There are significant advances in communication protocols happening all around us. The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen 5 standard is delivering the needed device-to-device performance to support artificial intelligence and machine learning applications as well as cloud-based workloads. The rapidly… Read More
Tag: intel
Optimization for pFET Nanosheet Devices
The next transition from current FinFET devices at advanced process nodes is the “nanosheet” device, as depicted in the figure below. [1]
The FinFET provides improved gate-to-channel electrostatic control compared to a planar device, where the gate traverses three sides of the fin. The “gate-all-around” characteristics… Read More
IEDM 2020 Starts this Weekend
As I have discussed before, I believe that IEDM is the premier technical conference for understanding leading edge process technologies. Beginning this coming weekend, this year’s edition of IEDM will be held virtually, and I highly recommend attending.
The conference held a press briefing last Monday. The tutorial and short… Read More
How Intel Stumbled: A Perspective from the Trenches
Bloomberg did an interview with my favorite semiconductor analyst Stacy Rasgon on “How the Number One U.S. Semiconductor Company Stumbled” that I found interesting. Coupled with the Q&A Bob Swan did at the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference I thought it would be good content for a viral blog.
CEO Interview: Tony Pialis of Alphawave IP
Tony Pialis is a visionary entrepreneur focused on developing
technologies for next generation connectivity. In the last twenty 20 years, he has co-founded three semiconductor IP companies, all exclusively targeting connectivity IP. Tony is currently the CEO of Alphawave IP Inc, a leader in delivering multi-standard wireline… Read More
No Intel and Samsung are not passing TSMC
Seeking Alpha just published an article about Intel and Samsung passing TSMC for process leadership. The Intel part seems to be a theme with them, they have talked in the past about how Intel does bigger density improvements with each generation than the foundries but forget that the foundries are doing 5 nodes in the time it takes… Read More
Is Apple the Most Valuable Semiconductor Company in the World?
– The new M1 chip unveils previously hidden asset
– Could/should Apple sell semiconductors?
– Are servers next?
– The M1 chip appears to be a rousing success and the beginning of a new era
Essentially 100% of all early reports on the performance of the M1 chip have come back with stellar reviews. Great performance… Read More
Semiconductor Boom in 2021
The third quarter 2020 semiconductor market totaled $114 billion, up 11.0% from second quarter 2020, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). The 3Q20 growth was the highest since 11.6% in 3Q16. The strong 3Q20 growth follows a 2.1% decline in 2Q20 versus 1Q20. The second quarter is normally a healthy growth … Read More
The Future of FPGAs
On June 1, 2015 Intel and Altera announced , that they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Intel would acquire Altera for $16.7 billions. That was a major milestone for the FPGA community as Xilinx and Altera were the main FPGA vendors.
After the official announcement of AMD to acquire Xilinx, there is a huge… Read More
Intel’s Secret Key to Decrypt Microcode Patches is Exposed
A group of security vulnerability researchers, after many months of work, were able to figure out the update process and secret key used to decrypt Intel microcode updates for the Goldmont architecture product lines.
This is an important finding as it peels back yet another layer of the onion that protects the core CPU from malicious