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                    [post_date] => 2010-03-31 22:05:00
                    [post_date_gmt] => 2010-03-31 22:05:00
                    [post_content] => My visit to Taiwan last week was very encouraging. No earthquake, no  typhoon, and both TSMC and UMC again posted record financial results,  giving a peek into what 2011 has in store for us semiconductor  professionals around the world.

 

A transcript from the TSMC earnings call can be foundhere, the UMC transcript is here. The TSMC transcript is 19 pages long so let me save you some time with the key financial points:

 



    

  •  TSMC’s      net sales reached NT $412.3 billion ($13.4730 billion  USD), up 6.9% from      Q2 and up 24.8% from the same period a year ago. 
    

  • Wafer      shipments were 3.19 million 8 inch equivalent  wafers, up 9% from the prior      quarter and up 30.5% from the year ago  quarter. 
    

  • Operating      margin was 38.4%, down 2% points sequentially, but up 2.8% points compared      with year ago quarter. 
    

  • EPS      for Q3 reached NT$1.81, ROE was 36.5%. 
    

  • Q3      gross margin was 50%, up by 0.5% points from 49.5 in Q2, mainly due to      continued cost improvements. 
    

  • Operating      expense increased NT$1.6 billion from Q2,  primarily due to a higher level      of development activities for our  28 nanometer and 20 nanometer      technologies, and also a higher  opening expense for our Fab 12. 
    

  • Ended      Q3 with $5B+ USD in cash and short term investments 


 

“Our mission is simply to be the technology and capacity    provider of the global logic IP industry for years to come. We want to    be the technology and capacity provider of the largest IP industry  for   years to come.”

 Morris Chang was again on the conference call. Morris resumed as TSMC  CEO June 2009 after passing the CEO baton to Rick Tsai in July 2005. I  really am glad Morris is back at TSMC! According to Morris:

 



    

  • Q3 was      a historical record in revenue dollars, in gross margin and in      net income dollars. 
    

  • If Q4      were at the same exchange rate at Q3, then Q4  guidance would be revenue      NT$111.6 billion to NT$113.7. billion  which is higher than Q3 actual. 
    

  • Gross      margin percentage would be 49.5% to 51.5%, which is also higher than the      Q3 actual. 
    

  • CAPEX      will be $5.5 billion this year, CAPEX will be greater in 2011. 
    

  • 71 customer      28 nm tape outs already scheduled. 
    

  • We are forecasting total foundry revenue growth      will be 14% in 2011. 
    



 

One thing that Morris said that needs clarification is on 28nm portability:



 I also wanted to point out that as the 28 nanometer  generation, customer designs are very difficult to port between  foundries. They’re very difficult to move from one foundry to another.  This is a new phenomena that did not exist even in the 45-40 generation.



 It is true that TSMC 28nm designs cannot be manufactured at other  foundries with little or no modifications like 40nm. TSMC 28nm designs  can however be migrated to other foundries using process migration tools  from Sagantec.  Magma and Cadence also have migration tools (Titan ALX and Virtuoso  Layout Migrate) but they both have complexity and capacity issues.  Process migration is only a $10M market so I doubt Magma or Cadence will  put much more effort into it. I’m currently working on 28nm migration  projects with Sagantec so I know this by experience.

 

Communications (mobile internet) will continue to drive semiconductors  in 2011 and the rest of this decade. Smartphones give people access to  information and information is power.  In India and China even the  poorest of poor people have mobile phones. No indoor plumbing, but  everyone has a mobile phone. Access to information raises the  aspirations of the poor which will in turn force governments to  acknowledge poverty and do something about it. The semiconductor  industry is changing the world, believe it.
                    [post_title] => TSMC 2011 Forecast and 28nm Update!
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                    [post_content] => The 2010 ISSCC theme  was all about “Sensing the Future” and was one of the most inspiring  semiconductor conferences I have experienced. The halls were filled with  the top names in semiconductor design and manufacture from around the  world. The sessions highlighted not only technology breakthroughs (first  4G silicon), but new semiconductor applications for humanity.

 

“The International Solid-State Circuits Conference is the  foremost forum for presentation of advances in solid-state circuits and  systems-on-a-chip. The Conference offers a unique opportunity for  engineers working at the cutting edge of IC design and use to maintain  technical currency, and to network with leading experts.”

 Per my previous blogs, mobile internet devices  are a leading driver of semiconductor growth. Next-generation  semiconductors will enable new mobile applications that take advantage  of high-speed data connections, high-performance applications, added  processing capabilities, and long battery lifetime. The result being  exploding data usage and a 3G wireless bottleneck.

 

The first functional 4G  chip for high-speed communication was highlighted, a collaboration  between researchers from ETH Zurich and Advanced Circuit Pursuit. In  addition, researchers from CEA-LETI described a reconfigurable chip that  can implement multiple wireless standards including 4G, WIMAX, 802.11n,  and Cognitive Radio. Their solution provides the necessary flexibility  required to interconnect to a variety of networks using many different  standards. Very cool stuff.



 Also unveiled were several low-power embedded processors that break  through the 1 GHz barrier, enabling the next generation of smart phones  and netbooks that are fast approaching PC operating speeds. Intel and  ARM  presented new circuits for dynamic detection and correction of  timing errors to squeeze voltage margins for reliable low- power  operation over 1.5GHz, while Qualcomm describes low-power-design  techniques used in their upcoming 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor core.



 These innovations in both cellular/wireless standard support and  low-power, high-performance embedded processors will be the building  blocks for the next-generation mobile devices, bringing as-yet-unseen  levels of functionality and performance to the masses. Extremely cool  stuff!

 

A late Tuesday night panel “ Semiconductor Industry in 2025 “ looked at  the challenges ahead:



 The historic predictability of Moore’s Law has spurred innovation  and redefined how we build integrated circuits. We have developed an  eco-system of specialized entities to resolve specific challenges such  as Equipment Development, Foundry Services, Design, EDA, Software, and  Consumer Services. While more specialization has been an undisputed  trend of the past, we are beginning to see hardware companies becoming  less specialized – manufacturing companies entering design, design  companies entering services, to name a few. What approach will be the  predominant model in 2025? More vertically-integrated companies that  enable recurring revenue? Or more horizontally- integrated companies  that focus on specialized innovation?



 Executives from Intel, IBM, NXP, TSMC, and Mentor Graphics presented.  My favorite, of course, is Wally Rhines who made an interesting point.  While other industries consolidate, the semiconductor industry  de-consolidates with basically the same players in different positions  depending on what technology drives the semiconductor market. In the  1970’s it was memory, microprocessors in the 1980’s, fabless  semiconductor companies joined the ranks of the top 25 in the 1990’s,  and mobile internet enablers experienced record growth in the last 10  years.

 From 2010-2025 Wally predicts a yearly:

 



    

  • Decline      in cost per function (transistor) of 35%
    

  • 49%+      transistor increase
    

  • 13%+      unit increase


 The 2011 ISSCC continues on the futuristic path of semiconductors:  Electronics for Healthy Living – call  for papers is now available. I hope to see you there.

 
                    [post_title] => Semiconductor Industry 2025
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                    [post_content] => 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 is now and will always be an IDM, with the foundry business being a diversion at best.

 

The EETimes also claims that TSMC “stumbled and had yield issues at the 40-nm node.”Again not true. TSMC has more than 80% of the 40nm market with 60+  products in production. TSMC forecasts 40nm accounting for 20% of  overall revenues at the end of 2010, compared to 9% in the fourth  quarter of 2009. Other foundries would be lucky to stumble into numbers like that!

 TSMC Fab 12  is currently capable of producing 80,000 12-inch equivalent wafers on  40nm every quarter and will double that by the end of 2010. TSMC’s other  300-mm GigaFab, Fab 14, can also be used to meet future 40nm demand.

 The widely reported TSMC 40nm yield  problems were focused on GPUs. GPU products are bleeding edge  technologies that drive process development, including half nodes. There  are (5) GPU players withmarket share:  Intel,  Nvidia, AMD/ATI, S3, and SiS. Intel is an IDM, the rest  manufacture at TSMC. Why TSMC you ask? Because GPUs are the single most  difficult product to yield and TSMC is the only foundry that can  accommodate the insanely competitive GPU market.

 

According to Ana Hunter, Samsung Semiconductor Vice President of Foundry Services, after 4+ years of trying “Samsung’s  share of the foundry business is not as big as we want, but it takes  time to put the pieces in place and ramp designs.”Prior  to Samsung, Hunter spent 9+ years at Chartered Semiconductor, which was  bought by GlobalFoundries last year for pennies on the invested dollar.  Hunter stated that “The foundry business is part of our core strategy” and highlighted 6 reasons why Samsung believes it will succeed:

 

[LIST=1]


  • Capacity – Samsung plans to double its production of chips for      outside customers every year until it rivals market leader TSMC. ( Wow, good luck with that!)
    

  • Resources – Samsung is one of the few companies  that has the      resources to compete at the high-end of the foundry  market. (Intel, IBM,      TSMC, GFI….)
    

  • Leading Edge Technology – Samsung is ramping 45-nm technology      at a time when TSMC and others are struggling in the arena. (Oh no she      di’int!)
    

  • Leading Edge Technology part II – Samsung will be  one of the      first foundries to roll out a high-k/metal-gate  solution. The technology      will be offered at the 32- and 28-nm  nodes, which will be rolled out this      year. (TSMC and GFI will go straight to 28nm HKT this year)
    

  • Leading Edge Technology part III – Unlike rival  TSMC, Samsung      is using a gate-first, high-k technology, TSMC is  going with gate-last. We think that gate-first is best suited for  today’s needs. (I defer to TSMC on this one, they have forgotten more  about the foundry business than most will ever know.)
    

  • Ecosystem – Samsung has put the EDA pieces in place for the      design-for-manufacturing puzzle. (A puzzle analogy, really?)
    

    
 
    
Now let me highlight 6 reasons why I believe Samsung will not succeed:
    
 
    
[LIST=1]
    

  • Business Model – The Foundry business is services centric, the IDM business is not. This is a serious paradigm shift for Samsung.
    

  • Customer Diversity – Supporting a handful of  customers/products is a far cry from supporting the 100’s of customers  and 1,000′s of products TSMC does.
    

  • Ecosystem – An open ecosystem is required which includes supporting commercial EDA, Semiconductor IP, and Design Services companies of all shapes and sizes.
    

  • Conflict of Interest – Pure-play foundries  will not compete with customers, Not-pure-play foundries (Samsung)  will. Would you share sensitive design, yield, and cost data with your  competitor?
    

  • China – The Chinese market represents the single largest growth opportunity for the foundry business. TSMC has a fab in Shanghai and 10% control of SMIC (#4), UMC (#2) has control of China’s He Jian (#11), and Samsung does not even speak Mandarin.
    

  • Competition – The foundry business is ultra competitive, very sticky, and product dumping will not get you from #9 to #1.
    

    
 Just my opinion of course.
                    [post_title] => TSMC versus SAMSUNG
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                    [post_date] => 2010-02-28 22:22:00
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                    [post_content] => 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                            in July 1997  as Vice President of  Research and  Development (R&D).                             He  temporarily retired from TSMC as Senior Vice  President of  R&D                             in July 2006 and returned in September  2009 to   resume this position.
    

    
 Dr. Chiang, a fellow of IEEE,  received his Bachelor of                                Science degree from National Taiwan University  in 1968,   his Master of                              Science degree from Princeton   University in  1970, and his Doctorate from                                Stanford University in 1974, all in electrical  engineering. In 2001,                                Dr. Chiang was chosen as one of the 50 “Stars    of Asia” by BusinessWeek                              Magazine. This award   recognizes the outstanding  performance of TSMC’s                                R&D team under Dr. Chiang’s leadership, and  his vision and   strategies                              for continued aggressive R&D   development  despite the industry-wide downturn.
    
 
    

    
The new technologies introduced for the 45/40nm process include ArF  immersion exposure,  the third-generation strained silicon and a low-k  interlayer  insulating film whose dielectric constant was lowered to 2.5.  Though  TSMC had chamber matching and ion implanting problems for the  45/40nm  process, it has solved the problems and is now rapidly ramping the  technology. The number of tape-outs have increased at a  rapid rate, and  half of the taped-out chips are now being  mass-produced, TSMC said.
    
 
    
The most important new technology for the 32/28nm process is a new   gate. A SiON gate insulating film is used for the low-power type (28LP)   while a high-dielectric gate insulating film and a metal gate electrode   (high-k/metal gate) are used for the high-performance type (28HP) and   the medium-speed, low-leakage type (28HPL).
    

    
 As a process to form the high-k/metal gate, TSMC employed the   gate-gate-last process instead of the gate-first process, which the   company was planning to use at first. Also, it will introduce the   fourth-generation strained silicon and low-resistance Cu wiring. TSMC  lowered the resistance of Cu wiring by improving the flatness of  the  boundary surfaces of the Cu and barrier metal to prevent electrons   flowing on the surface of the wiring from scattering.
    
 
    
Besides TSMC, IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES have initiated research  projects to enable the scaling of semiconductor components to the 22  nanometer  node and beyond. Back in June 2009, GlobalFoundries described an innovative technology that could  overcome one of the key hurdles to advancing high-k metal gate (HKMG)  transistors, enabling the next  generation of mobile devices with more computing power and improved  battery life.
    
 An interesting race indeed, the prize being the top foundry customers  around the world: Qualcomm, Broadcom, Xilinx, Altera, AMD/ATI, Nvidia,  Apple, etc…
                    [post_title] => TSMC vs GlobalFoundries vs IBM
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                    [post_name] => tsmc-vs-globalfoundries-vs-ibm
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                    [post_modified] => 2019-06-14 21:36:45
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                    [post_date] => 2010-02-22 00:30:00
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                    [post_content] => One may ask why in the semiconductor world would GlobalFoundries(GFI) exhibit at the Mobile World Congress  last week, the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry. And  not just exhibit, GFI turned out at en force with meeting rooms and  bright orange signage declaring a mobile revolution. Why? Here is your  first clue:
    
 
    
2010 will usher in a new generation of consumer electronic devices.  These devices will enable mobile internet access to an ever increasing  amount of high speed data, real time audio, high definition video, and  mobile television. Driven by smartphones, mobile internet devices are in  hyper growth mode and represent the single largest consumer electronics  market segment known to man. Remember, there are 6,795,200,000 people  in the world that will need mobile internet devices. There are only  about 1,000,000,000 smartphones in use today and they have a much  shorter life cycle than a radio, TV, desktop, or even a laptop personal  computer.
    
 
    
As consumer electronic devices go mobile, the lines between  televisions, computers, phones, cameras, browsers and operating systems  disappear. Nowhere is this more illustrated than in the rapid rise of  mobile consumption of the internet. According to the Quantcast 2009 Mobile Trends Report,  the North American mobile web share is up 110% in 2009 (Dec ’09 vs. Dec  ’08) and the global mobile web consumption share up 148% in 2009.  Beginning with the iPhone in 2007, the Android in 2009, and the tablet  PC onslaught in 2010, it’s a safe bet that the number of mobile internet  devices will grow in numbers exponentially in the coming decade. The  next question is: How can we simplify the design and implementation of  mobile internet device hardware and software?
    

    
 The semiconductor industry has done an excellent job with technical  standards in this regard. Inside mobile internet devices (smartphones)  MIPI Specifications establish standards for hardware and software  interfaces which allow consumers a choice of vendors for leading edge  products. The MIPIAlliance,  established in July 2003 by ARM, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas  Instruments, is an open membership organization for leading companies in  the mobile industry that promote open interface specifications. The  IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (ISTO) administers  the Alliance.
    
 
    
Before MIPI was established designers faced multiple competing and  proprietary physical-layer interfaces for any given system function.  MIPI has reduced that to two-to-four physical-layer standards, with  multiple protocols layered on top to cover various functions, all designed to last for multiple generations. A standards organization  that actually works, how refreshing!
    

    
 A next generation MIPI physical layer, the M-PHY,  was rolled out at MWC last week.  The M comes from the Roman numeral 1000 to signify the 1000M-5GBit  communication speed. The M-PHY is a serial interface technology with  high bandwidth capabilities, targeted for mobile applications designed  for good power efficiency and for a wide range of application protocols.  The M-PHY provides higher bandwidths and uses fewer signal wires than  the current D-PHY technology that it replaces.
    
 
    
In the end, the central communications module will not necessarily be  large but will include the user’s basic identity and some communications  capabilities. The more challenging aspects will be supplying  high-definition streaming video, loading of gigabyte wide movies (from  the Internet) and “everyone, everywhere, seamless wireless connection to  surrounding devices and services”. These future use model requirements  point directly to the MIPI M-PHY.
                    [post_title] => GlobalFoundries and the Mobile World Congress
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                    [post_date] => 2010-02-09 21:31:00
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                    [post_content] => When AMD sought to shed its costly manufacturing unit Ibrahim Ajami saw an interesting opportunity, one that will eventually bring semiconductor manufacturing to Abu Dhabi. Let’s start with the recent interview published with Ajami, the 34 year old Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), which is owned by the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and is the controlling shareholder of GlobalFoundries (GFI).
    
 
    
GlobalFoundries wants 30% of the made-to-order chip market within three  years. “Am I setting very aggressive targets? Yes,” Ajami said in a Jan  28 interview in Abu Dhabi. “We need to be a $5 billion company in the  next two to three years.”  A 30% share would take GlobalFoundries well  past United Microelectronics Corp (UMC), making it the world’s second-largest contract manufacturer of chips after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC).
    
 
    
Mr. Ajami also dispelled recent rumors: “ATIC won’t buy the rest of GlobalFoundries (AMD owns 34%)  and the company has no interest in acquiring either United Micro or  South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor Inc.”, Ajami said. “It doesn’t fit  with our strategy right now,” he said. “UMC is another foundry in Taiwan  and we’re not looking to go there right now and Hynix is a memory  company. Memory is not what we’re focused on right now”.
    

    
 Ajami earned his BS degree from Northeastern  University in Boston in  1998 and his MBA from the University of Southern California in 2004.  His semiconductor experience comes from the creation of a Silicon Valley  startup called ViralSounds Inc., and he worked for Packard Bell/NEC.  Ajami, associate director of the acquisitions unit of Mubadala,  was tapped to become CEO of ATIC and led the $7.5 billion acquisitions  of AMD manufacturing and Chartered Semiconductor that we now call  GlobalFoundries.
    

    
 
    

    
As I mentioned in TSMC versus GlobalFoundries Part I and Part II,  GFI will compete head-to-head with TSMC in the first source  semiconductor market, while UMC and SMIC are content to be second and  third source semiconductor manufacturers. GFI has not been shy about  their challenge to TSMC’s wafer supremacy and TSMC has responded in kind  by increasing capital expenditures, increasing R&D expenses, and  hiring thousands of engineers.
    
 
    
During my January visit to Taiwan there was definitely excitement in  the air at TSMC. The Fab lobbies were filled with job applicants, the  Fab cafeterias and coffee shops were abuzz, and meetings were much  harder to coordinate, a very big change from a few months ago. On a side  note, the food in Fab 12 is by far the tastiest and EVA Airlines is the  absolute best carrier from the US to Taiwan, but I digress.
    

    
 Whether or not GFI is a serious threat to TSMC’s foundry supremacy,  TSMC is certainly using GFI’s public relations activities to motivate  employees.  Déjà vu when the deep pockets of the Chinese government  funded SMIC.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, SMIC was a sheep in wolf’s clothing.  GFI on the other hand looks more like a wolf in an Armani suit.
                    [post_title] => The GlobalFoundries Enigma
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                    [post_date] => 2010-01-31 23:49:00
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                    [post_content] => 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, and  high yield design goals at 28nm.
    

    
 A recent seminar byTSMC and Synopsys  entitled “32/28nm Challenges – The EDA Vendor and Foundry Perspective”  brought perspective to the coming design challenges. The TSMC section  presented by Tom Quan is well worth seeing. Tom Quan  has 30 years design and product development experience in the AMS  market space. You won’t find a more engaging speaker on process  variation than Tom Quan.
    
 
    
TSMC’s value proposition for moving to the 28nm process supports Moore’s  Law with a better than 2X gate density at 28nm versus 40nm, a  significant speed gain, plus reduced power leakage and an overall cost  reduction. Target applications for 28nm include high performance  computing and peripherals, low power devices such as HD video cameras,  mobile internet and mobile computing, home and portable entertainment.  TSMC’s Advanced Technology Roadmap is on track for the low power 28nm  process in Q210 and high performance-high K metal gate 28nm process in  Q310.
    
 
    
Tom Quan’s emphasis on the importance of “Variation-Aware Design” is  justified. To start with, a smaller manufacturing window with much less  margin to begin with equals more variation. Add to that the fact that  global variation is constant, but local variation increases  significantly as channel width and length decreases, and you will have a  requirement for variation-aware design tools prior to GDS.
    
 The overall TSMC design ecosystem emphasis is on collaboration  between design and process. Tom divided this responsibility into  Foundry: better SPICE accuracy, DFM rules, providing variation aware  reference design kits (RDKs), and restricted design rules (RDRs).  Designers: must be aware of layout effects, analyze-fix variation-aware  methodologies will be required for area-yield tradeoffs, and pre- vs.  post-layout simulation accuracy. The clear implication is that designers  need to change their mindset in adopting a variation-aware design  methodology as a requirement versus a luxury.
    
 
    
The conclusions are obvious. Partnerships between the foundry, EDA  and SemIP providers, and customers will be required to eliminate silicon  waste at 28nm. Partnerships that are friendly and cost effective, with  shared responsibility will result in productive and innovative solutions  to even the most technologically advanced challenges.
    

    
 I’ve covered semiconductor process variation in my blogs on TSMC Process Variation, TSMC 40nm Yield Explained, Moore’s Law and 40nm Yield, and most recently Moore’s Law and 28nm Yield. I also work on process variation with the foundries and top semiconductor companies through strategic relationships with Solido Design Automation.  Device sensitivity and process variability is something you will have  to carefully model and design to at 28nm so be sure and look for  variation aware methodologies before you start.
                    [post_title] => TSMC 28nm Design Advisory
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                    [post_content] => This blog is a follow-up to my second most viewed page Moore’s Law and 40nm Yield,  with a strong recommendation of how to design for yield at the advanced  nodes (32/28/22nm) with Verify High-Sigma design technology.
    

    
 
    

    
Case in point: Circuit blocks such as complex  standard cells or memory bit cells are repeated thousands or even  millions of times on a die.  For the overall chip to have good yield,  the repeated block must have extremely high yield. Calculating yield in  this context is very important due to increasing process variations at  each new technology node.
    

    
 One approach would be to use Monte Carlo sampling.  Unfortunately,  this would require far too many simulations: a circuit with 99.9999%  yield would need, on average, 1 million samples from the true  distribution just to observe a single failure against circuit  specifications.
    

    
 
    

    
Compared to a plain Monte  Carlo simulation, Verify High-Sigma design  is orders of magnitude faster for estimating yields of high sigma  circuits.
    

    
 With a normal Monte Carlo run, process points are drawn directly  from the process variation distribution.  The problem, as noted  earlier, is that far too many samples are needed in order to get  failures in the design.  Verify High-Sigma Design changes this by  sampling from a different distribution, in which a greater proportion of  samples are failures.  This approach is a variant of importance  sampling. Verify High-Sigma Design estimates the yield of high-sigma  circuits by:
    

    
 
    
[LIST=1]
    

  • Creating a new sampling distribution such that a greater proportion of samples are failures. 
    

  • Drawing samples from the new distribution, simulating them, and seeing if they meet specifications. 
    

  • Estimating yield by mathematically unbiasing the samples, according to importance sampling formula. 
    

  • Computing yield accuracy, using a statistical technique called bootstrapping. 

    
 
    
To illustrate that Verify High-Sigma (VHS) design returns yield  estimates as accurate as a standard Monte Carlo (MC) run, the following  table compares MC and VHS yield estimation results across 6 different  circuits on moderate-yield circuits (moderate yield so that MC only  needs a moderate number of samples to make a good yield estimate).  For  all 6 cases, the yield estimates for VHS and MC agree because their  yield confidence bounds overlap.
    

    
[TABLE]  style="width: 528px"
    
|- 
    
|  style="width: 107px" | Circuit
    
|  style="width: 209px" | MC   Yield (up to 10K samples)
    
|  style="width: 213px" | VHS   Yield  (250 samples)
    
|- 
    
|  style="width: 107px" | Current   mirror
    
|  style="width: 209px" | 99.580%   (99.433% – 99.689%)
    
|  style="width: 213px" | 99.709%   (99.569% – 99.808%)
    
|- 
    
|  style="width: 107px" | GMC
    
|  width="209" | 99.836%   (99.519% – 99.944%)
    
|  width="213" | 99.831%   (99.752% – 99.885%)
    
|- 
    
|  width="107" | LNA
    
|  width="209" | 99.950%   (99.883% – 99.979%)
    
|  width="213" | 99.888%   (99.760% – 99.9662%)
    
|- 
    
|  width="107" | Folded   opamp
    
|  width="209" | 99.221%   (98.027% – 99.699%)
    
|  width="213" | 99.490%   (98.639% – 99.370%)
    
|- 
    
|  width="107" | CP
    
|  width="209" | 99.597%   (99.410% – 99.725%)
    
|  width="213" | 99.522%   (99.291% – 99.682%)
    
|-
    

    

    

    

    

    
When design teams and managers consider which advanced technologies  to incorporate in their flows, their metrics include quality of results  (QoR), use model, ease of adoption, and cost. Verify High-Sigma design  technology addresses each of these metrics. Designers can improve the  quality of their results by changing their designs using High-Sigma  extracted corners.  They can statistically verify their designs with  SPICE accuracy in a relatively short amount of time.
    

    

    

    

    
 
                    [post_title] => Moore’s Law and 28nm Yield
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                    [post_date] => 2010-01-17 11:52:00
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                    [post_content] => 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 Corporation is billed as one  of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world and the largest and  most advanced foundry in Mainland China. Harvard Business School even  wrote a case study on SMIC’s business model, characterized as a Reverse Build-Operate-Transfer  (BOT). Unfortunately cheap labor does not a foundry make. It takes  highly experienced workers, advanced manufacturing technology, strategic  marketing, and an ultra competitive business model. The semiconductor  foundry business is a marathon, not a sprint. Also see TSMC vs SMIC.
    
 
    
Case in point #2: Chartered Semiconductor was  created in 1987 as one of the world’s dedicated semiconductor foundries.  Chartered Semiconductor continued a string of losing quarters until the  Abu   Dhabi government-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC)  acquisition was passed by investors in a majority vote. Shareholders  bought Chartered shares at the 1999 initial public offering (IPO) price  of S$3.34, the shares were later consolidated at 10 for 1, so they effectively cost S$33.40 each. ATIC paid S$2.68 a share. Chartered had experienced workers and strategic marketing (Common Platform), but lacked the advanced manufacturing technology and competitive business model to be successful.
    
 2010 brings us a truly global foundry with the ATIC acquisitions of  the manufacturing arm of AMD and Chartered Semiconductor. Global  Foundries now employs 10,000+ people spanning 3 continents and 12  locations with manufacturing operations in Singapore, Dresden, Germany,  and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga   County, New  York. Global Foundries was founded with $4.5 billion in cash, with  future backing going up to $7B. The New York fab alone will cost an  estimated $4.5B.
    
 
    
GFI now has about $3B in revenues from more than 150 customers that  include many of the world’s top fabless and fab-lite companies, such as  AMD, Qualcomm, STMicro, IBM, and Toshiba.  Process geometries in  production are: .5um, .35um, .25um, .13um, .18um, 90nm, 65nm, and  45/40nm. Process geometries in planning are: 32/28nm and 22/20nm.  Planned capacity is 1.6 million 300mm wafers annually by 2014,  supplemented by 2.2 million 200mm wafers a year. Global Foundries has  highly experienced workers from Chartered Semiconductor and AMD, cutting  edge manufacturing technology from AMD and IBM, strategic marketing  from Common Platform, add in a competitive business model and you will  have the #2 foundry in the world.
    

    
 In comparison TSMC has 23,000+ employees and will add 3,000 more in  2010. With $10B+ in annual revenues, TSMC accounts for 50% of the  foundry market revenue and 80% of the profits. TSMC is considered a  first source for semiconductor manufacture, meaning that leading fabless  semiconductor companies work with TSMC first, then replicate  manufacturing at the other foundries for redundancy and cost reductions.  Global Foundries will challenge TSMC for first sourcing with AMD  manufacturing technology and a manufacturing process partnership with  IBM. In fact the first production 28nm wafers by a foundry were  displayed by GFI at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas this  month. At least one of the wafers contained AMD/ATI GPUs.
    
 
    
Unfortunately the semiconductor foundry market is a maturing industry  and likely to experience single digit annual growth in coming years. To  diversify, TSMC is investing heavily in solar power and light-emitting  diodes. Both are fast growing markets, have technological overlap with  chip production, and offer far better margins and upside potential.  There is a reason why TSMC is the #1 foundry in the world and I don’t  see that changing anytime soon. But competition breeds innovation so the  foundry business will be much more interesting to watch with GFI  challenging TSMC.
                    [post_title] => TSMC versus Global Foundries Part II
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                    [post_content] =>  
    
Any questions? Christmas was good for electronics and the start of a  prosperous semiconductor New Year. Semiconductor inventories are low and  demand is increasing around the world. Remember, there are  1,338,612,968 people in China that will need mobile internet devices and  the stimulus money is gushing over there. There are a total of  6,795,200,000 people in the world that will need mobile internet devices  and today there are only about 1,000,000,000 smartphones in use.   Considering that you will purchase a new smartphone every 2-3 years, if  you believe 2010 will be a good year for semiconductors, 2011 will be  even better.
    
 
    
As consumer electronic devices go mobile, the lines between  televisions, computers, phones, cameras, video games, browsers and  operating systems will disappear. An electronics bubble has begun and  I’m thrilled to be part of it. The Consumer Electronics Show  (CES) in Las Vegas last week was certainly an excellent start. CES is  an industry recognized barometer as 100,000+ gadget geeks ogle 2,500+  exhibitors with an estimated 20k+ new products.
    
 What I look for personally is technology that will change my life.  Porsche changed my life in the 70’s, personal computers in the 80’s,  laptops in the 90’s, and the smartphone in the 2000′s. For the next  decade it is too soon to tell but certainly nothing at CES this year  will change my life. Tablet PCs? 3D TV? E-Readers? YAWN. My prediction  is that social media and mobile internet devices will continue to drive  semiconductor revenue in the 2010′s.
    

    

    
 
    

    
Speaking of audio, be sure and check out the Virage/ARC Sonic Focus  demo. Audiofile or not, the sound quality will amaze you. The embedded  processor companies were at CES in force, Nvidia even announced their  own Tegra mobile  embedded processor. But the most impressive demo is the Sonic Focus  audio enrichment software which brings realism back to digitally  compressed audio.  Speaker size and placement will always be a problem  for mobile internet, data will always be compressed, devices will get  thinner and lighter. Using technology created by artisans and  engineers founded in the music industry, Sonic Focus IP technologies  deliver audio performance of today’s consumer devices and enable an  immersive, engaging and compelling experience. Hearing is believing so check it out.
    

    
 My award for best gadget goes to Samsung’s 14-inch transparent display.  Not that it would change my life but it definitely has the cool factor!  Also, if you missed the CEO keynotes, as I did, they are all on the CES front page.  Very polished, very Las   Vegas, somewhat informative, definitely worth  streaming on your mobile internet device while you drive or wait in  line for a $5 cup of coffee.
                    [post_title] => 2010 Semiconductor Recovery
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            [post_content] => My visit to Taiwan last week was very encouraging. No earthquake, no  typhoon, and both TSMC and UMC again posted record financial results,  giving a peek into what 2011 has in store for us semiconductor  professionals around the world.
    
 
    
A transcript from the TSMC earnings call can be foundhere, the UMC transcript is here. The TSMC transcript is 19 pages long so let me save you some time with the key financial points:
    
 
    


      

    •  TSMC’s      net sales reached NT $412.3 billion ($13.4730 billion  USD), up 6.9% from      Q2 and up 24.8% from the same period a year ago. 
      

    • Wafer      shipments were 3.19 million 8 inch equivalent  wafers, up 9% from the prior      quarter and up 30.5% from the year ago  quarter. 
      

    • Operating      margin was 38.4%, down 2% points sequentially, but up 2.8% points compared      with year ago quarter. 
      

    • EPS      for Q3 reached NT$1.81, ROE was 36.5%. 
      

    • Q3      gross margin was 50%, up by 0.5% points from 49.5 in Q2, mainly due to      continued cost improvements. 
      

    • Operating      expense increased NT$1.6 billion from Q2,  primarily due to a higher level      of development activities for our  28 nanometer and 20 nanometer      technologies, and also a higher  opening expense for our Fab 12. 
      

    • Ended      Q3 with $5B+ USD in cash and short term investments 

    
 
    
“Our mission is simply to be the technology and capacity    provider of the global logic IP industry for years to come. We want to    be the technology and capacity provider of the largest IP industry  for   years to come.”
    
 Morris Chang was again on the conference call. Morris resumed as TSMC  CEO June 2009 after passing the CEO baton to Rick Tsai in July 2005. I  really am glad Morris is back at TSMC! According to Morris:
    
 
    


      

    • Q3 was      a historical record in revenue dollars, in gross margin and in      net income dollars. 
      

    • If Q4      were at the same exchange rate at Q3, then Q4  guidance would be revenue      NT$111.6 billion to NT$113.7. billion  which is higher than Q3 actual. 
      

    • Gross      margin percentage would be 49.5% to 51.5%, which is also higher than the      Q3 actual. 
      

    • CAPEX      will be $5.5 billion this year, CAPEX will be greater in 2011. 
      

    • 71 customer      28 nm tape outs already scheduled. 
      

    • We are forecasting total foundry revenue growth      will be 14% in 2011. 
      


    
 
    
One thing that Morris said that needs clarification is on 28nm portability:
    

    
 I also wanted to point out that as the 28 nanometer  generation, customer designs are very difficult to port between  foundries. They’re very difficult to move from one foundry to another.  This is a new phenomena that did not exist even in the 45-40 generation.
    

    
 It is true that TSMC 28nm designs cannot be manufactured at other  foundries with little or no modifications like 40nm. TSMC 28nm designs  can however be migrated to other foundries using process migration tools  from Sagantec.  Magma and Cadence also have migration tools (Titan ALX and Virtuoso  Layout Migrate) but they both have complexity and capacity issues.  Process migration is only a $10M market so I doubt Magma or Cadence will  put much more effort into it. I’m currently working on 28nm migration  projects with Sagantec so I know this by experience.
    
 
    
Communications (mobile internet) will continue to drive semiconductors  in 2011 and the rest of this decade. Smartphones give people access to  information and information is power.  In India and China even the  poorest of poor people have mobile phones. No indoor plumbing, but  everyone has a mobile phone. Access to information raises the  aspirations of the poor which will in turn force governments to  acknowledge poverty and do something about it. The semiconductor  industry is changing the world, believe it.
            [post_title] => TSMC 2011 Forecast and 28nm Update!
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    • Posted on

    TSMC 2011 Forecast and 28nm Update!

    TSMC 2011 Forecast and 28nm Update!
    by Daniel Nenni on 03-31-2010 at 10:05 pm
    Categories: Foundries, TSMC

    My visit to Taiwan last week was very encouraging. No earthquake, no typhoon, and both TSMC and UMC again posted record financial results, giving a peek into what 2011 has in store for us semiconductor professionals around the world.

    A transcript from the TSMC earnings call can be foundhere, the UMC transcript is here. The TSMC transcript… Read More

    Posted on

    Semiconductor Industry 2025

    Semiconductor Industry 2025
    by Daniel Nenni on 03-21-2010 at 8:56 pm
    Categories: Events, Semiconductor Services

    The 2010 ISSCC theme was all about “Sensing the Future” and was one of the most inspiring semiconductor conferences I have experienced. The halls were filled with the top names in semiconductor design and manufacture from around the world. The sessions highlighted not only technology breakthroughs (first 4G silicon), but new… Read More

    Posted on

    TSMC versus SAMSUNG

    TSMC versus SAMSUNG
    by Daniel Nenni on 03-07-2010 at 8:49 pm
    Categories: Foundries, TSMC

    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

    Posted on

    TSMC vs GlobalFoundries vs IBM

    TSMC vs GlobalFoundries vs IBM
    by Daniel Nenni on 02-28-2010 at 10:22 pm
    Categories: Foundries, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, TSMC

    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

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    GlobalFoundries and the Mobile World Congress

    GlobalFoundries and the Mobile World Congress
    by Daniel Nenni on 02-22-2010 at 12:30 am
    Categories: Foundries, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IP

    One may ask why in the semiconductor world would GlobalFoundries(GFI) exhibit at the Mobile World Congress last week, the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry. And not just exhibit, GFI turned out at en force with meeting rooms and bright orange signage declaring a mobile revolution. Why? Here is your first clue:… Read More

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    The GlobalFoundries Enigma

    The GlobalFoundries Enigma
    by Daniel Nenni on 02-09-2010 at 9:31 pm
    Categories: Foundries, GLOBALFOUNDRIES

    When AMD sought to shed its costly manufacturing unit Ibrahim Ajami saw an interesting opportunity, one that will eventually bring semiconductor manufacturing to Abu Dhabi. Let’s start with the recent interview published with Ajami, the 34 year old Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC),… Read More

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    TSMC 28nm Design Advisory

    TSMC 28nm Design Advisory
    by Daniel Nenni on 01-31-2010 at 11:49 pm
    Categories: Foundries, TSMC

    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

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    Moore’s Law and 28nm Yield

    Moore’s Law and 28nm Yield
    by Daniel Nenni on 01-24-2010 at 10:44 pm
    Categories: EDA, Solido

    This blog is a follow-up to my second most viewed page Moore’s Law and 40nm Yield, with a strong recommendation of how to design for yield at the advanced nodes (32/28/22nm) with Verify High-Sigma design technology.

    Case in point: Circuit blocks such as complex standard cells or memory bit cells are repeated thousands or even millions… Read More

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    TSMC versus Global Foundries Part II

    TSMC versus Global Foundries Part II
    by Daniel Nenni on 01-17-2010 at 11:52 am
    Categories: Foundries, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, TSMC

    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

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    2010 Semiconductor Recovery

    2010 Semiconductor Recovery
    by Daniel Nenni on 12-31-2009 at 8:00 pm
    Categories: Uncategorized


    Any questions? Christmas was good for electronics and the start of a prosperous semiconductor New Year. Semiconductor inventories are low and demand is increasing around the world. Remember, there are 1,338,612,968 people in China that will need mobile internet devices and the stimulus money is gushing over there. There are… Read More