One of my favorite pastimes is listening to the quarterly investor calls of the leading semiconductor companies. I can then match up the talking points with the calls I do with Wall Street, the conferences I attend, and the other data points I have collected while working inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem for more than … Read More
SEMICON West – Leti FDSOI and IOT, status and roadmap
On Tuesday, July 12th at SEMICON West I had an opportunity to sit down with Marie Semeria, the CEO of Leti and discuss the status and future of FDSOI. Leti pioneered FDSOI 15 years ago and has been the leading FDSOI research ever since.
Two years ago Leti and ST Micro demonstrated products on 28nm that are cost competitive with bulk technology.… Read More
IMEC-Horizontal Nanowires for 5nm at the VLSI Technology Symposium
At the VLSI Technology Symposium, IMEC presented a paper entitled “Gate-All-Around MOSFETs based on Vertically Stacked Horizontal Si Nanowires in a Replacement Metal Gate Process on Bulk Silicon Wafers”. I have wanted to blog about this paper since the symposium was held but also wanted to tie it in with an interview… Read More
10nm Will Be an Epic Process Node!
In the history of the fabless semiconductor industry the foundries have always been a process node or two behind the leading semiconductor manufacturers. Starting in Q1 2017, for the first time in fabless semiconductor history, the foundries will have a process node advantage. This is horrible news for some but great news for … Read More
Samsung Embraces Both Public And Private Cloud With Joyent Acquisition
As the mobile industry growth slows and looks to growth in IoT, companies like Samsung Electronics are looking for ways to initiate change or adapt to the new climate around them. One of the ways mobile companies are going to be profitable in the future is through offering, building and sometimes hosting those services beyond just… Read More
Who Really Needs Intel’s New 10 Core, 20 Thread Broadwell-E Core i7 Processor?
At Computex 2016 in Taipei last week, Intel announced their newest lineup of processors which included a brand new 10-core Extreme Edition processor. The focal point of Intel’s new line-up of Broadwell-E processors, the successor to Intel’s previous Haswell-E workstation/enthusiast lineup is the 10-core Core i7-6950X. Intel… Read More
When will Intel strike back?
Stocks will likely be flattish on reduced news (KLAM, AMAT, UTEK, INTC, ASML & Hermes). From a Wall St perspective, this year will likely be one of the quietest Semicons in a while as all three major players, AMAT, LRCX & KLAC have no scheduled investor events. … Read More
STT-MRAM – Coming soon to an SoC near you
An increasing percentage of SoC die area is being allocated to memory arrays, as applications require more data/instruction storage and boot firmware. Indeed, foundries invest considerable R&D resources into optimizing their array technology IP offerings, often with more aggressive device features than used for other… Read More
Semiconductor is Definitely NOT Business as Usual!
Next week is SEMICON West where more than 26,000 of my compatriots will meet to discuss the future of the all-important semiconductor industry. How important is the semiconductor industry you ask? Well, your life literally depends on it, absolutely. Scott Jones and I will be covering the event live for SemiWiki so stay tuned. If… Read More
LETI Day 2016 : Security in Lyon, Sensor at Semicon West on July 12th
It was the very first time I attended the LETI days, even if I know the research center for many years. LETI was created in the 60’s, as the subsidiary of the CEA (France agency in charge of Atomic Energy) in charge of Microelectronic. Now, for more than 50 years, 2000 research engineers are working to develop technologies, systems … Read More
The AI PC: A New Category Poised to Reignite the PC Market