According to the EETimes – “The leading-edge foundry market is up for grabs, as several vendors have stumbled or been victims of the shakeout “. According to people who actually work with the foundries, like myself, the leading edge foundry market will continue to be dominated by TSMC and GlobalFoundries is the “dark horse”. Samsung… Read More
TSMC vs GlobalFoundries vs IBM
Last week TSMC hosted the2010 Executive Forum on Leading Edge Semiconductor Technology in Yokohama, Japan. The Senior Vice President of R&D at TSMC lectured on process development and the individual technologies for the 45/40nm, 32/28nm and 22/20nm nodes and explained the current status.
Dr. Shang-Yi Chiang joined TSMC… Read More
TSMC 28nm Design Advisory
Transistors may be shrinking but atoms are not. Transistors are now just a handful of atoms so it matters even more when a couple of those atoms are out of place. Process variations, whether they are statistical, proximity, or otherwise, have got to be thoughtfully accounted for if we are to achieve the low-power, high-performance,… Read More
TSMC versus Global Foundries Part II
The foundry business is a tough one. The golden age of semiconductors is clearly over and what remains is a highly competitive marketplace. This blog follows up my original TSMC vs Global Foundries which is the single most viewed page on my site.
Case in point #1: Founded in 2000, SMIC Semiconductor Manufacturing International … Read More
TSMC Yields @ 28nm!
It was an interesting week in Taiwan for sure. Typhoon Fanapi, lightning storms, the first 28nm production silicon, foundry re-orgs, and most importantly Moon Cake pastries! Wednesday was the Chinese Moon (Zhongqiu)Festival, in Taiwan it is a National holiday commonly celebrated by people barbecuing various meats outdoors.… Read More
TSMC Open Innovation Platform Explained
Launched in April 2008, the TSMC Open Innovation Platform initiative is a collaborative strategy aimed at breaking the bottlenecks of semiconductor design enablement in order to promote growth for the industry as a whole. The TSMC iPDK Debate: Lets Play Monopoly! blog I did provides more technical detail.
While Wafer count is… Read More
TSMC versus SMIC
This blog is about the legal battle between TSMC and SMIC which is currently playing in the California court system. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) do what their names suggest – the manufacturing of semiconductors for an international… Read More
TSMC Versus Global Foundries
The big news last week was Global Foundries’ (GFI) agreement to acquire Chartered Semiconductor (CHRT) for $3.9B, but what does it really mean to the semiconductor world in total?
CurrentlyTSMC has 11 fabs producing wafers, 8 in Taiwan, 1 in Shanghai, 1 in Singapore, and 1 in Washington State. After the acquisition, Global Foundries… Read More