Samsung hosted its first-ever Samsung Tech Week Oct 3-5 with some insightful keynotes and great food. The week led off with Samsung Foundry Forum and a keynote from Foundry president, Si-Young Choi. Attendees at Samsung Foundry’s SAFE Forum were welcomed by Ryan Lee, head of the business’ Design Enablement team. John In-Young… Read More
Micron and Memory – Slamming on brakes after going off the cliff without skidmarks
-Micron slams on the brakes of capacity & capex-
-But memory market is already over the cliff without skid marks
-It will likely take at least a year to sop up excess capacity
-Collateral impact on Samsung & others even more important
Micron hitting the brakes after memory market already impacts
Micron capped off an otherwise… Read More
Samsung Foundry Forum & SAFE™ Forum 2022
It has been an exciting time in the semiconductor industry and the excitement is far from over. Years 2022 and 2023 will be more challenging in many different ways and live activities have just begun. The cornerstones to the semiconductor industry are the foundries so I look forward to the live foundry events coming up in October,… Read More
Intel and the EUV Shortage
In my “The EUV Divide and Intel Foundry Services” article available here, I discussed the looming EUV shortage. Two days ago, Intel announced their first EUV tool installed at their new Fab 34 in Ireland is a tool they moved from Oregon. This is another indication of the scarcity of EUV tools.
I have been tracking EUV system production… Read More
The EUV Divide and Intel Foundry Services
The EUV Divide
I was recently updating an analysis I did last year that looked at EUV system supply and demand, while doing this I started thinking about Intel and their Fab portfolio.
If you look at Intel’s history as a microprocessor manufacturer, they are typically ramping up their newest process node (n), in volume production… Read More
Samsung Keynote at IEDM
Kinam Kim is a longtime Samsung technologist who has published many excellent articles over the years. He is now the Chairman of Samsung Electronics, and he gave a very interesting keynote address at IEDM.
He began with some general observations:
The world is experiencing a transformation powered by semiconductors that has been… Read More
Ansys CEO Ajei Gopal’s Keynote on 3D-IC at Samsung SAFE Forum
System on chip (SoC) based design has long been recognized as a powerful method to offer product differentiation through higher performance and expanded functionality. Yet, it comes with a number of limitations, such as high cost of development. Also, SoCs are monolithic, which can inhibit rapid adaptation in the face of changing… Read More
Foundry Fantasy- Deja Vu or IDM 2?
– Intel announced 2 new fabs & New Foundry Services
– Not only do they want to catch TSMC they want to beat them
– It’s a very, very tall order for a company that hasn’t executed
– It will require more than a makeover to get to IDM 2.0
Intel not only wants to catch TSMC but beat them at their own … Read More
No Intel and Samsung are not passing TSMC
Seeking Alpha just published an article about Intel and Samsung passing TSMC for process leadership. The Intel part seems to be a theme with them, they have talked in the past about how Intel does bigger density improvements with each generation than the foundries but forget that the foundries are doing 5 nodes in the time it takes… Read More
Can Samsung Foundry Really Compete with TSMC?
The semiconductor foundry business has been front page news of late and for good reason, it’s an exciting time in the semiconductor industry and the foundries are where it all begins. Unfortunately, most of the “exciting” news has been overblown but this topic is of great interest, to me at least. Having been intimately involved… Read More
Can RISC-V Help Recast the DPU Race?