The introduction of 28nm high-volume production for IC semiconductor devices will usher the era of “extreme low-k1” manufacturing, i.e. the unprecedented situation in the long history of the silicon technology roadmap, where computationally intensive (and EDA-driven) Design-Technology Co-Optimization will become the… Read More
Yesterday’s SEMICO IP Ecosystem Conference was well worth the time. Everybody was there: ARM, Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor Graphics, GlobalFoundries, TSMC, MIPS, Tensilica, AMD, Atrenta, Sonics, and Tabula, everybody except Intel of course. What do Intel and I have in common? We don’t play well with others…
First up was… Read More
Even though my Dresden trip was fraught with fail points it went off without a hitch. Flying over was easy, I connected through London Heathrow, flying back I connected through Frankfurt. The last time I connected through Frankfurt was right after the 9/11 attacks so I had a bit of deja vu. I was in Munich, Heathrow was closed, I was … Read More
I went to a couple more sessions at the Common Platform Technology Forum today, on 20nm double patterning and whatever will we do at 14nm. Basically, this is the end of planar transistors and the end of optical lithography. One session was by IBM scientists about process and one by Michael White of Mentor about double patterning. … Read More
Next Wednesday is the Common Platform Technology Forum. “Common Platform” is a name that only a committee could have come up with, giving no clue as to what it actually is. As you probably know, there are various process clubs sharing the costs of technology development (TD) and one of them consists of IBM, Samsung and… Read More
Last week I had an interesting meeting with GLOBALFOUNDRIES executives Kevin Meyer and Mojy Chian. It certainly seems that GFI has turned a corner! I will be in Dresden next week for DATE 2012 and will also visit the GFI Fab there. 28nm and 20nm are on track so expect an aggressive implementation plan from GFI this year.… Read More
Please join IBM, Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., and GLOBALFOUNDRIES at the 2012 Common Platform Technology Forum. The forum will showcase the alliance’s technological progress and how joint collaboration and innovation is setting the direction for industry-leading solutions to enable next-generation products. … Read More
One thing I do as an internationally recognized semiconductor blogger is listen to the quarterly conference calls of companies that drive our industry. TSMC is always interesting, I really like the honesty and vision of Dr. Morris Chang. Cadence is good, I always want to hear what Lip-Bu Tan has to say. Oracle and Larry Ellison, … Read More
During my annual holiday meal with one of my favorite EDA icons some rather bold predictions were made. On his side it was more of what he would LIKE to see happen, on my side it was more of what will HAVE to happen for the semiconductor ecosystem to thrive in the coming years.
Mike Gianfagna (Viva Italia!) spent 15+ years with RCA/GE Semiconductor… Read More
Some call it co-opetition (collaborative competition), some call it keeping your enemies close. Others call it for what it is, unfair competition and/or other types of legally actionable behavior. GlobalFoundries calls it“Fab Syncing”, which in reality will SINK their FABS!
“With this new collaboration, we are making one … Read More
