I’m writing this from the Boston airport on my way home from four straight weeks of PIC (photonic integrated circuit) related travel. It’s been a grueling but very rewarding four weeks and the big take away from this month is that there are now many more signs in the market that integrated photonics is reaching a real tipping point.… Read More
Shootout at 22nm!
For an industry that drives improvement at an exponential rate it is funny how often something old is new again. Intel went into high volume production on 22nm in 2011, and TSMC and Samsung have both had 20nm technologies in production for several years. And yet, recently we have seen renewed interest in 22nm. GLOBALFOUNDRIES has… Read More
Intel Manufacturing Day: Nodes must die, but Moore’s Law lives!
Yesterday I attended Intel’s manufacturing day. This was the first manufacturing day Intel has held in three years and according to Intel their most in depth ever.
Nodes must die
I have written several articles comparing process technologies across the leading-edge logic producers – GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Intel, Samsung… Read More
Top 10 Updates from the TSMC Technology Symposium, Part II
An earlier article described some of the technical and business highlights from the recent TSMC Symposium in Santa Clara (link). This article continues that discussion, with the top five updates.… Read More
Samsung Should Just Buy eSilicon Already!
As you all know I’m a big fan of the ASIC business dating back to the start of the fabless semiconductor transformation where anybody could send a design spec to an ASIC company and get a chip back. The ASIC business model also started the smart phone revolution when Samsung built the first Apple SoCs for the iPhones and iPads.
Today … Read More
Top 10 Updates from the TSMC Technology Symposium, Part I
Last week, TSMC held their 23rd annual technical symposium in Santa Clara. In the Fall, TSMC conducts the OIP updates from EDA/IP partners and customers. The theme of the Spring symposium is solely on TSMC’s technology development status and the future roadmap. Indirectly, the presentations also provide insight into … Read More
TSMC Talks About 22nm, 12nm, and 7nm EUV!
The TSMC Symposium was jam-packed this year with both people and information. I had another 60 minutes of fame in the Solido booth where I signed 100 books, thank you to all who stopped by for a free book and a SemiWiki pen. SemiWiki bloggers Tom Dillinger and Tom Simon were also there so look for more TSMC Symposium blogs coming in the… Read More
SPIE 2017: EUV Readiness for High Volume Manufacturing
The SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference is the world’s leading conference addressing photolithography. This year on the opening day of the conference, Samsung and Intel presented papers summarizing the readiness of EUV for high volume manufacturing (HVM). In this article, I will begin by summarizing the EUV plans … Read More
TSMC Design Platforms Driving Next-Gen Applications
Coming up is the 23rd annual TSMC Technology Symposium where you can get first-hand updates on advanced and specialty technologies, advanced backend capabilities, future development plans, and network with hundreds of TSMC’s customers and partners. This year the Silicon Valley event kicks off at the Santa Clara Convention… Read More
EUV is NOT Ready for 7nm!
The annual SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference kicked off last night with vendor sponsored networking events and such. SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics but this year SPIE Advanced Lithography is all about the highly anticipated EUV technology. Scotten Jones and I are at SPIE so expect more detailed… Read More
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here