On April 8 and 9 Intel held its Intel Vision event in Phoenix Arizona. This is Intel’s premier event for business and technology executive leaders to come together and learn about the latest industry trends and solutions in advancements from client, to edge, to data center and cloud. The theme of this year’s event was Bringing AI … Read More
TSMC and Synopsys Bring Breakthrough NVIDIA Computational Lithography Platform to Production
NVIDIA cuLitho Accelerates Semiconductor Manufacturing’s Most Compute-Intensive Workload by 40-60x, Opens Industry to New Generative AI Algorithms.
An incredible example of semiconductor industry partnerships was revealed during the Synopsys User Group (SNUG) last month. It started with a press release but there is much… Read More
No! TSMC does not Make 90% of Advanced Silicon
Throughout the debate on fab incentives and the Chips Act I keep seeing comments like; TSMC makes >90% of all advanced silicon, or sometimes Taiwan make >90% of all advanced silicon. This kind of ill-defined and grossly inaccurate statement drives me crazy. I just saw someone make that same claim in the SemiWiki forums and… Read More
Intel and TSMC IDM 2024 Discussions
In December 2023, we published the Intel Revenue forecast for external wafer sales, gave a breakdown on how customers plan to ramp the foundry. The forecast is still valid (it assumes Intel executes on all plans) but since then we have a better understanding of Intel’s strategy and scenarios that could unfold.
The scenarios… Read More
Intel Direct Connect Event
On Wednesday, February 21st Intel held their first Foundry Direct Connect event. The event had both public and NDA sessions, and I was in both. In this article I will summarize what I learned (that is not covered by NDA) about Intel’s business, process, and wafer fab plans (my focus is process technology and wafer fabs).
Business
… Read MoreISS 2024 – Logic 2034 – Technology, Economics, and Sustainability
For the 2024 SEMI International Strategy Symposium I was challenged by members of the organizing committee to look at where logic will be in ten years from a technology, economics, and sustainability perspective. The following is a discussion of my presentation.
To understand logic, I believe it is useful to understand what makes… Read More
Intel should be the Free World’s Plan A Not Plan B, and we need the US Government to step in
There are trillions of dollars at stake with AI and huge geopolitical consequences. However, the weak foundation to American technological power is their dependence on Taiwan and TSMC, which is where most advanced silicon is manufactured. America has also been taking China to the ropes lately in their economic/technology proxy… Read More
Sustainable Development: Connected Devices and the Role of Flexible Semiconductors
The ambitious United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from reducing food waste to enhancing global healthcare access, hinge on a connected world where every object whispers valuable data. As technology strives to address environmental challenges, healthcare needs, and promote responsible consumption, traditional… Read More
SOITEC Pushes Substrate Advantages for Edge Inference
You might not immediately see a connection between semiconductor substrate choices and inference at the edge. These technology layers seem worlds apart and yet SOITEC have a point. Edge AI has rapidly evolved from simple CNNs to now complex reinforcement learning systems and transformer based LLMs. Even when shrunk to edge footprints,… Read More
How Disruptive will Chiplets be for Intel and TSMC?
Chiplets (die stacking) is not new. The origins are deeply rooted in the semiconductor industry and represent a modular approach to designing and manufacturing integrated circuits. The concept of chiplets has been energized as a response to the recent challenges posed by the increasing complexity of semiconductor design. … Read More
Elon Musk Given CHIPS Act & AI Oversight – Mulls Relocation of Taiwanese Fabs