On April 2 – 4, the 2019 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics (FCMN) will be held at the Monterey Marriott in Monterey, CA. The 2019 FCMN is the 12th in the series that began in 1995 with a keynote talk by Craig Barrett, ex-CEO of Intel.… Read More
GLOBALFOUNDRIES UPDATE 2019
The GLOBALFOUNDRIES story has been one of the more interesting ones inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. It started in 2008 when AMD announced a partnership with ATIC of Abu Dhabi to create a new joint venture company to become the world’s first truly global semiconductor foundry. On March 4[SUP]th[/SUP] of 2009 (happy… Read More
LithoVision 2019 – Semiconductor Technology Trends and their impact on Lithography
I was asked to present at Nikon’s LithoVision event again this year. LithoVision is held the day before the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference also in San Jose. The following is a write up of my talk.… Read More
Synopsys GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Automotive IP
IP vendors have always had the inside track on the status of new process nodes and what customers are planning for their next designs. This is even more apparent now that systems companies are successfully doing their own chips by leveraging the massive amounts of commercial IP available today. Proving once again that IP really … Read More
Physical Design for Secure Split Manufacturing of ICs
Semiconductors are not only critical to modern life, semiconductors are critical to National Security. Now that leading edge semiconductor foundries have left the United States one of the more pressing challenges is secure semiconductor manufacturing. This applies to all countries of course so let’s take a look at the International… Read More
Doesn’t sound like a recovery anytime in 2019
AMAT reported a more or less in line quarter with revenues of $3.75B and Non-GAAP EPS of $0.81 versus street expectation of $0.79 and revenues of $3.71B. Guidance came in well below the street with revenues expected between $3.33B to $3.63B and Non-GAAP EPS from $0.62 to $0.70 versus expectations of $3.66B and $0.77. The company … Read More
GLOBALFOUNDRIES Talks About Enabling Development of 5G ICs
5G is in the news again. Sprint has mounted a legal challenge against ATT, claiming that ATT is misleading people into believing that they already are offering 5G. While ATT is about to start testing of 5G, they have also sent out updates that causes customer phones to display 5GE when they are still on 4G LTE systems. The truth is that… Read More
A Detailed History of Samsung Semiconductor
From our book “Mobile Unleashed”, this is a detailed history of Samsung semiconductor:
Conglomerates are the antithesis of focus, and Samsung is the quintessential chaebol. From humble beginnings in 1938 as a food exporter, Samsung endured the turmoil and aftermath of two major wars while diversifying and expanding.… Read More
The 50th Year of Intel, What Happened in 2018
2018 was the 50th year for Intel in the semiconductor business, and their Q4 2018 conference call just happened last week, so I’ll get you all caught up on what they talked about. Bob Swan is the CFO and interim CEO, as the company continues to search for a new CEO after Brian K. was ousted for misconduct. Here’s a quick financial… Read More
Intel Swaggers at CES
Intel started out as a DRAM company using planar NMOS technology, then later on added EPROM and Microprocessors to the product mix. Their CPU technology enabled the dynamic growth of the PC industry starting with the IBM PC back in 1981 and continuing all of the way to this day. They long ago dropped out of the DRAM marketplace and began… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot