The latest generations of power efficient and full-featured applications processors in NXP’s very successful and broadly deployed i.MX platform are being manufactured on 28nm FD-SOI. The new i.MX 7 series leverages the 32-bit ARM v7-A core, targeting the general embedded, e-reader, medical, wearable and IoT markets, where… Read More
IoT Devices Making Inroads into Semicon Revenue
Last year IC Insights forecasted IOT semiconductor growth rate to be around 19% CAGR for next five years. And within that space, the O-S-D (Optoelectronics, Sensors, and Discrete) semiconductors were expected to grow at a CAGR of 26%, one among the fastest. In 2015, the O-S-D revenue was at $66.6 billion, i.e. ~19% of total semiconductor… Read More
3D NAND – Moore’s Law in the third dimension
For more than a decade 2D NAND has been the leading driver of lithography shrinks, for example, Samsung went from 120nm in 2003 to 16nm in 2014 with shrinks on an almost yearly basis, but the shrinks came at a price. At 16nm Self Aligned Quadruple Pattering (SAQP) was required for the most critical layers and patterning related costs… Read More
Body-biasing for ARM big or LITTLE in GF 22FDX
GLOBALFOUNDRIES has been evangelizing their 22FDX FD-SOI process for a few months; readers may have seen Tom Simon’s write-up of their preview at ARM TechCon. Dr. Joerg Winkler recently gave an updated webinar presentation of their approach in an implementation of ARM Cortex-A17 core.
By now, you’ve probably heard that 22FDX… Read More
BLDC motor control kit targets power savings
We tend to focus on connectivity and sensors for the IoT, however there is a third element to what I call the “Edge Device Triad” that is just as important: actuators. Making things move with microcontrollers (MCUs) is a science in and of itself. For small size and low weight combined with decent mechanical power, designers are opting… Read More
Semiconductor capital spending slow in 2016
The outlook for semiconductor capital expenditures (capex) in 2016 is weak. Gartner’s January 2016 forecast called for a decline of 4.7%. IC Insights in February projected a 0.8% decline. The table below shows the Gartner forecast along with the capex forecasts from the top three spenders (Intel, Samsung and TSMC) which… Read More
Why I’ll Always Be an Andy Grove Fan
Silicon Valley sadly lost a respected and revered leader with the death of Andrew Grove in March. The co-founder and former CEO of Intel was an inspiration to generations of technologists and business leaders, including me. Andy had a profound influence on me throughout my career. And while I only met him once, I feel as though I’ve… Read More
No reason for FD-SOI Roadmap to follow Moore’s law!
We in Semiwiki are writing about FD-SOI since 2012, describing all the benefits offered by the technology in term of power consumption, price per performance compared with FinFET, etc. Let me assess again that I am fully convinced that FD-SOI is a very smart and efficient way to escape from the Moore’s law paradox: the transistor… Read More
Intel Got Fit At CES 2016 And Even Reached Some New Heights At X-Games
You may have noticed this weekend that Intel was all over the X-Games. You couldn’t turn on the TV, web video or Twitter without seeing the company on and around the X-Games. Intel’s love affair with sports started when Brian Krzanich took the reigns as Intel’s CEO and has been amplified at nearly corporate event… Read More
Intel And Qualcomm Partner (Yes, Really)
For the longest time, the 802.11ad space, also known as WiGig by others, was a conglomeration of different 60 GHz Wi-Fi technologies. There have been many companies that have announced technologies utilizing 60 GHz Wi-Fi technologies including Intel, Nitero, Peraso, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics and SiBEAM. Even though many… Read More
AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification