Intel 2014 Investor Meeting and 14nm Status

Intel 2014 Investor Meeting and 14nm Status
by Scotten Jones on 11-21-2014 at 6:30 pm

Intel’s investor meeting was held yesterday and for me the presentation that is most interesting is Bill Holt’s. The presentations are available on the Intel website: Intel Corporation – Presentations Material 2014. Here is the 2013 version of this presentation: Intel Corporation – Presentations Materials 2013Read More


Global Foundries and IBM, More Details

Global Foundries and IBM, More Details
by Paul McLellan on 11-21-2014 at 7:00 am

Now that the dust has started to settle on the GlobalFoundries acquisition of IBM’s semiconductor business it is possible to look into another level of detail about what GlobalFoundries will be acquiring in the way of technology and IP. Of course, the deal hasn’t formally closed yet so this won’t all happen … Read More


IEDM 2014 Preview

IEDM 2014 Preview
by Scotten Jones on 11-17-2014 at 8:00 pm

The International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is one of the premier conferences for the presentation of the latest semiconductor processes and process technologies. IEDM is held every year in December alternating between San Francisco and Washington DC. This year IEDM will be held at the San Francisco Hilton on December… Read More


Imec and Coventor Partner Up

Imec and Coventor Partner Up
by Paul McLellan on 10-28-2014 at 7:00 am

Today imec and Coventor announced a joint development project for 10nm and 7nm process development. Imec, which is in Leuven Belgium, is a partner with pretty much all the semiconductor companies that are planning work at these advanced nodes. It mostly does pre-competitive research and development. This type of research is … Read More


Cliff Hou at TSMC OIP

Cliff Hou at TSMC OIP
by Paul McLellan on 10-26-2014 at 7:00 am

I attended Cliff Hou’s keynote at TSMC OIP Forum earlier this month. OIP is a huge undertaking. It currently has over 100 ecosystem partners, 10 technology generations, 7600+ IPs, 60+ EDA tools, 7000+ tech files and 150+ PDKs.

Most of Cliff’s presentation gave details on where TSMC are with the various processes. … Read More


10nm, the View from IBM

10nm, the View from IBM
by Paul McLellan on 10-05-2014 at 7:01 am

On the Cadence booth at DAC, Lars Liebmann of IBM presented on the challenges of 10nm. As he put it, how the lithography folks are keeping things very interesting for the EDA tool development engineers. Although 14nm/16nm hasn’t yet ramped into HVM, the advanced work for tools and IP has all moved to 10nm. Although Lars gave… Read More


The Apple Samsung TSMC Intel 14nm Mashup!

The Apple Samsung TSMC Intel 14nm Mashup!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-04-2014 at 1:00 pm

One of the strengths of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem is competition since it keeps innovation high and prices low. One of the challenges of fostering competition is that you have to make good on a threat of using a competing product during a pricing negotiation. Well, in my opinion, for the next version of the iPhone, Apple… Read More


ANSYS Tools Shine at FinFET Nodes!

ANSYS Tools Shine at FinFET Nodes!
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-30-2014 at 4:00 pm

In the modern semiconductor ecosystem we are seeing rapid advancement in technology breaking past once perceived limits; 28nm, 20nm, 16-14nm, 10nm and we are foreseeing 7nm now. Double and multi-patterning are already being seen along with complex FinFET structures in transistors to gain the ultimate advantages in PPA from… Read More


Who Will Lead at 10nm?

Who Will Lead at 10nm?
by Scotten Jones on 09-29-2014 at 4:00 pm

There has been a lot of discussion on SemiWiki lately around 14nm FinFET technology and who really leads and by how much. I thought it would be interesting to review some process metrics for previous technology generation and then make some forecasts around 10nm.

The focus of this article will be Intel, TSMC and Global Foundries/Samsung… Read More


Samsung Foundry Explained!

Samsung Foundry Explained!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-19-2014 at 7:00 pm

Rather than watch the World Cup battle for third place, my beautiful wife and I spent last Saturday afternoon at the CASPA Wearables Symposium. The most interesting presentation was from Samsung because it included slides on their foundry offering. In regards to wearables, I still don’t see the ROI I need to buy one, yet. We are getting… Read More