it”, creating specification-by-implementation. … Read More
U2U: Things You Might Not Know About TSMC
At Mentor’s U2U this afternoon I attended a presentation on TSMC’s use of Calibre PERC (it is a programmable electrical rule checker) for qualification of IP in TSMC’s IP9000 program. I’ve written about this before here. Basically IP providers at N20SOC, N16FF, and below are required to use PERC to guarantee… Read More
FD-SOI, FinFET, 3D in Monterey
Last night the IEEE Silicon Valley Chapter had a panel session that was in some ways a preview of some of what will be discussed at the Electronic Design Process Symposium in Monterey next Thursday and Friday. At EDPS Herb Reiter organized a session on FinFET, 3DIC and FD-SOI (sort of how many buzzwords can you get into one set of titles).… Read More
Who Wants to Live in Malta?
Who wants to live in Malta? A beautiful island in the eastern Mediterranean with wonderful food…wait, that’s the wrong Malta. I’m talking about the one in upstate New York where GlobalFoundries have their big fab 8 and also their technology development center (also known as fab 8.1).
So why would you want to … Read More
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here