No! TSMC does not Make 90% of Advanced Silicon

No! TSMC does not Make 90% of Advanced Silicon
by Scotten Jones on 03-11-2024 at 2:00 pm

Slide1

Throughout the debate on fab incentives and the Chips Act I keep seeing comments like; TSMC makes >90% of all advanced silicon, or sometimes Taiwan make >90% of all advanced silicon. This kind of ill-defined and grossly inaccurate statement drives me crazy. I just saw someone make that same claim in the SemiWiki forums and… Read More


SMIC N+2 in Huawei Mate Pro 60

SMIC N+2 in Huawei Mate Pro 60
by Scotten Jones on 09-08-2023 at 6:00 am

TechInsights Huawei SMIC

Up until last December I was president and owner of IC Knowledge LLC, at the end of November, I sold IC Knowledge LLC to TechInsights. It has been interesting to become an insider at the world’s leading semiconductor reverse engineering and knowledge company. The latest SMIC N+2 analysis is an excellent example of TechInsight’s… Read More


Alchip is Golden, Keeps Breaking Records on Multiple KPIs

Alchip is Golden, Keeps Breaking Records on Multiple KPIs
by Kalar Rajendiran on 05-10-2023 at 10:00 am

Alchip Revenue Breakdown along Nodes and Applications

I don’t know the story behind the name Alchip. I’ve been asking this question ever since its founding in 2003 and still haven’t found the answer. Wikipedia sometimes provides insights and stories behind names of companies, products and services but I couldn’t find any regarding the name Alchip. One thing is for sure. After its consistent… Read More


Analyzing Clocks at 7nm and Smaller Nodes

Analyzing Clocks at 7nm and Smaller Nodes
by Daniel Payne on 10-04-2022 at 10:00 am

Aging Clock

In the good old days the clock signal looked like a square wave , and had a voltage swing of 5 volts, however with 7nm technology the clock signals can now look more like a sawtooth signal and may not actually reach the full Vdd value of 0.65V inside the core of a chip. I’ll cover some of the semiconductor market trends, and then challenges… Read More


Does SMIC have 7nm and if so, what does it mean

Does SMIC have 7nm and if so, what does it mean
by Scotten Jones on 09-07-2022 at 10:00 am

SMIC 7nm

Recently TechInsights analyzed a Bitcoin Miner chip fabbed at SMIC and declared SMIC has a 7nm process. There has been some debate as to whether the SMIC process is really 7nm and what it means if it is 7nm. I wanted to discuss the case for and against the process being 7nm, and what I think it means.

First off, I want to say I am not going … Read More


Intel and the EUV Shortage

Intel and the EUV Shortage
by Scotten Jones on 04-13-2022 at 10:00 am

Slide1

In my “The EUV Divide and Intel Foundry Services” article available here, I discussed the looming EUV shortage. Two days ago, Intel announced their first EUV tool installed at their new Fab 34 in Ireland is a tool they moved from Oregon. This is another indication of the scarcity of EUV tools.

I have been tracking EUV system production… Read More


Can Intel Catch TSMC in 2025?

Can Intel Catch TSMC in 2025?
by Scotten Jones on 04-11-2022 at 6:00 am

Slide6

At the ISS conference held from April 4th through 6th I presented on who I thought would have the leading logic technology in 2025. The following is a write up of that presentation.

ISS was a virtual conference in 2021 and I presented on who currently had logic leadership and declared TSMC the clear leader. Following that conference,… Read More


Intel 2022 Investor Meeting

Intel 2022 Investor Meeting
by Scotten Jones on 02-21-2022 at 6:00 am

Figure 1 Process Innovations

Last Thursday Intel held their investors meeting, in this write up I wanted to focus on my areas of coverage/expertise, process technology and manufacturing.

Technology Development presented by Ann Kelleher

Last year Intel presented their Intel Accelerated plan and, in this meeting, we got a review of where Intel stands on that… Read More


Intel Accelerated

Intel Accelerated
by Scotten Jones on 07-27-2021 at 6:00 am

Intel Process Name Decoder

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


Circuit Simulation Challenges to Design the Xilinx Versal ACAP

Circuit Simulation Challenges to Design the Xilinx Versal ACAP
by Daniel Payne on 06-24-2021 at 10:00 am

xilinx versal acap min

One of the most unique acronyms that I learned about this past year is ACAP from Xilinx, which stands for Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform. At the recent Cadence LIVE event, I had the pleasure of watching Pei Yao, a Xilinx senior staff CAD engineer, as she talked about the challenges of getting all the analog and mixed-signals… Read More