Primarius 2B

Chips and pins and layers within

Chips and pins and layers within
by Don Dingee on 03-25-2015 at 3:00 pm

After teams sweat the details of SoC and industrial design, they turn to printed circuit board designers for magic. Here are a pile of chips and passives, and a schematic for interconnecting them. This is how much physical space the board can occupy. Connectors have to be here, and here, and mounting holes there, and there. There … Read More


The Apple A9 Samsung & TSMC Love Triangle

The Apple A9 Samsung & TSMC Love Triangle
by Robert Maire on 03-25-2015 at 10:00 am

The Apple A9 drama continues to play out with no certainty!
At the end of the day does it matter?
Will the winner be the loser?
A Comedy, Tragedy or Love Story?
Depends on your view…

Act I Scene I…The stage is set….

We are watching an Italian Opera of a standard love triangle….
The object of desire is the rich … Read More


TSMC 2015 Technology Symposium

TSMC 2015 Technology Symposium
by Paul McLellan on 03-25-2015 at 7:00 am


This year’s North American TSMC Technology Symposium is fast approaching. There are three, starting in Silicon Valley.

  • San Jose on Tuesday April 7th at the San Jose Convention Center
  • Boston on Tuesday April 14th at the Burlington Marriott
  • Austin on Thursday April 16th at the downtown Hilton

The symposium will also take … Read More


Apple’s ARMed History

Apple’s ARMed History
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-24-2015 at 7:00 pm

Apple has redefined three industries within a decade: media player with the iPod, mobile handset with the iPhone and portable computers with the iPad. If there is anything common in these three game-changing product development stories other than Apple, it’s the ARM footprint. Even now the technology media is abuzz with speculation… Read More


This Market worth $1,465.62M by 2020!!

This Market worth $1,465.62M by 2020!!
by Eric Esteve on 03-24-2015 at 10:52 am

This is exactly what you will never see in IPnest surveys (and written in Semiwiki):“Advanced Process Control Market worth $1,465.62 Million by 2020” …sorry for you if you like very precise figure (like $ 1, 465.62 million) but you will NEVER see such insane forecast in any of our surveys or blogs. Building a forecast is a difficult… Read More


A Brief History of Kilopass

A Brief History of Kilopass
by Paul McLellan on 03-24-2015 at 7:00 am

Kilopass was founded back in 2001 by Jack Peng, whose background was in FPGAs with his most recent position being manager of technology development at Actel (now part of Microsemi). The idea was to build a company making one-time-programmable (OTP) memories using anti-fuse technology. Fuses in home-wiring (OK, I know, we all … Read More


Semiconductors off to slow start in 2015

Semiconductors off to slow start in 2015
by Bill Jewell on 03-23-2015 at 4:30 pm

A weak first quarter outlook for the semiconductor market is indicating a slow start to 2015. Intel recently lowered the midpoint of its 1Q 2015 revenue guidance from $13.7 billion (down 7% from 4Q 2014) to $12.8 billion (down 13%). The table below shows the estimated top 25 semiconductor companies revenue change for 4Q 2014 versus… Read More


Open Source Software Platform Fuels Automotive Innovation

Open Source Software Platform Fuels Automotive Innovation
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-23-2015 at 1:00 pm

These days, most of the innovative concepts in our cars are driven by electronics; not only infotainment systems, but also instrument clusters, safety systems including ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), information displays, night vision, airbags, backup camera, stability control, and so on. The upcoming connected… Read More


Vertical NAND Flash

Vertical NAND Flash
by Paul McLellan on 03-23-2015 at 7:00 am

You may know that up until now NAND flash has been a planar technology. But just as with SoC processes where we have had to go vertical to FinFETs, NAND flash has reached the limitations of scaling in the 20nm nodes and is also going vertical. It is not just a lithography issue but there are also reliability and voltage scaling issues.… Read More


Apple’s Ax Chronicle

Apple’s Ax Chronicle
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-22-2015 at 7:00 pm

In April 2008, Apple baffled the semiconductor industry by acquiring the system-on-chip (SoC) pioneer PA Semi for US$278 million. The acquisition, took place at the height of the iPhone fever, left the technology and trade media with an endless suite of guessing games. In the end, it was just about Apple’s quest for having… Read More