Primarius 2B
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Foundries
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Global Foundries Completes IBM Semiconductor Acquisition

Global Foundries Completes IBM Semiconductor Acquisition
by Paul McLellan on 07-01-2015 at 4:40 pm
Categories: Foundries, GlobalFoundries

Today the deal for GlobalFoundries to acquire IBM’s semiconductor division closed, having had regulatory clearance from Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States a couple of days ago. GlobalFoundries is, of course, owned by Mubadala which is owned by the government of the Abu Dhabi, and I have heard that there… Read More

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Why Did Intel Pay $15B For Altera?

Why Did Intel Pay $15B For Altera?
by Paul McLellan on 06-30-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Foundries, FPGA, Intel, TSMC, Xilinx

While I was at the imec Technology Forum someone asked me “Why did Intel pay $15B for Altera?” (the actual reported number is $16.7B).

The received wisdom is that Intel decided that it needs FPGA technology to remain competitive in the datacenter. There is a belief among some people that without FPGA acceleration available for vision… Read More

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Imec’s An Steegen Talks Future Process Technology

Imec’s An Steegen Talks Future Process Technology
by Paul McLellan on 06-27-2015 at 7:00 am
Categories: EDA, Foundries

I’m an An Steegen groupie. Once or twice a year I see a presentation by her and it is a great summary in a ridiculously short period of time of all the potential upcoming semiconductor technologies. Yesterday was my annual fix at the imec Technology Forum (ITF). Today I got to sit down with her at the conference center.

An is different… Read More

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Heard on the Street at ITF

Heard on the Street at ITF
by Paul McLellan on 06-25-2015 at 7:00 pm
Categories: Foundries

As I said yesterday, I’m at the imec Technology Forum (ITF) in Brussels. So what have I learned from all the people that I’ve interacted with.

There were two press releases announced at a press conference yesterday. The first was that imec was expanding its relationship with Toshiba and Sandisk. This covers bringing… Read More

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Samsung: the Journey to 14nm and 10nm

Samsung: the Journey to 14nm and 10nm
by Paul McLellan on 06-24-2015 at 7:00 pm
Categories: FinFET, Foundries, Samsung Foundry

At the Samsung theatre (cutely named the Samsung Open Collaboration (SoC) theater) I watched a presentation by KK Lin on using DFM to bring up their 14nm and 10nm processes. And yes, they are real. Here is a picture I took of a 14nm wafer and a 10nm wafer. Samsung announced that they would ramp 10n to volume production by the end of next… Read More

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A Closer Look at Fab Closures Around the World

A Closer Look at Fab Closures Around the World
by Pawan Fangaria on 06-24-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Foundries

Electronics is unusually an evergreen industry where companies make profit, yet end-product prices go down significantly after a brief period of price skimming. A product phases out quite fast (in case of smartphones every 1.5 to 2 years), but still yields big bucks for successful companies in its value-chain. How does this happen?… Read More

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EUV: the view from imec

EUV: the view from imec
by Paul McLellan on 06-23-2015 at 7:00 pm
Categories: Foundries

I’m at the 2015 imec technology forum (ITF) in Brussels the next few days. One of the presentations today was by Peter Wennink, the CEO of ASML. The thing that most interested me in his presentation is what the status of EUV is today. ASML is the only company developing EUV steppers so what they think is important. On the other … Read More

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GlobalFoundries IBM Deal to Close July 1st!

GlobalFoundries IBM Deal to Close July 1st!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-21-2015 at 5:00 am
Categories: Foundries, GlobalFoundries

Probably one of the most awaited semiconductor events is coming next week if the Poughkeepsie Journal is correct, which from what I’m told by my Albany friends, they are. The official announcement was made last October using the slide deck which can be found HERE. It was originally thought that the approval process would take a year… Read More

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Can FD-SOI Change the Rule of Game?

Can FD-SOI Change the Rule of Game?
by Pawan Fangaria on 06-18-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: EDA, FD-SOI, Foundries, STMicroelectronics

It appears so. Why there is so much rush towards FD-SOI in recent days? Before talking about the game, let me reflect a bit on the FD-SOI technology first. The FD-SOI at 28nm claims to be the most power-efficient and lesser cost technology compared to any other technology available at that node. There are many other advantages from… Read More