One of the trending topics in Taiwan last week is the escalating conflict between Samsung and TSMC. This time however it is of a legal nature which has been a long time coming for the semiconductor industry. Reverse engineering has been an integral part of the semiconductor business since the beginning, as has intellectual property… Read More
Has the Semiconductor Industry Gone Mad?
The weather in Taiwan last week was very strange. It was so cold I tried to turn on the heat in my hotel room only to find out it was not possible. If you want more heat they bring a portable heater because who needs central heat in Hsinchu? Even stranger is all of the media hyperbole on the next process nodes:
Intel CFO: We’re so far… Read More
Intel to Launch 10nm Chips in Early 2017?
As I have mentioned before, Intel and the foundries approach process development from different starting points. Intel is committed to Moore’s law in reducing the transistor cost by increasing the process density in a near linear fashion. The foundries on the other hand work closely with partners and customers to determine the… Read More
TSMC Finishes 2014 with the Chairman on the Call!
I’m not a financial guy, as I have mentioned before, so let me just make some comments on the technology discussed on today’s conference call. Please note that the Chairman Dr. Morris Chang was on the call which is probably why the TSM stock went up more than 8% immediately after. Of course there was plenty of good news to go along with… Read More
Update: Who will manufacture the Apple A9?
Last August I presented possible scenarios for the manufacturing of the Apple A9 processor. Quite a bit has changed since then so I think it is worth revisiting. There has also been quite a lot of misinformation in the press which is now pretty much a daily thing. Attending the IEDM conference last month really was a stark difference… Read More
IEDM Advanced CMOS Technology Platform Session
First I want recognize that IEDM once again provided all of the attendees with the proceedings as soon as we arrived at the conference, in fact the proceeding included every year of IEDM back to 1955. This is how a conference should be run! Anyone who read my blog about the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference will know how frustrating… Read More
Fabless Semiconductor Milestones of 2014!
After working in the semiconductor industry for the past thirty years and writing about it for the past six I would say that 2014 was one of the more interesting years of late. Vindication is the word that pops into my mind now that many “predictions” the fabless detractors have made over the last three years were proven wrong.
As a student… Read More
IEDM: TSMC, Intel and IBM 14/16nm Processes
This week is IEDM. Three of the presentations today were by TSMC, Intel and IBM going over some of the details of their 14/16nm processes. They don’t provide the slides at IEDM, just the single page papers so this may end up being a somewhat random collection of facts.
TSMC were up first. They talked about the improvements that… Read More
TSMC Gets Ready for IoT
With all the talk about 14/16nm and 10nm it is important to realize that older processes are still important. Eventually 16nm may end up being cheaper than 28nm but for the time being 28nm seems to be a sort of sweet spot, not just cheaper than every process that came before it (which was true for every new node) but also cheaper than every… Read More
TSMC Bringing EUV Into Production
Last week was ASML’s investor day. I wasn’t there and they haven’t yet got the material posted on their website, so this is all second hand information. As you know, if you have read any of my comments on EUV, I have been dubious about whether EUV would ever work for production.
The three big problems seem to be:
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