Building flash memory for automotive is not straightforward. Just look at the specs you have to meet for grade 1 qualification:
GlobalFoundries have been working with Silicon Storage Technology (which is a wholly-owned… Read More
The Advance Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference was held on May 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] through May 6[SUP]th[/SUP] in Saratoga Springs, New York. ASMC brings a unique operational perspective to technical conferences related to semiconductors. In this blog I wanted to discuss what I thought was the most interesting paper of the… Read More
Last week was the Linley Mobile Conference. Mobile is a huge semiconductor market and, outside of Intel, is the main driver for next generation process technologies. A new generation of mobile phones comes along, fills the leading edge fabs for a year or two and then moves on to the next generation. Nothing comes close to requiring… Read More
How is that for a cryptic title? It is GlobalFoundries’ rallying cry. Their big focus is to bring up 14nm during 2015 in fab 8 in Malta NY.
Last week I chatted to Shubhankar Basu. He is the senior product line manager for leading edge technologies. Not surprisingly, that means he is currently leading the 14nm FinFET business. He told… Read More
A tremendous number of chips being designed for today’s products require some sort of onboard data storage. The size of these needs range from a handful of bytes, for trim and calibration storage, to something much more substantial like boot code storage. In both of these examples the storage ideally should be nonvolatile, with… Read More
SEMI describes themselves as “the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries.” That is a pretty broad remit. One of the things that they do as a neutral party is produce the World Fab Forecast. This is actually a bottom-up database that tracks fabs as they … Read More
The relationship between TSMC and UMC is one of the more interesting ones in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem in my opinion. Both are headquartered in Hsinchu Taiwan and it is very hard to visit one company without seeing the other as they have facilities right across the street from each other. They also share humble beginnings… Read More
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last decade, you can’t help but notice the increased importance of RF: bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, LTE, NFC, RFID and more. There is a lot of digital design associated with these standards, especially the highest bandwidth ones, but they also all contain a radio, often called a modem.… Read More
We read about FinFET technology in the semiconductor press daily now, thanks to Intel introducing their TriGate transistors starting in 2011 and creating a race with foundries and IDMs to switch from planar CMOS nodes. To get some perspective about the progress of FinFET IP and EDA tools I spoke with two experts from Synopsys, Swami… Read More
Semiconductor business is highly dependent on technology and that changes very rapidly in the semiconductor space. It’s important to recognize the importance of research and innovation activities in this space. In my last article on 7nm technology node, one respondent commented, very rightly, “It’s important to have competition… Read More
