Sometime early in 2013, Intel will tape out its first production chip for 14nm and it won’t be an x86 processor. It’s neither necessary nor prudent to lead with a new x86 processor when the one missing element that the mobile market desperately needs is nowhere to be found: an ultra low power 4G LTE chip that fits under the battery… Read More
GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden Fab 1
Even though my Dresden trip was fraught with fail points it went off without a hitch. Flying over was easy, I connected through London Heathrow, flying back I connected through Frankfurt. The last time I connected through Frankfurt was right after the 9/11 attacks so I had a bit of deja vu. I was in Munich, Heathrow was closed, I was … Read More
Common Platform: Onward to the Future
There were keynotes from all three semiconductor partners in the Common Platform Alliance and, as if to show how common they are, they all talked about the problems that need to be addressed in the next decade and a half and they all said pretty much the same thing. Gary Patton of IBM went first and so he got to say everything first. Plus,… Read More
The Coming Gamer Tablet from…… Apple!
After the introduction of the NEWiPAD, Apple has placed itself just two short steps away from dominating the computer market – including PCs. One step, which is widely reported, is a smaller iPAD with an 8” screen that aims for a $299 price point. Amazon will take the rest of the market under $299. The second step is purely speculation… Read More
Common Platform Technology Forum: Peering into the Future
Next Wednesday is the Common Platform Technology Forum. “Common Platform” is a name that only a committee could have come up with, giving no clue as to what it actually is. As you probably know, there are various process clubs sharing the costs of technology development (TD) and one of them consists of IBM, Samsung and… Read More
Apple’s New iPAD and the End of PC Benchmarks
With the introduction of the “New iPAD”, we now have the 2012 benchmark for the tablet market, including the offerings that will come from Amazon later in the year. As has been noted earlier, with each new mobile product iteration Apple unmoors itself from the PC foundations of Microsoft, Intel and even nVidia and AMD. At the unveiling… Read More
TSMC absolutely did NOT halt 28nm production!
Once again industry professionals get duped! Tabloid journalism runs amok inside the semiconductor ecosystem! As if our industry does not face enough challenges, why are we wasting time on drivel like this? This is a TSMC 28nm wafer by the way and thousands of them are being shipped around the world, believe it.
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Designing ARM Powered High Performance SoCs on 28nm and 20nm!
Last week I had an interesting meeting with GLOBALFOUNDRIES executives Kevin Meyer and Mojy Chian. It certainly seems that GFI has turned a corner! I will be in Dresden next week for DATE 2012 and will also visit the GFI Fab there. 28nm and 20nm are on track so expect an aggressive implementation plan from GFI this year.… Read More
Atrenta/TSMC Soft-IP Alliance: 10 companies make the grade
Last May, Atrenta and TSMC announced the Soft-IP Alliance Program which uses SpyGlass and a subset of its GuideWare reference methodology to implement TSMC’s IP quality assessment program. TSMC requires all soft-IP providers to reach a minimum level of completeness before their IP is listed on TSMC online. Since TSMC … Read More
TSMC 28nm Yield Explained!
Yield, no topic is more important to the semiconductor ecosystem. After spending a significant part of my career on Design for Manufacturability (DFM) and Design for Yield (DFY), I’m seriously offended when semiconductor professionals make false and misleading statements that negatively affects the industry that … Read More
No! TSMC does not Make 90% of Advanced Silicon