I attended the SEMI Strategic Materials Conference earlier this month. I cover a pretty broad range of stuff on SemiWiki from embedded software and system-level design on down. But I usually stop at lithography and TCAD, which have a major impact on design and the whole fabless ecosystem. I hadn’t really thought about the… Read More
Making Wafers in Space?
The Albuquerque Journal had an article about a local company sending silicon carbide wafers into suborbital space to improve their quality. ACME Advanced Materials plans to buy low quality $250 wafers, send them into space using their process, and sell the higher quality wafers for about $750. They are working to add gallium nitride… Read More
CASPA, ARM and the Internet of Things
Today I was at the Chinese-American Semiconductor Professionals’ Association conference and dinner. Simon Segars, CEO of ARM, gave the dinner keynote. Somewhat surreally, it was in the same room in the same conference center two weeks ago that he gave they keynote at ARM TechCon. In another coincidence, Mike Muller of … Read More
SEMICON Europa
This week it is SEMICON Europa in Grenoble in the heart of the French Alps.
SEMICON Europa 2014 opened yesterday at ALPEXPO in Grenoble with more than 400 exhibiting companies. Learn about the latest innovative technologies, products, applications and business opportunities both within the European community and globally.… Read More
iPhone or Wallet – Which one do you go back for?
As a professional conference attendee I see a direct correlation between the number of people attending and the quality of the keynotes. Let’s face it, it’s all about the keynotes so you had better get some big names if you want more than your friends and family to show up. In this regards the upcoming CASPA event will probably be one… Read More
Semiconductor double digit growth in 2014 & 2015
The global semiconductor market was US$82.2 billion in the second quarter of 2014 according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). 2Q 2014 was up 4.8% from 1Q 2014 up 10.1% from 2Q 2013. Healthy growth should continue into 3Q 2014. The table below shows initial revenue growth guidance for 2Q 2014, final reported revenue… Read More
Strategic Materials Conference
SEMI’s Strategic Materials Conference is coming up fast, on September 30th and October 1st next week at the Biltmore in Santa Clara. This year’s theme, Materials Matter—Enabling the Future of IC Fabrication and Packaging, will take a broad look at what is driving the demand for new materials, and how material suppliers … Read More
What’s eSilicon Up To Now?
eSilicon, in conjunction with King Research, is conducting an unusual survey. A lot of vendor-driven surveys focus on specific pain points that are addressed by that particular vendor’s product/service. The idea is typically to either promote visibility for the product/service or establish its undeniable need in the market.… Read More
Big Data, the Cloud and the Internet of (Silicon) Things
Next week, eSilicon are kicking off a very widespread survey to measure some important semiconductor design and manufacturing challenges. Their goal is to measure customer sentiment regarding how Big Data, the Cloud and the Internet can impact these challenges. But here’s a secret, the survey is already live and you can… Read More
What Comes After FinFET?
So what comes after FinFETs? At 14/16nm (or 22nm if you are Intel) we had FinFET transistors, where the channel was no longer planar but stuck out of the wafer vertically, and the gate wrapped around it on 3 sides. The key thing that made FinFET transistors attractive was that the channel was thin so that the gate controlled it well. … Read More
An Insight into Building Quantum Computers