The global semiconductor market is headed for the largest decline in 18 years. The market dropped 32% in 2001 when the Internet bubble burst. The 2019 decline should be around 15%, the third largest annual drop after 2001 and a 17% drop in 1985. The current weakness is largely due to excess memory capacity (DRAM and NAND flash) relative… Read More
Is Samsung having problems with 7NM? Do long lines at TSMC prove that?
Reports of increasing TSMC 7NM lead times
There have been a number of increasing media reports about lengthening leads times for TSMC 7NM process. From what we have been able to determine its not due to TSMC having a yield bust or other production issues, it is simply one of stronger than expected demand.
There have been reports of … Read More
The Korea/Japan trade war benefits US more than US/China hurts US
GloFo & TSMC lawsuit- A Surrogate Trade War- Pushing TSMC into China’s open arms?
Surrogate Wars
Is GloFo using the trade war as an excuse?
Does TSMC get lumped in with China on trade?
Does this alienate TSMC into China’s embrace?
Much like Vietnam and Korea before it, there have been a number of “surrogate” wars between the US and China as well as many other wars between the US and Russia using… Read More
Memory Manifesto – Examining the “new (slower) normal” of the memory industry
- The perfect storm that drove memory is over
- The “new normal” goes back to older model
- The capex & tech pendulum swings to logic
We try to examine the future of the memory segment of the semiconductor industry given the current market and technology drivers combined with historical behavior.
Passing the Baton
The memory market… Read More
Hopes of a 2020 recovery but nothing solid yet
An in line quarter
Applied reported a quarter just above the mid point of guidance and analyst numbers (which mimic guidance) with revenues of $3.56B and EPS of $0.74 with guidance of $3.685B+-$150M and EPS o $0.72 to $0.80, also in line with current expectations. All in all a fairly boring quarter with business bouncing along a soft… Read More
Is Hong Kong a preview of Taiwan? Will HK embolden China to take Taiwan faster?
On our recent Asian tour, Hong Kong was our last leg, arriving this past Friday and departing Monday, the day the airport stood still. We were on a 2:20PM flight out of Hong Kong back to the states which was one of the last flights to leave before the airport was shut down. Much like the China trade issue, the Hong Kong problem looks to be… Read More
eSilicon Brings a New Software Interface to its 7nm neuASIC Machine Learning Platform at Hot Chips
In early May of this year, eSilicon announced the tape-out of a test chip which included the latest additions to its neuASIC™ IP platform. At the upcoming Hot Chips Symposium to be held at Stanford on August 19 and 20, 2019, eSilicon will be demonstrating the software component of this AI-enabling IP platform. At the event, eSilicon… Read More
300mm Fab Watch 2019!
Unless you are new to SemiWiki you should be familiar with Scotten Jones, founder of IC Knowledge, semiconductor process expert, and blogger extraordinaire. Scott joined SemiWiki in 2014 and has been blogging ever since with 130 posted thus far.
Scott’s, company, IC Knowledge LLC, is the world leader in cost modeling of… Read More
The China trade issue is back with a vengeance!
Watching the boats go by in Shanghai-
As I write this note I happen to be looking out my hotel window over the Bund onto the brightly lit party boats cruising the Huangpu river that meanders through Shanghai. All is well here in China and the parties on the boats with millions of LEDs go on……
The view from China is that the… Read More


Quantum Advantage is About the Algorithm, not the Computer