More FinFET delays

[Daniel Nenni]

Personally, I have found that SemiWiki and SemiAccurate are both, well, semi-accurate as far as the information they provide. They are all opinion pieces- and written with definite points of view- and they gloss over a lot of unattractive facts that subtract from or even sometimes contradict their viewpoint. Like the price tag for GF taking IBM semi- is well south of the $2+Billion asserted in your previous piece- but that is glossed over (not by PM though). On the SA side, predicting a GF-IBM Semi merger has been going on for years now- everyone saw it coming, so predicting it months ago is really not so impressive. I'm not paying SA for the full article, so I really don't have much comment about the accuracy of this particular piece- although you and a lot of other people seem to think the yield issue is real- and it's either at TSMC or Samsung/GF or both. My bet is both- at least once they are both ramping seriously- FinFETs with HKMG are just not easy to do and bound to cause problems. Intel acknowledged their 14nm yield problems (mostly because they missed their timing probably), but nobody else is acknowledging anything- let alone explaining it- so where are the calls for openness like what you wanted from Intel previously- I'll assume that's coming along with the outing of who is having yield problems. The fact is, you are very clearly biased towards pure play foundries- and towards TSMC in particular- anyone who has followed your posts knows that- IanD notes it below in the comments too. I've come to accept it, and still value everything you put up here because it gives very good insight into the fabless ecosystem, but it is a bit grating at times, so I'll admit to chuckling over the SA "paid some Ninny" line- that was a good one- and goes to what many people suspect, which is you have a strong financial conflict of interest when it comes to TSMC.

Thank you for your input, the only thing constant about SemiWiki is change. Here is a bit of transparency from our side:

For the record: I do not now nor have I ever worked for TSMC in any capacity. TSMC is but one of many SemiWiki subscribers. My relationship with TSMC is not as close as you might think. They “tolerate me” is the best description.

For subscribers we provide a service. Example: we download white papers and summarize them in a blog with a link to the download site or we blog about a webinar with a link to it. We then look at the traffic numbers. If 10k people read a blog and 0 people click over that is not good. If 3k people read it and 300 click over that is good. We can also see where a viewer came from, how long they stay, demographics, etc… (Google Analytics). Blog comments can also be useful.

Sometimes we promote and/or attend live events and summarize. Paul just did two for example:

https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3971-cadence-mixed-signal-technology-forum.html
https://www.semiwiki.com/forum/content/3980-microprocessors-will-arm-rule-world.html

Some of these events involve subscribers and some do not (Paul blogged for food on both of these).

The goal of SemiWiki has always been to get people engaged with the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. Read white papers, attend webinars and live events. Collaborate. It is all about messaging and finding out what problems really need to be solved and how to solve them (crowdsourcing).

The other blogs you see on SemiWiki are opinion blogs on topics that interest us personally. The “GF Acquires IBM” blog I did was an opinion blog. GF did not appreciate it at all and they are a subscriber. There are definitely companies that do not work with SemiWiki as a result of our opinion blogs, but that is part of life. If you try to please everyone your website is going to suck, my opinion. We also allow other semiconductor professionals to blog on SemiWiki, Scotten Jones and Bill Jewell for example. These are opinion blogs too.

Blogging is all about branding. The observations, opinions, and experiences shared by SemiWiki Bloggers are their own. We are semiconductor professionals who enjoy writing but we also have day jobs and reputations to protect. Sound reasonable?

 

[JustDave]

I reside in Silicon Valley and attend many of these events with coworkers. We are also early access foundry customers so we know the wheat versus chaff. The TSMC events this year have been excellent and correlate with what we already know. Sure there is showmanship but that is to be expected. It is also an opportunity to see old friends and compare notes. I highly doubt IanD attends them so I would not give credence to what he wrote. I did not attend the Globalfoundry event this month but a coworker did and felt it was very marketing heavy. My $.002.

If we attend conferences we have to report and share our experience with coworkers. If they include travel expense it is rare that we go. We used to call them boondoggles or paid vacations. The ones we go to now mostly are user group meetings which is what the TSMC ones really are.

 

[Arie Lashansky]

I looked back 6 months and Morris Chang said he expected TSMC to lag in 2015 he was talking about Intel
Will Intel Have a Bigger FinFET Market Share Than TSMC in 2015?

TSMC Overtakes Samsung in FinFET | EE Times
eetimes that said Altera will be using 16nm at TSMC I was sure they were 14nm at Intel. have in fact Altera moved
back to TSMC?

It seems TSMC Samsung and Intel all are not in Full Production.
A simple look at the Intel roadmap had P1272 in 2013 and P1274 at 2015

http://web02.gonzaga.edu/faculty/talarico/eeng406/Lectures/IntelRoadmap.pdf

 

[IanD]

If we attend conferences we have to report and share our experience with coworkers. If they include travel expense it is rare that we go. We used to call them boondoggles or paid vacations. The ones we go to now mostly are user group meetings which is what the TSMC ones really are.

Exactly what I said -- they are undoubtedly useful and informative, but don't expect that negative news about either technology (e.g. yield) or tools (e.g. not really capable of doing what the presentations give the impression that they can) would be presented there -- but I've seen both happen when working with bleeding edge technologies, that's just life. If you want technology without problems you can wait a couple of years, but then you've missed the market...

So in a discussion about yield problems or FinFET delays it's pointless quoting from material from TSMC presented at the event since there's no chance it will admit to any problem, even if there is one -- which I'm not suggesting there is (with TSMC). Nobody washes their dirty linen in public, if there is such a problem they work behind the scenes like mad to try and fix it, while keeping a happy face in public -- this is just how industry works, because as soon as anyone admits problems their share price gets hammered by the markets.

And as was said earlier, issues like yield do happen in advanced process and always have done, it's the price you pay for being at the leading edge.

 

[JustDave]

Exactly what I said -- they are undoubtedly useful and informative, but don't expect that negative news about either technology (e.g. yield) or tools (e.g. not really capable of doing what the presentations give the impression that they can) would be presented there -- but I've seen both happen when working with bleeding edge technologies, that's just life. If you want technology without problems you can wait a couple of years, but then you've missed the market...

Geez.... How did I get sucked into this? Ian I do not agree with you. We are polar opposites and you are talking out of your ass. Please do not attach your messages to mine.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

As an investor it is well known who is telling the truth and who isn't. The boiler plate disclaimers on calls only offer limited protection and executives can be held liable for blatantly false statements and the company sued as been done numerous times and involve substantial penalties up to and including prison time as in the Enron and WorldCom cases. Most of the time it just results in share holder lawsuits that are usually class action suits. Morris Chang who I have listened to for over fifteen years is usually on the very conservative side and is among the most trustworthy of executives of major companies. He does bluff and has understated TSM's capabilities several times. Anyone who has listened to him knows his tells and I miss him on the conference calls.

 

[lefty]

By the way, I was just listening to Samsung's 3Q earnings call. When asked about 14nm yields they said the following:

the products are already in full function sampling, with a customer that's already been secured, and in terms of yield and other plans we have no problems and everything is on track.... In terms of the ramp up already the wafers for mass production are in for the target date for start of production at the end of this year and we believe the ramp up will be going on as scheduled in 2015. Our plan is to ramp up very quickly, so by the end of 2015 this would account for 30% of our 12 inch capacity."

 

[Daniel Nenni]

As an investor it is well known who is telling the truth and who isn't. The boiler plate disclaimers on calls only offer limited protection and executives can be held liable for blatantly false statements and the company sued as been done numerous times and involve substantial penalties up to and including prison time as in the Enron and WorldCom cases. Most of the time it just results in share holder lawsuits that are usually class action suits. Morris Chang who I have listened to for over fifteen years is usually on the very conservative side and is among the most trustworthy of executives of major companies. He does bluff and has understated TSM's capabilities several times. Anyone who has listened to him knows his tells and I miss him on the conference calls.

I agree Aurthur. If you meet Morris or see him speak he is very genuine (not scripted). A couple of things you probably already know about Morris but others may not: He is a master card player (bridge). He is a military strategy/history buff (WWII certainly). He is as devoted to his wife Sophie as much as he is devoted to this industry. It really is endearing to see them together. TSMC is his family.

On the conference calls however you really need to watch out as Morris is a very clever man. He uses the conference calls to motivate his employees rather than to pump up the TSMC stock as most other CEOs do. If Morris mentions he is concerned or behind the competition on a conference call he is speaking to his employees. He is "The Chairman" and TSMC employees will work around the clock out of respect to him. I have seen this many times in both Hsinchu and Silicon Valley.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

As it turns out it is Samsung. I will blog about it tomorrow.

Daniel, your comments don't stack up. TSMC is certainly not in full mass production yet with 16nm and neither is Samsung, it's their first FinFET process in both cases, either could be having a yield problem if it's in the FEOL, and neither would admit it if they were. If the yield problem is BEOL then maybe it's less likely to be TSMC because they have more 20nm experience than Samsung, but there's no proof of this. In fact reading the report, the delay could equally well be Intel (which is well-known) not TSMC or Samsung...

Intel had initial yield problems with both 22nm and 14nm FinFET processes but could hide it because of the huge margins on the CPUs they fab in them. As an IDM Samsung can hide it where they're their own customer because they can lose money on the wafers/chips but more than make it back on the phone. As a pure-play foundry it's hard for TSMC to hide such problems, except that neither they or their bleeding-edge customers are likely to admit a problem in public even if there is one.

What I've heard is that from 20nm down double-patterning (and especially FinFETs) are proving problematic for *everyone*, regardless of what's said in public -- presumably some more than others, but nobody's having a smooth ride here...

 

[infras]

As it turns out it is Samsung. I will blog about it tomorrow.

Well, you are right. It will be interesting to hear your view.

 

[SheDevil]

Well, you are right. It will be interesting to hear your view.

At least you were right about it not being TSMC I'm sure Sammy did not fess up so do tell who.

 

[otistd]

Thank you for your input, the only thing constant about SemiWiki is change. Here is a bit of transparency from our side:

For the record: I do not now nor have I ever worked for TSMC in any capacity. TSMC is but one of many SemiWiki subscribers. My relationship with TSMC is not as close as you might think. They “tolerate me” is the best description.

Thanks for the clarification- I'm sure that TSMC tolerates you in the same way the Green Bay Packers tolerate the Cheeseheads. I wasn't trying to suggest that SemiWiki has a conflict, nor that you are paid directly by TSMC- though SA (Demerjian) seems to think so. Since we are connected on LinkedIn, you can see I have no incentive to bash any of the leading chip makers. Anyway, for the record I was referring to this- from your LI profile:
<header>[h=4]Consultant[/h][h=5]Strategic Foundry Relationships[/h]</header><time>March 2008</time> – Present (6 years 9 months)Silicon ValleyEstablish and manage strategic relationships with the leading foundries around the world: TSMC, UMC, SMIC, Samsung, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES


My point was basically someone who works as a Consultant for Fabless companies trying to manage Foundry relationships doesn't have much interest in ticking off the leading foundry in the world. In fact, such a person would have a strong interest in staying on their good side. And I assume Consultants get paid well- I know ours do.

Anyway, still appreciate your articles/pieces/blogs and insights. Especially want to thank you for straightening out my misconception about why TSMC chose to use 16nm as the node- it's always good to have the true story.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

My point was basically someone who works as a Consultant for Fabless companies trying to manage Foundry relationships doesn't have much interest in ticking off the leading foundry in the world. In fact, such a person would have a strong interest in staying on their good side. And I assume Consultants get paid well- I know ours do.

Your point in this case is incorrect. As consultants our reputations are everything which is why I'm transparent about professional relationships and SemiWiki sponsors. Last I looked Charlie Demerjian or any of the other sites in this business are not.

Consulting before SemiWiki is definitely different than today. I no longer have to waste time looking for clients as they come to me. I also have much greater access to the executive ranks especially after publishing the fabless book. In fact, I'm working on a second book on mobile for exactly that reason. The downside is that I'm a target for bullies and trolls but what does not kill you makes you stronger, right?

Bottom line: The key to working with SemiWiki is honesty and access. Since we are insiders honesty is critical as we generally know what is true and what is not. Sharing our observations, experiences, and opinions, which is the legal definition of a blogger, has value whether you agree or not. Those who do not agree (especially Journalists) usually play the bias card because they have no other recourse.