The 32nd VLSI Design/CAD Symposium just occurred in a virtual setting. The theme of the event this year was “ICs Powering Smart Life Innovation”. There were many excellent presentations across analog & RF, EDA & testing, digital & system, and emerging technology. There were also some excellent keynotes, and this… Read More
TSMC Design Considerations for Gate-All-Around (GAA) Technology
The annual VLSI Symposium provides unique insights into R&D innovations in both circuits and technology. Indeed, the papers presented are divided into two main tracks – Circuits and Technology. In addition, the symposium offers workshops, forums, and short courses, providing a breadth of additional information.
At… Read More
Highlights of the TSMC Technology Symposium 2021 – Automotive
At the recent TSMC Technology Symposium, TSMC provided a detailed discussion of their development roadmaps. Previous articles have reviewed the highlights of silicon process and packaging technologies. The automotive platform received considerable emphasis at the Symposium – this article specifically focuses on the… Read More
Highlights of the TSMC Technology Symposium 2021 – Packaging
The recent TSMC Technology Symposium provided several announcements relative to their advanced packaging offerings.
General
3DFabricTM
Last year, TSMC merged their 2.5D and 3D package offerings into a single, encompassing brand – 3DFabric.
2.5D package technology – CoWoS
The 2.5D packaging options are divided into the CoWoS… Read More
Highlights of the TSMC Technology Symposium 2021 – Silicon Technology
Recently, TSMC held their annual Technology Symposium, providing an update on the silicon process technology and packaging roadmap. This article will review the highlights of the silicon process developments and future release plans.
Subsequent articles will describe the packaging offerings and delve into technology … Read More
TSMC and the FinFET Era!
While there is a lot of excitement around the semiconductor shortage narrative and the fabs all being full, both 200mm and 300mm, there is one big plot hole and that is the FinFET era.
Intel ushered in the FinFET era only to lose FinFET dominance to the foundries shortly thereafter. In 2009 Intel brought out a 22nm FinFET wafer at the… Read More
TSMC 2021 Technical Symposium Actions Speak Louder Than Words
The TSMC Symposium kicked of today. I will share my general thoughts while Tom Dillinger will do deep dives on the technology side. The event started with a keynote by TSMC CEO CC Wei followed by technology presentations by the TSMC executive staff.
C.C. Wei introduced a new sound bite this year that really resonated with me and that… Read More
Is IBM’s 2nm Announcement Actually a 2nm Node?
IBM has announced the development of a 2nm process.
IBM Announcement
What was announced:
- “2nm”
- 50 billion transistors in a “thumbnail” sized area later disclosed to be 150mm2 = 333 million transistors per millimeter (MTx/mm2).
- 44nm Contacted Poly Pitch (CPP) with 12nm gate length.
- Gate All Around (GAA), there are several ways
How to Spend $100 Billion Dollars in Three Years
TSMC recently announced plans to spend $100 billion dollars over three years on capital. For 2021 they announced $30B in total capital with 80% on advanced nodes (7nm and smaller), 10% on packaging and masks and 10% on “specialty”.
If we take a guess at the capital for each year, we can project something like $30B for 2021 (announced),… Read More
TSMC Ups CAPEX Again!
We were all pleasantly surprised when TSMC increased 2021 Capex to a record $28 billion. To me this validated the talk inside the ecosystem that Intel would be coming to TSMC at 3nm. We were again surprised when TSMC announced a $100B investment over the next three years which belittled Intel’s announcement that they would spend … Read More