Introduction
Monday morning at DAC I attended the breakfast presentation from Magma, ARM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES. The 28nm node is ready for business using Magma tools and ARM libraries.
During breakfast I met Karim Arabi, Ph.D. from QualComm. He’s a senior director of engineering in San Diego and wanted to learn more about… Read More
GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm Design Ecosystem!
GLOBALFOUNDRIES will show off its 28nm design ecosystem at #48DAC next week in San Diego. The company will feature a full design ecosystem for its 28nm High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology, including silicon-validated flows, process design kits (PDKs), design-for-manufacturing (DFM), and intellectual property (IP) in partnership… Read More
New TSMC 28nm Design Ecosystem!
TSMC rolled out the new reference flows for 28nm design as part of the Open Innovation Platform. The biggest surprise (to me) is that Cadence is STILL in the TSMC reference flows!
The updated TSMC OIP wiki is here, the Reference Flow 12.0 wiki can be found here, the AMS 2.0 reference flow wiki is here, and the official TSMC PR is here. … Read More
Intel’s 22nm Process. Atom, ARM, Apple
Intel had a big press event yesterday at which they announced details of their 22nm process. In a change from their current processes, it goes with a vertical gate. In fact 3 gates which gives them much better control of leakage through transistors that are switched off, along with more transmission through the on transistors. They… Read More
37 Billion IC with MTP IP from now to 2015: clearly, Kilopass and GlobalFoundries partnership make sense…
Although there has been always a strong relationship between Kilopass and Chartered Semiconductor, this relationship has been even enhanced after the acquisition of Chartered by GLOBALFOUNDRIES, allowing Kilopass’s customers to integrate NVM IP on advanced technology nodes, down to 40nm or even 28nm in the near future.
Before… Read More
TSMC Conference Call is a 6.5 on the Richter Scale
TSMC continues to drive the economic recovery with impressive Q1 numbers and an even more impressive Q2 and Q3 outlook. TSMC is my economic bellwether due to its diverse customer base and shear volume of consumer electronics silicon. The big surprise in the 1 hour Q1 conference call is a new Giga Fab (#15) ground breaking this year… Read More
Intel Buys an ARMy. Maybe
Is Intel in trouble? Since it is the #1 semiconductor company and, shipping 22nm in Q4 this year with 14nm in 2013, it is two process generations ahead of everyone else it is hard to see why it would be. Intel, of course, continues to dominate the market for chips for notebooks, desktops and servers. But therein lies the problem. Pads… Read More
AMD and GlobalFoundries / TI and UMC
There have been some significant foundry announcements recently that if collated will give you a glimpse into the future of the semiconductor industry. So let me do that for you here.
First the candid EETimes article about TI dumping Samsung as a foundry:
Taiwan’s UMC will take the ”lead role’’ in making the OMAP 5 device on… Read More
Samsung is NOT a Foundry!
Samsung is the #1 electronics company, the #2 semiconductor company, and for 20+ years the world’s largest memory chip maker. Analysts expect Samsung to catch Intel by the year 2014. In the foundry business however Samsung is a distant #9 after more than a five year investment and here’s why:
Foundry 2010 Revenue:
(1) TSMC $13B
(2)… Read More
ARM and GlobalFoundries
Although there has been always a strong relationship between ARM and GlobalFoundries, it is interesting to notice that Intel has helped to boost it and make it even stronger. Indeed when AMD renegotiated its x86 licensing deal with Intel in 2009, one of the most significant long-term changes was a marked reduction in how much of … Read More
TSMC Unveils the World’s Most Advanced Logic Technology at IEDM