A unique phenomenon has started manifesting itself under the slew of mergers and acquisitions this year in the semiconductor landscape. This phenomenon is bound to intensify in the near future and would positions itself as a key factor for the future of the semiconductor industry. The winners and losers in the game would be determined… Read More
Lighting Up The Cloud
In our rush to imagine a world populated with IoT devices, tech advances at the top end of this ecosystem (the cloud) don’t seem to get much airtime. But this isn’t because they are limited to modest refinements. As one example, there is active technology development in connectivity around fiber-based communications within the… Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 5 – Intel and Micron 3D NAND
At IEDM Intel and Micron presented “A Floating Gate Based 3D NAND Technology With CMOS Under Array” authored by Krishna Parat and Chuck Dennison.
As I previously discussed in my blog on the IEDM memory short course and blog on IMEC’s work on high mobility 3D NAND channels, continuing to scale 2D Flash has become extremely difficult… Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 4 – IMEC InGaAs Channel for 3D NAND
At IEDM IMEC presented “MOCVD In[SUB]1-x[/SUB]Ga[SUB]x[/SUB]As high mobility channel for 3-D NAND Memory” authored by E. Capogreco, J. G. Lisoni, A. Arreghini, A. Subirats, B. Kunert, W. Guo, T. Maurice, C.-L. Tan, R. Degraeve, K. De Meyer, G. Van den bosch, and J. Van Houdt.
On December 15[SUP]th[/SUP] I had the opportunity … Read More
Micron Misses (MU) – No surprise – Needs focus on NAND/XPoint not diving DRAM
We are surprised that everyone is surprised at DRAM, DRAM oversupply/weak demand is systemic so Micron needs to focus on NAND/XPoint.We find it somewhat amusing that many “analysts” were caught off guard about the weakness in Microns results and poor guidance. Why would you think DRAM would be OK???…Have … Read More
Connections to Internet Drives Semiconductors
We are going to see a big reversal in what connects to the internet in next five years. At the start of this century there were about 488 million internet connections; 85% of those were connected to people for web browsing, e-mails, on-line services etc. and only 15% were used for embedded systems, remote sensing and control, and M2M… Read More
China’s chip plans an economic attack on Taiwan?
An economic “bear hug” cold war invasion? If China can’t get Taiwan by politics or force maybe it can get them by a backdoor economic takeover starting at their most crucial spot – Chips. An ulterior motive for China’s semiconductor aspirations, the $100B silicon Trojan Horse?
Its quite clear … Read More
Why Medical IoT is Set to Take Off!
In a recent SemiWiki post, “Why Medical IoT Won’t Take Off,” the author raised some very interesting points on why certain IoT applications won’t succeed. But, it’s important that these points are looked at holistically, within context, and compared to other IoT features that are already improving health by increasing… Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 3 – Global Foundries 22FDX Briefing
While I was at IEDM I had an opportunity to sit down with Subramani (Subi) Kengeri, the Vice President, General Management, CMOS Platforms Business Unit and Jason Gorss from corporate marketing at Global Foundries (GF) for a briefing on GF’s new 22FDX process technology.
Subi told me his background was in design but that he is now… Read More
Why Did Apple Buy a Fab?
It was announced today that Apple has purchased a 200mm fab located in San Jose from Maxim Integrated Products for $18.2 million dollars. My initial reaction to this announcement was shock but then I started thinking through what Apple might use the fab for and I concluded this announcement is less significant and surprising than… Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography