TSMC has always been my bellwether and for 2019 I think we need to pay careful attention. Bad economic news has been spreading inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem (tool and IP budgets have been tightening) but I think it is a bit premature. Let’s take a look at the TSMC 2018 Q4 earnings call and talk more about it in the comments… Read More
TSMC and Apple Aftermath
TSMC reported an in line quarter, as expected and also reported down Q1 guidance, also as expected. The only thing some investors may have been caught off guard about is the magnitude of the expected drop, 14%, from $9.4B to $7.35B. This is the largest quarter over quarter drop for TSMC in a very long time. Importantly for TSMC, 7NM … Read More
The New Intel CEO
Interestingly, in some circles I’m known as an “Intel basher” but nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up with Intel and give them full credit for bringing serious compute power to our desktops. My first Intel powered computer was an IBM XT and I have had dozens of Intel based desktops and laptops since then. As a result, I … Read More
Samsung vs TSMC 7nm Update
The semiconductor foundry business has gone through a dynamic transformation over the last 30 years. In the beginning the foundries were several process nodes behind the IDMs with little hope of catching up. Today the foundries are leading the process development race at 10nm – 7nm, and will continue to do so, absolutely.… Read More
Intel Discontinues the Custom Foundry Business!
After mentioning what I heard at IEDM 2018, that Intel was officially closing the merchant foundry business as an aside in a SemiWiki forum discussion, I got a lot of email responses so let me clarify. Honestly I did not think it was a big surprise. Intel Custom Foundry was an ill conceived idea (my opinion) from the very start and was… Read More
Samsung IEDM 2018 Keynote and the Foundry Business
IEDM is a premier semiconductor conference so it was certainly appropriate for Samsung to do the keynote since they are the largest and one of the most innovative semiconductor companies in the world, absolutely.
Samsung is also one of the more interesting semiconductor companies since they do it all: chip design, semiconductor… Read More
Intel Diversity Semiconductors
Growing up in a military family, mostly in California, I would consider my cultural diversity life experience to be more than most. I remember in the 1960s some older folks were chattering about a colored family moving into our neighborhood and they had a son my age. Imagine my excitement as a child in having a multicolored friend!… Read More
GlobalFoundries Pivots in China
China has always been an intriguing semiconductor puzzle that very few companies have solved and now it is much more puzzling with the current political meandering. The GlobalFoundries vision of having foundries all over the world was very appealing to me back in 2009 and even more so today. Remember, China consumes more than half… Read More
The Latest from Samsung Semiconductor
Earlier this Spring, Samsung Foundry held a technology forum, describing their process roadmap and supporting ecosystem developments (link). Recently, the larger Samsung Semiconductor organization conducted a Tech Day at their campus in San Jose, presenting (and demo-ing) a broader set of products. The focus of the day was… Read More
Intel Q3 2018 Jibber Jabber
This is what happens when you have a CFO acting as a semiconductor CEO, and Robert Holmes is a career CFO with zero semiconductor experience or education. Granted, no way did he write the opening statement, but it was full of jibber jabber anyway. The real disappointing jibber jabber was from our own Murthy Renduchintala on the status… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot