Automatic Place and Route (APR) tools have been around since the 1980s for IC design teams to use, and before that routing was done manually by very patient layout designers. Initially the big IDMs had their own internal CAD groups coding APR tools in house, but eventually the commercial EDA market picked up this automation area,… Read More
Anyone who has read my previous articles about IEDM knows I consider it the premier conference on process technology.
Last year due to COVID IEDM was virtual and although virtual offers some advantages the hallway conversations that can be such an important part of the conference are lost. This year IEDM is returning as a live event… Read More
Back in May of 2020 I published some comparisons of the cost to run a TSMC fab in Arizona versus their fabs in Taiwan. I found the fab operating cost based on the country-to-country difference to only be 3.4% higher in the US and then I found an additional 3.8% because of the smaller fab scale. Since that time, I have continued to encounter… Read More
Intel presented yesterday on their plans for process technology and packaging over the next several years. This was the most detailed roadmap Intel has ever laid out. In this write up I will analyze Intel’s process announcement and how they match up with their competitors.
10nm Super Fin (SF)
10nm is now in volume production in three… Read More
Recently, TSMC held their annual Technology Symposium, providing an update on the silicon process technology and packaging roadmap. This article will review the highlights of the silicon process developments and future release plans.
Subsequent articles will describe the packaging offerings and delve into technology … Read More
Over the recent years, the volume and velocity of discussions relating to chiplets have intensified. A major reason for this is the projected market opportunity. According to research firm Omdia, chiplets driven market is expected to be $6B by 2024 from just $645M in 2018. That’s an impressive nine-fold projected increase over… Read More
IBM has announced the development of a 2nm process.
IBM Announcement
What was announced:
TSMC recently announced plans to spend $100 billion dollars over three years on capital. For 2021 they announced $30B in total capital with 80% on advanced nodes (7nm and smaller), 10% on packaging and masks and 10% on “specialty”.
If we take a guess at the capital for each year, we can project something like $30B for 2021 (announced),… Read More
In this article, we will explore the use of self-aligned litho-etch-litho-etch (SALELE) double patterning for BEOL metal layers in the 7nm node (40 nm minimum metal pitch [1]) with DUV, and 5nm node (28 nm minimum metal pitch [2]) with EUV. First, we mention the evidence that this technique is being used; Xilinx [3] disclosed the… Read More
In January I presented at the ISS conference a comparison of Intel’s, Samsung’s and TSMC’s leading edge offerings. You can read a write-up of my presentation here.
With the problems going on at Intel, that article generated a lot of interest in the investment community, and I have been holding a lot of calls with analysts who are trying… Read More
