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Can Intel Catch Samsung? Can Anybody Catch Samsung?

Can Intel Catch Samsung? Can Anybody Catch Samsung?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-08-2013 at 5:00 pm

As a professional conference attendee I see a lot of keynotes, some good and some bad. I saw a great one from Kurt Shuler at the SEMICO IP Impact Conference last week. Why this conference was not standing room only I do not know. Kurt’s characterization of the semiconductor industry was well worth the price of admission. I didn’t actually… Read More


Xilinx and TSMC: Volume Production of 3D Parts

Xilinx and TSMC: Volume Production of 3D Parts
by Paul McLellan on 11-07-2013 at 1:23 pm

A couple of weeks ago, Xilinx and TSMC announced the production release of the Virtex-7 HT family, the industry’s first heterogeneous 3D ICs in production. With this milestone, all Xilinx 28nm 3D IC families are now in volume production. These 28nm devices were developed on TSMC’s Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS)… Read More


TSMC on Semiconductor IP Quality

TSMC on Semiconductor IP Quality
by Daniel Nenni on 11-07-2013 at 9:00 am

It is important to note that the System On Chip (SoC) revolution that is currently driving mobile electronics has one very important enabling technology and that is Semiconductor Intellectual Property. Where would we be without the commercial IP market segment? Computers and phones would still be on our desks for one thing, and… Read More


Can Intel Compete in the IoT?

Can Intel Compete in the IoT?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-05-2013 at 5:00 pm

Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, is credited for the term “The Internet of Things” to describe an ecosystem where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors. Simply stated: rather than humans creating content for the internet IoT devices create the content. To be clear, this… Read More


GlobalFoundries and ARM

GlobalFoundries and ARM
by Paul McLellan on 11-04-2013 at 4:56 pm

GlobalFoundries had several interesting things at the ARM TechCon last week. Firstly, GlobalFoundries won the best in show award in the chip design category recognizing the best-in-class technologies introduced since the last TechCon.

Earlier in the summer GlobalFoundries and ARM announced the ARM Cortex-A12 processor,… Read More


Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry

Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry
by Daniel Nenni on 11-03-2013 at 4:00 pm


As I have mentioned before, Paul McLellan and I are writing a book on the history of the fabless semiconductor industry. There is a preview available HERE, it will initially be sold as an e-book on SemiWiki and put into print early next year. Working with Paul McLellan and Beth Martin on this was an amazing experience. The research,… Read More


Intel is Killing the Environment!

Intel is Killing the Environment!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-31-2013 at 6:00 pm

If I had to sum up opening day at ARM TechCon 2013 in one word it would be “crowded”. More than twice as many people attended as last year with 6,500 preregistered. The opening keynote was “The New Style of IT” pimping the HP Moonshot systems, but it could have just as easily been called “Why Intel Stock is Dead Money”,… Read More


ARM in Samsung 14nm FinFET

ARM in Samsung 14nm FinFET
by Paul McLellan on 10-30-2013 at 4:28 pm

I am at ARM TechCon today. One interesting presentation was made jointly between Samsung, Cadence and ARM themselves about developing physical libraries (ARM), a tool flow (Cadence) and test chips (Samsung). It was titled Samsung ARM and Cadence collaborate on the silicon-proven world first 14-nm FinFET Cortex-A7 ARM CPU and… Read More


The Alternative to FinFET: FD-SOI

The Alternative to FinFET: FD-SOI
by Paul McLellan on 10-30-2013 at 11:00 am

Everywhere you turn these days you find FinFETs. Intel has had them since 22nm (they use the word Tri-gate but it is the same as what the world calls FinFET) and TSMC will have them at 16nm. So why FinFET? And is there an alternative?

The reason that regular bulk planar transistors have run out of steam is that the channel area underneath… Read More


Pigs Fly. Altera Goes with ARM on Intel 14nm

Pigs Fly. Altera Goes with ARM on Intel 14nm
by Paul McLellan on 10-29-2013 at 7:00 am

Altera announced in February that they would be using Intel as a foundry at 14nm. Historically they have used TSMC. Then in June they announced the Stratix 10 family of FPGAs that they would build on the Intel process. At the Globalpress summit in May I asked Vince Hu about their processor strategy. Here is what I wrote about itat the… Read More