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
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
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
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
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
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
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
I got a tip sheet today for the upcoming 2018 Symposia on VLSI Technology & Circuits to be held June 19th through 21st in Honolulu, Hawaii. There is some interesting information on Samsung’s 10nm, 8nm and 7nm processes in the tip sheet:… Read More
Samsung throws further gas on the fire of weak handset and CAPEX not set but will be down versus 2017. Samsung reported revenues of KRW 60.56 Trillion and KRW 15.64 Trillion operating profit ($56B and $15B). Chips accounted for whopping KRW 11.55 Trillion in operating profit on revenues of KRW 20.78 Trillion ( $11B and $19B)….a… Read More
There is a report in the Seoul Economic Daily that Samsung has completed development of their 7nm process using EUV and that production will begin in June. What is claimed in the report is:
