Banner Electrical Verification The invisible bottleneck in IC design updated 1
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Intel Wafer Pricing Exposed!

Intel Wafer Pricing Exposed!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-28-2013 at 12:00 pm

One of the big questions on Intel’s foundry strategy is: Can they compete on wafer pricing? Fortunately there are now detailed reports that support what most of us fabless folks already know. The simple answer is no, Intel cannot compete with TSMC or Samsung on wafer pricing at 28nm, 20nm, and 14nm.

In fact, recent reports have shown… Read More


Semicon Technology Advancement – A View From IEDM

Semicon Technology Advancement – A View From IEDM
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-20-2013 at 10:00 am

As I see the semiconductor industry going through significant changes and advances, yet ironically plagued by a growing perception that the pace of scaling is slowing, I was inclined to take a peek into what the industry experts say about the state of the industry and the future of Moore’s Law. Fortunately, at last week’s InternationalRead More


TSMC: 3D, 450mm, CoWoS and More

TSMC: 3D, 450mm, CoWoS and More
by Paul McLellan on 12-18-2013 at 4:29 pm

The first keynote at the Burlingame 3D conference was by Doug Yu of TSMC. Not surprisingly he was talking about 3D. In particular, TSMC has WLSI technology that they call CoWoS, which stands for chip-on-wafer-on-substrate which pretty much describes how it is built. This is the technology that Xilinx uses for its recently announced… Read More


Should Intel Offer Foundry Services?

Should Intel Offer Foundry Services?
by Daniel Nenni on 12-15-2013 at 11:00 am

This has been a heated topic since Intel announced that it would open its manufacturing facilities to the fabless ecosystem more than a year ago. I for one think it is a colossal mistake and I’m not surprised that many others share this view. IDM’s offering of excess manufacturing capacity to semiconductor design companies… Read More


Could FD-SOI be Cheaper too?

Could FD-SOI be Cheaper too?
by Eric Esteve on 12-08-2013 at 11:00 am

We agree now that FD-SOI technology is Faster, Cooler, Simpler. But can it also be a cheaper technology? Let start with an overview of the current estimation of the development cost for complex SoC on advanced technology nodes. The following data are extracted from International Business Strategies, Inc 2013 report. The first… Read More


The Leading Edge Depends on What You Are Doing

The Leading Edge Depends on What You Are Doing
by Paul McLellan on 12-06-2013 at 11:10 pm

At Semicon Japan a few days ago, Subi Kengeri of GlobalFoundries delivered the keynote. While he covered a number of topics, using Tokyo’s recent win of the 2020 Olympics as a hook, one major theme was the increasing importance of processes other than the bleeding edge digital processes that get all the news.

What is leading… Read More


Intel Comes Clean on 14nm Yield!

Intel Comes Clean on 14nm Yield!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-04-2013 at 8:00 am

Hopefully this blog will result in a meaningful discussion on truth and transparency, and how Intel can do better in regards to both. Take a close look at the manufacturing slides presented by William Holt, Executive Vice President General Manager, Intel Technology and Manufacturing Group. You can see the slide deck HERE. Slide… Read More


Intel’s Tale of Two Cities

Intel’s Tale of Two Cities
by Ed McKernan on 11-27-2013 at 11:00 pm

It was a year ago that Paul Otellini made his surprise announcement that he was stepping down as CEO of Intel. Soon after, I wrote an article asserting that the only correct choice for his replacement was Nvidia’s CEO Jen Hsun Huang. I went beck to reread what I wroteand I can scarcely say I would change anything I put in the article assumingRead More


Intel Bay Trail Fail II

Intel Bay Trail Fail II
by Daniel Nenni on 11-27-2013 at 9:00 am

To follow up my Bay Trail Fail blog which predicted that the leading edge Intel 22nm mobile SoC offering would fail, I must admit I was wrong. I did not think Bay Trail would see any traction in the tablet market but, as it turns out, Intel will ship 40M of those parts in 2014. Did you notice I said ship and not sell? Read on……… … Read More


Intel’s Mea Culpa!

Intel’s Mea Culpa!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-24-2013 at 11:00 am

The Intel analyst meeting last week reads like an absolute train wreck with INTC stock dropping 5%+ the very next day. Since I work in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem during the day I was not able to listen to it live like the other pundits. Nor am I as easily fooled by Power Point slides. I did however review the materials and would… Read More