The semiconductor industry today is faced with several substantial issues—the continuing rise in design costs for complex SoCs, the decrease in the incidence of first-time-right designs and the increase in the design cycle time against shrinking market windows and decreasing product life cycles. An additional factor has … Read More
Silicon Catalyst Hosts Semiconductor Industry Forum – A View to the Future … it’s about what’s next®
Silicon Catalyst has been hosting semiconductor forums since 2018. At these events, a group of industry leaders gathers to discuss trends in the semiconductor industry and what the future may hold as a result. I recently had an opportunity to speak with Pete Rodriguez, CEO at Silicon Catalyst. Pete explained that these forums … Read More
Achieving 112Gbps PAM4 Channels with Achronix FPGAs and Samtec Interconnect
They say that getting there is half the fun. On December 1, Achronix and Samtec will present a webinar on this topic in the context of high-performance front panel to midplane and midplane to backplane channel design. Technology, materials and system design will all be discussed with a focus on achieving 112Gbps PAM4 channels with… Read More
2021 will be the year of DRAM!
2020 has been a NAND growth year-2021 will be the year of DRAM. While foundry logic has gotten all the credit in 2020 the reality is that NAND has been up 2X in 2020 for semiconductor equipment provider Applied Materials (AMAT). It is expected that NAND will be flat in 2021 while DRAM will take over the growth slot with foundry/logic … Read More
Agile and DevOps for Hardware. Keynotes at DVCon Europe
Paul Cunningham (Verification CVP/GM at Cadence) initiated our monthly Innovation in Verification blog to hunt for novel ideas in verification, breaking past the usual steady, necessary but undramatic pace of incremental advances. I attended a couple of sessions from DVCon Europe recently, and was encouraged to hear a couple… Read More
WEBINAR: Differentiated Edge AI with OpenFive and CEVA
OpenFive is hosting a webinar with CEVA on November 12th to talk about how OpenFive’s vision platform, leveraging CEVA vision and AI solutions. Which can get you to a differentiated solution for your product with as much or as little silicon participation on your part as you want. I talked briefly to Jeff VanWashenova (CEVA Sr. Dir… Read More
Post Election Fallout-Let the Chips Fall / Rise Where They May
- Changing US administration likely positive for chips & tech
- Stepping back from the brink of a potential ugly trade war
- Likely increased Covid/tech spend- War with Big Tech is over
- Tech & Chips had a lot riding on the elections outcome
As compared to previous presidential elections, this one likely has much more impact on… Read More
Leading Edge Foundry Wafer Prices
I have seen several articles recently discussing foundry wafer selling prices for leading edge wafers, these articles all quote estimates from a paper by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). The paper is available here.
My company IC Knowledge LLC is the world leader in cost and price modeling of semiconductors… Read More
Downplaying SMIC – Uplaying TSMC
- KLAC sports solid QTR & Guide- Foundry & Logic drivers
- Management remains dismissive of SMIC embargo
- Execution & financials are solid but macro headwinds remain
- Nice September Quarter
KLA reported revenue of $1.54B and Non GAAP EPS of $3.03 versus street expectations of $1.49B and EPS of $2.77. Guidance is for revenues… Read More
China Mobile and Computer Update 2020
Data on China production of mobile phones from the National Bureau of Statistics of China indicates a double-digit decline in the year 2020. In 1Q 2020, the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, China mobile phone production declined 50% from 4Q 2019 and dropped 33% from a year earlier. Many factories were temporarily closed in… Read More


TSMC Formally Sues Ex-SVP Over Alleged Transfer of Trade Secrets to Intel