Everyone is somewhat focused on the march of process nodes. Moore’s Law, although I think that with the breach between technology and cost that may be changing. Moore’s Law was about the lowest cost way to get a given number of transistors manufactured. But now the lowest cost and the highest density are diverging. … Read More
After Five Years, 28nm Future Remains Bright!
Five years ago TSMC started 28nm mass production and it went on to become one of the most versatile and successful process technologies in history. The first wave was triggered by an unprecedented demand for application processors from smartphone and tablet vendors. Today it’s widely assumed that 28nm demand will continue growing… Read More
3 Key Frontiers for Samsung’s Next Mobile SoC
Samsung’s Exynos 7420 system-on-chip (SoC) is now at the top of the world when it comes to performance and power efficiency benchmarks. It’s also won accolades as the first mobile chipset manufactured using the 14nm FinFET fabrication process.
However, the mobile chipsets landscape is hypercompetitive, and there… Read More
Intel 10nm delay confirmed by Tick Tock arrhythmia leak-"The Missing Tick"
Our 6/15 report of more 10nm Intel delays confirmed by leaked info…
The delay appears to have interrupted Intel’s Tick Tock cadence…
Kabylake replaces Skylake – Cannonlake pushed out over horizon?
The news we broke is now confirmed…
On 6/15 we put out a report that broke the news of further delays… Read More
GlobalFoundries Endorse ST/LETI FD-SOI 22nm!
The LETI days and the associated FD-SOI workshop took place in Grenoble (France) last week and I could not attend in person… but I had the opportunity to speak with LETI CEO Marie Semaria. Before going into details into the 3 key messages from the LETI (FD-SOI, Silicon Impulse and Cool Cube), it’s important to share the great news from… Read More
Global Foundries Completes IBM Semiconductor Acquisition
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
Why Did Intel Pay $15B For Altera?
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
Imec’s An Steegen Talks Future Process Technology
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
Heard on the Street at ITF
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
Samsung: the Journey to 14nm and 10nm
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
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot