For many years, monolithic chips defined semiconductor innovation. New microprocessors defined new markets, as did new graphics processors, and cell-phone chips. Getting to the next node was the goal, and when the foundry shipped a working part victory was declared. As we know, this is changing. Semiconductor innovation is… Read More
Samsung Foundry on Track for 2nm Production in 2025
On the heels of the TSMC Symposium and the Intel Foundry update, Samsung held their Foundry Forum today live in Silicon Valley. As usual it was a well attended event with hundreds of people and dozens of ecosystem partners. The theme was the AI Era which is appropriate. As I have mentioned before, AI will touch most every chip and there… Read More
Intel Internal Foundry Model Webinar
Intel held a webinar today to discuss their IDM2.0 internal foundry model. On the call were Dave Zinsner Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Jason Grebe Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Corporate Planning Group.
On a humorous note, the person moderating the attendee questions sounded … Read More
The Updated Legacy of Intel CEOs
(First published December 24, 2014)
A list of the best and worst CEOs in 2014 was recently published. The good news is that none of our semiconductor CEOs were on the worst list. The bad news is that none of our semiconductor CEOs were on the best list either. I will be writing about the CEOs that made our industry what it is today starting… Read More
Synopsys Expands Agreement with Samsung Foundry to Increase IP Footprint
Many credible market analysis firms are predicting the semiconductor market to reach the trillion dollar mark over the next six years or so. Just compare this to the more than six decades it took for the market to cross the $500 billion mark. The projected growth rate is incredible indeed and is driven by fast growing market segments… Read More
Keynote Sneak Peek: Ansys CEO Ajei Gopal at Samsung SAFE Forum 2023
As one of the world’s leading chip foundries, Samsung occupies a vital position in the semiconductor value chain. The annual Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE™) Forum is a must-go event for semiconductor and electronic design automation (EDA) professionals. Ajei Gopal, President and CEO of Ansys, has the honor of delivering… Read More
TSMC Doubles Down on Semiconductor Packaging!
Last week TSMC announced the opening of an advanced backend fab for the expansion of the TSMC 3DFabric System Integration Technology. It’s a significant announcement as the chip packaging arms race with Intel and Samsung is heating up.
Fab 6 is TSMC’s first all-in-one advanced packaging and testing fab which is part of the… Read More
VLSI Symposium – Intel PowerVia Technology
At the 2023 VLSI Symposium on Technology and Circuits, Intel presented two papers on their PowerVia technology. We received a pre-conference briefing on the technology embargoed until the conference began and received the papers.
Traditionally all interconnects have taken place on the front side of devices with signal and … Read More
TSMC Clarified CAPEX and Revenue for 2023!
TSMC clarified CAPEX and revenue for 2023 last night at the Annual Shareholders Meeting. Last year TSMC guided up during this meeting but this year they guided down. CAPEX was guided down to the lower end of $36B-$32B. Revenue was guided down from low-single to mid-single digit so maybe down another percent or two. The TSMC Jan… Read More
Investing in a sustainable semiconductor future: Materials Matter
In 2020 TSMC established its Net Zero Project with a goal of net zero emissions by 2050. I remember wondering how could this possibly be done before 2050 or at all for that matter. After working with TSMC for 20+ years I have learned never to bet against them on any topic and green manufacturing is one of them, absolutely.
TSMC presented… Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification