GlobalFoundries Has a New CEO

GlobalFoundries Has a New CEO
by Paul McLellan on 01-06-2014 at 4:07 pm

Sanjay Jha is taking over as CEO of GlobalFoundries. His background is in mobile. He was at Qualcomm in the early part of his career and was COO from 2006 to 2008 before going to be co-CEO of Motorola and then, when the company was split, CEO of Motorola Mobility. That was acquired by Google and he stepped down after the acquisition closed.… Read More


Semicon Technology Advancement – A View From IEDM

Semicon Technology Advancement – A View From IEDM
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-20-2013 at 10:00 am

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 InternationalRead More


The Leading Edge Depends on What You Are Doing

The Leading Edge Depends on What You Are Doing
by Paul McLellan on 12-06-2013 at 11:10 pm

At Semicon Japan a few days ago, Subi Kengeri of GlobalFoundries delivered the keynote. While he covered a number of topics, using Tokyo’s recent win of the 2020 Olympics as a hook, one major theme was the increasing importance of processes other than the bleeding edge digital processes that get all the news.

What is leading… Read More


GlobalFoundries and ARM

GlobalFoundries and ARM
by Paul McLellan on 11-04-2013 at 4:56 pm

GlobalFoundries had several interesting things at the ARM TechCon last week. Firstly, GlobalFoundries won the best in show award in the chip design category recognizing the best-in-class technologies introduced since the last TechCon.

Earlier in the summer GlobalFoundries and ARM announced the ARM Cortex-A12 processor,… Read More


Intel 14nm versus Samsung 14nm

Intel 14nm versus Samsung 14nm
by Daniel Nenni on 09-25-2013 at 4:15 am

The legend of Intel being two process nodes ahead of the rest of the industry is quickly coming to an end. To come to terms with this you need to do an apple to apple comparison which is what I will do right here, right now.

First and foremost let’s compare SoC silicon delivery since SoCs are driving the semiconductor industry and will … Read More


Process Variation is a Yield Killer!

Process Variation is a Yield Killer!
by Daniel Nenni on 09-20-2013 at 11:00 am

With the insatiable wafer appetites of the fabless semiconductor companies in the mobile space, yield has never been more critical. The result being better EDA tools every year and this blog highlights one of the many examples. It has been a pleasure writing about Solido Design Automation and seeing them succeed amongst the foundries… Read More


GlobalFoundries Expands in Singapore

GlobalFoundries Expands in Singapore
by Paul McLellan on 09-09-2013 at 8:30 pm

GlobalFoundries has been in Singapore for a long time. Longer than GlobalFoundries has existed in fact. Chartered Semiconductor was started in Singapore in 1987 and GF acquired them in early 2010 less than a year after they were created by spinning out the manufacturing arm of AMD. When GF was started their state of the art fab was… Read More


Foundry 2.0: Why It Is Different And Why You Should Care

Foundry 2.0: Why It Is Different And Why You Should Care
by Paul McLellan on 08-29-2013 at 5:22 pm

If you have been to an Ajit Manocha keynote recently, he talks a lot about Foundry 2.0. I covered his keynote at Semicon West in July here. Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research interviewed Ajit about this new business model to identify it, see how it was different and see how GlobalFoundries were executing the model differently from the … Read More


Robust Design <- Robust Flow <- Robust Tools

Robust Design <- Robust Flow <- Robust Tools
by Pawan Fangaria on 08-10-2013 at 6:00 pm

I could have written the sequence of the title in reverse order, but no, design is the one which initiates the need of a particular flow and the flow needs support of EDA tools to satisfy that need. It’s okay if the design is small; some manual procedures and workarounds/scripts may be able to perform certain jobs. However, as the design… Read More


Ajit’s Semicon Keynote

Ajit’s Semicon Keynote
by Paul McLellan on 07-18-2013 at 4:23 pm

The opening keynote to this year’s Semicon West was by Ajit Manocha, the CEO of GlobalFoundries entitled Foundry-driven Innovation In the Mobility Era. It is no secret that mobile applications, especially smartphones and tablets, are the most significant semiconductor market today. It is not just large, it is disruptive.… Read More