There is a well-known progression in the efficiency of different platforms for certain targeted applications such as AI, as measured by performance and performance/Watt. The progression is determined by how much of the application can be run with specialized hardware-assist rather than software, since hardware can be faster… Read More
VLSIT Conference – imec on CFETs
The 2018 VLSI Technology conference was held in Hawaii in June and is one of the premier conferences covering integrated circuit process technology and circuit design. The Complementary FET (CFET) is an emerging option to continue logic scaling into the next decade. At the conference imec, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Tokyo Electron and… Read More
Semicon Wrap Up holding pattern in turbulent air
The stock market hates uncertainty most of all. In the absence of the known, the market will assume the worst or close to it. Right now there is a lot of uncertainty that continues to have more downside beta than upside beta. Everybody we spoke to at Semicon wakes up in the morning wondering what tweet was sent at 5AM that will impact their… Read More
AMAT talks long term AI but short term is ugly
We attended Semicon West Monday and Tuesday, the annual show for the semi equipment industry. Its very clear from discussions with all our sources in the industry that confirm that Samsung has put the brakes on spending on memory and that message was reinforced by declines in their expected profitability due to weaker memory pricing.… Read More
Glad to be part of SemiWiki and my DAC Industry Report
Welcome to my newly relocated column, I am so excited about my new relationship with Daniel Nenni, and the other esteemed bloggers on SemiWiki. For those who do not know me, I have been a featured columnist on another EDA portal for the past 12-plus years, and in EDA for 20-plus years. As the leading recruiter in our industry, (or so … Read More
Drop-In Security for IoT Edge Devices
You’re excited about the business potential for your cool new baby monitor, geo-fenced kid’s watch, home security system or whatever breakthrough app you want to build. You want to focus on the capabilities of the system, connecting it to the cloud and your marketing rollout plan. Then someone asks whether your system is architected… Read More
China Trade war is accelerating with First Blood in Chips
China didn’t wait around for the US to announce more tariffs or export restrictions, instead it went on the offensive and put an injunction in place to prevent Micron from shipping product into China. Although our view is that Micron will see little impact from this action, the headlines caused the semiconductor sector stocks… Read More
IITC – Imec Presents Copper, Cobalt and Ruthenium Interconnect Results
The IEEE Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC): Advanced Metallization Conference was held June 4th through 7th in Santa Clara. Imec presented multiple papers on comparing copper, cobalt and ruthenium interconnect. One paper in particular caught my eye: Marleen H. van der Veen, # N. Heylen, O. Varela Pedreira, S. Decoster,… Read More
The Technology China Trade Growing Snowball
As we have been warning for months the China trade issue continues to grow and accelerate. As we are approaching the June 30th cliff (when export sanctions will be announced) it seems as if the administration has given the industry a kick so we fly even further. The US will also restrict Chinese investment in US tech companies. The … Read More
Imec technology forum 2018 – the future of scaling
At the Imec technology forum in Belgium, Dan Mocuta and Juliana Radu presented “Evolution and Disruption: A Perspective on Logic Scaling and Beyond”, I also had a chance to sit down with Dan and discuss the presentation.
Device scaling
Scaling of devices will only get you so far, you need to look at new devices and new… Read More
Rethinking Multipatterning for 2nm Node