One of the more interesting pieces of information I overheard at SEMICON West earlier this month was that Intel 14nm was delayed. This rumor came from the semiconductor equipment manufacturers and they would know. What I was told is that the Intel 14nm process has not left the OR development facility to be replicated in the OR and … Read More
Intel’s Q2 Conference Call
Yesterday was Intel’s Q2 conference call. I think that there are some interesting little pieces of information. The financials were what analysts expected although they did take down their guidance for the rest of the year. But that is never the interesting point of Intel conference calls (they almost always hit guidance).… Read More
Ajit’s Semicon Keynote
The opening keynote to this year’s Semicon West was by Ajit Manocha, the CEO of GlobalFoundries entitled Foundry-driven Innovation In the Mobility Era. It is no secret that mobile applications, especially smartphones and tablets, are the most significant semiconductor market today. It is not just large, it is disruptive.… Read More
The Semiconductor IDM Business Model is Dead!
While this was not specifically stated, it was certainly implied during the sessions I attended at SEMICON West this week: The traditional semiconductor business model (IDM) is coming to an end. Starting with the keynote: Foundry-driven Innovation in the Mobility Era,cost was the common theme in any discussion involving mobile… Read More
What is inside the iPhone5s? Samsung or TSMC?
As a semiconductor professional and an Apple customer I’m very interested to see what is inside the iPhone5s. Rumors are spreading, photos are leaking, creating a nice build up to the next release of the mobile device that changed the world.
Honestly, last year I was a bit disappointed with the iPhone5. Inside is the A6 SoC which uses… Read More
Deploying 14nm FinFETs in your Next Mobile SoC
At DAC in Austin a design company, foundry and EDA vendor teamed up to present their experiences with 14nm FinFETs during a breakfast on Tuesday.
Panelists included:
- Ed Sperling, Semi Mfg and Design
- Anil Jain, Cavium
- Subramani Kengeri, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Kelvin Low, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- Raymond Leung, Synopsys
- Bari Biswas, Synopsys
Global Foundries Does DAC
Global Foundries will be at DAC in booth 1314. There will be 6 pods there demonstrating:
- Advanced Technology: 28nm ready and ramping, and next is 20LPM and 14XM.
- PDKs: For 28nm, 20nm and 14nm. 14nm handles FinFET enablement complexity. Robust, easy to use and high quality, supports pretty much the full range of EDA tools.
- Design
Solido CEO on 20nm/16nm TSMC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Design Challenges
EDA needs more CEOs like Amit Gupta. Solido, which is now profitable, is his second AMS EDA company. The first, Analog Design Automation (ADA), was purchased by Synopsys for a hefty multiplier. Prior to becoming an EDA entrepreneur, Amit was product manager for the wireless group at Nortel and a hardware engineer for the RF communications… Read More
GlobalFoundries in Singapore
I hosted a webinar today for GlobalFoundries. Yes, I know that today was TSMC’s Technology Symposium, we weren’t that smart when we picked the date. It was basically a “fireside chat” with me as the moderator asking the questions and Paul Colestock and Aabid Husain as my guests. We actually did it at Cadence… Read More
GF, Analog and Singapore
The world is analog and despite enormous SoCs in the most leading-edge process node being the most glamorous segment of the semiconductor industry, it turns out that one of the fastest growing segments is actually analog and power chips in older process technologies. Overall, according to Semico, analog and power ICs, including… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot