I’ve spent most of my career in the ASIC business. In 2003, Gartner predicted the ASIC market would grow to $16.9B. During that time, there were a number of startups building ASICs, but the applications were a bit specialized and aimed at new markets. Consequently, there was a lot of risk to build a chip startup and many ASICs either… Read More
Ferroelectric Hafnia-based Materials for Neuromorphic ICs
The ferroelectric effect in materials has been exploited to fabricate (fab) reliable Ferroelectric Random Access Memories (FRAM) Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) ICs for over 20 years. Recent years have seen have seen a breakthrough in discovering ferroelectric properties in Hafnium Oxide (HfO2 or “hafnia”), a fab-friendly… Read More
Silicon Catalyst is Bringing Its Unique Startup Platform to the UK
Silicon Catalyst is a unique startup incubator / accelerator that focuses exclusively on accelerating solutions in silicon (including chips, IP, MEMS & sensors). The organization has an extensive support infrastructure that includes preferred access to IP, design tools, business infrastructure and fab/assembly. … Read More
Chips for America Act – Funding Failures & Foreigners or Saving Semiconductors?
-A repeat of the auto industry bailout of self inflicted issues?
-Not just money but systemic change is needed
-Perhaps chips need an Elon led revolution like autos & space
-Govt $ need focus not thrown into existing spend avalanche.
Are chips a replay of the auto industry bailout a decade ago? Deja Vu all over again.
The… Read More
CEO Interview: Prakash Murthy of Atonarp
Prakash Murthy is the co-founder & CEO of Atonarp, a leading molecular diagnostics company HQ in Tokyo Japan. Murthy has two decades of experience in engineering management and entrepreneurial ventures. Murthy also co-founded Inspiration Technologies and C2Silicon Software and served as the CEO of Core Solutions Inc.… Read More
Accellera Unveils PSS 2.0 – Production Ready
I recently had a discussion with Tom Fitzpatrick of Siemens and Faris Khundakjie of Intel on the latest release of the Portable Test and Stimulus Standard (PSS). Faris chairs the PSS working group and Tom is vice-chair. In what follows I synthesize feedback from both, sometimes I call out interesting individual comments. My first… Read More
Functional Safety – What and How
I’ve written before about how the automotive industry adheres to functional safety (FS) as defined in the ISO 26262 standard, along with other SemiWiki bloggers. That standard certainly defines the What part of FS, however it doesn’t mandate how you meet the standard, what tools you should be using, file formats … Read More
Molecular Sensing for Semiconductor Etch Applications
As process technologies have advanced, the difficulties in performing etch operations have increased. New structures and chemistries have created challenges in monitoring these complex operations. For instance, 3D-NAND structures call for high aspect ratio (HAR) trench etching. Likewise, in addition to involving Al, … Read More
Supply Issues Limit 2021 Semiconductor Growth
Worldwide semiconductor shipments were $123.1 billion in 1Q 2021, up 3.6% from 4Q 2020 and up 17.8% from a year ago, according to WSTS. The 3.6% quarter-to-quarter growth was the highest for a first quarter since 1Q 2010, eleven years ago. The strong growth in 1Q21 implies strong growth in the following quarters and for the year 2021.… Read More
AMAT Nice Beat Strong Growth for Both 2021 & 2022
-Strong beat & guide- WFE up in 2021 & 2022-$160B combined
-Taking share in conductor etch & CVD
-Traditional Moore Scaling – No More?
-Foundry Logic leads followed by DRAM with weak NAND
Nice beat & guide & raise
Applied reported revenues of $5.58B with GM of 47.5% resulting in non-GAAP EPS of $1.63. … Read More
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