As I see the semiconductor industry going through significant changes and advances, yet ironically plagued by a growing perception that the pace of scaling is slowing, I was inclined to take a peek into what the industry experts say about the state of the industry and the future of Moore’s Law. Fortunately, at last week’s International… Read More
We agree now that FD-SOI technology is Faster, Cooler, Simpler. But can it also be a cheaper technology? Let start with an overview of the current estimation of the development cost for complex SoC on advanced technology nodes. The following data are extracted from International Business Strategies, Inc 2013 report. The first… Read More
I love the slogan associated with FD-SOI: the technology is supposed to be Faster, Cooler, Simpler. Does this slogan reflect the reality? Let’s start with Simpler. We (the semiconductor industry) have the perception that Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology is something complex and exotic. Why? Because SOI has been used to … Read More
If you have read the excellent article from Paul McLellan, you know about FDSOI as a technology, so I will not come back to FDSOI device, and the comparison with FinFET in term of device topology, doping level and so on. If you missed it, I would recommend you to read this article, as well as the many comments (all of them being relevant).… Read More
Everywhere you turn these days you find FinFETs. Intel has had them since 22nm (they use the word Tri-gate but it is the same as what the world calls FinFET) and TSMC will have them at 16nm. So why FinFET? And is there an alternative?
The reason that regular bulk planar transistors have run out of steam is that the channel area underneath… Read More
This is the second blog entry about an ST Ericsson white-paper on multiprocessors in mobile. The first part was here.
The first part of the white-paper basically shows that for mobile the optimal number of cores is two. It is much better to use process technology (and good EDA) to run the processor at higher frequency rather than add… Read More
In one of Portlandia’s TV program sketches, there is a funny interchange between a carrier salesperson and Fred Armisen (of SNL fame) who was trying to buy a phone. One chuckle line was a statement by the seller that the phone was free after paying for it and that there was a one-time annual fee. With this anecdote as a mental backdrop,… Read More
We have all heard that planar transistors have run out of steam. There are two ways forward. The one that has garnered all the attention is Intel’s trigate which is their name for FinFET. The other is using thin film SoI which ST is doing. TSMC and Global seem to be going the FinFET way too, although at a more leisurely pace. But … Read More
