When sketching out the chapters for our book “Mobile UnLeashed” we sought out the events and technology that empowered the mobile devices that literally changed our world. One of the companies that enabled this change of course is Samsung. Cleverly embedded in chapter 8 “To Seoul, via Austin” is the story of how Samsung got into … Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 5 – Intel and Micron 3D NAND
At IEDM Intel and Micron presented “A Floating Gate Based 3D NAND Technology With CMOS Under Array” authored by Krishna Parat and Chuck Dennison.
As I previously discussed in my blog on the IEDM memory short course and blog on IMEC’s work on high mobility 3D NAND channels, continuing to scale 2D Flash has become extremely difficult… Read More
Samsung Versus Intel at 14nm
Daniel Nenni recently blogged about Intel’s claims of industry leading process density that were made at their analysts meeting. It isn’t clear to me why Intel makes this such a big focus at the analysts meetings, they really don’t compete with the foundries much but this seems to be a big deal to them. I thought it would be interesting… Read More
Who Will Get the Next Bite of Apple Chip Business?
Recent reports have Intel displacing Qualcomm as the modem supplier and TSMC as the foundry for the next Apple A10 SoC. That is if you call this a credible report: … Read More
FDSOI Cost Analysis – Part I
One of the most frequently discussed concerns regarding FDSOI adoption is the higher starting wafer cost compared to bulk technology. This discussion was also brought up after my earlier post,… Read More
BATTERYGATE: Is Apple’s Samsung made iPhone 6S Core Rotten?
By this time, anyone with a pulse in the tech industry knows that Apple has dual sourced the A9 processor for the Iphone 6S, from both Samsung and TSMC. There are even apps to tell whether your 6S has a Samsung or TSMC part in it. People have run performance comparisons and concluded that the processing performance is the same, which … Read More
Samsung Device Solutions Has a New Home
Last week it was the formal opening of Samsung’s new office building in North San Jose. They have brought together all of semiconductor device solutions in a huge new office building. The building can hold 2000 people. Samsung Device Solutions consists of:
- memory
- system LSI
- LED
- display
Dr OH Kwan, the CEO of Samsung Electronics,… Read More
Samsung to cut Semi Capex 20% due to over capacity
Article confirms market fears…
An article in the Korea Times cites sources that say Samsung will cut Semi Capex by 20% due to current oversupply and weak pricing. This is obviously a huge negative as Capex for 2016 will certainly be down significantly from 2015 given these cuts which follow on cuts by Intel and others. We can… Read More
Mongoose: The Making of Samsung’s Custom CPU Core
Samsung is seemingly ready to move to a new milestone in its brief but exciting system-on-chip (SoC) history: a custom CPU core codenamed Mongoose. It’s going to be based on ARMv8 instruction set and is expected to outperform the Exynos 7420 application processor that Samsung unveiled this year. There are some media reports… Read More
SoC and Foundry Update 2H 2015!
Rarely do I fly first class but I did on my recent trip to Asia. It was one of the new planes with pod-like seats that transforms into a bed. The flight left SFO at 1 A.M. so I fell asleep almost immediately missing the first gourmet meal. About half way through the flight I found myself barely awake staring straight up and what do I see? STARS!… Read More