TSMC and Samsung continue to raise the competitive bar for FinFET foundry market share with dueling announcements this week. As I mentioned previously in the blog Semiconductor Foundry Landscape Update 2019, FinFETs are the market to watch with the coming onslaught of 5G and AI chips on the edge, in the cloud, and in our autonomous… Read More
Semiconductor Foundry Landscape Update 2019
The semiconductor foundry landscape changed in 2018 when GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Intel paused their leading edge foundry efforts. Intel quietly told partners they would no longer pursue the foundry business and GF publicly shut down their 7nm process development and pivoted towards existing process nodes while trimming headcount… Read More
A Detailed History of Samsung Semiconductor
From our book “Mobile Unleashed”, this is a detailed history of Samsung semiconductor:
Conglomerates are the antithesis of focus, and Samsung is the quintessential chaebol. From humble beginnings in 1938 as a food exporter, Samsung endured the turmoil and aftermath of two major wars while diversifying and expanding.… Read More
Samsung vs TSMC 7nm Update
The semiconductor foundry business has gone through a dynamic transformation over the last 30 years. In the beginning the foundries were several process nodes behind the IDMs with little hope of catching up. Today the foundries are leading the process development race at 10nm – 7nm, and will continue to do so, absolutely.… Read More
Samsung IEDM 2018 Keynote and the Foundry Business
IEDM is a premier semiconductor conference so it was certainly appropriate for Samsung to do the keynote since they are the largest and one of the most innovative semiconductor companies in the world, absolutely.
Samsung is also one of the more interesting semiconductor companies since they do it all: chip design, semiconductor… Read More
The Latest from Samsung Semiconductor
Earlier this Spring, Samsung Foundry held a technology forum, describing their process roadmap and supporting ecosystem developments (link). Recently, the larger Samsung Semiconductor organization conducted a Tech Day at their campus in San Jose, presenting (and demo-ing) a broader set of products. The focus of the day was… Read More
UMC and GF or Samsung and GF?
One of the interesting rumors in Taiwan last week was the possibility that UMC and GF will do a deal to merge or UMC will buy some GF fabs. I have talked to quite a few industry experts about it and will talk to more this week at the GSA US Executive Forum (more at the end). The US Executive Forum is what they call a C Level event which means it… Read More
TSMC GlobalFoundries and Samsung Updates from 55DAC
One of my favorite traditions at the Design Automation Conference is the Synopsys foundry events (the videos are now available). I learned a long time ago that the foundries are the foundation of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and your relationships with the foundries can make or break you, absolutely. I also appreciate … Read More
7nm, 5nm and 3nm Logic, current and projected processes
There has been a lot of new information available about the leading-edge logic processes lately. Papers from IEDM in December 2017, VLSIT this month, the TSMC and Samsung Foundry forums, etc. have all filled in a lot of information. In this article I will summarize what is currently known.… Read More
Top 10 Highlights from the Samsung Foundry Forum
Samsung Foundry recently held their annual technology forum in Santa Clara CA. The forum consisted of: presentations on advanced and mainstream process technology roadmaps; the IP readiness for those technology nodes; a review of several unique package offerings; and, an informal panel discussion with IP designers and EDA… Read More
2020 was a Mess for Intel