SEMICON Day 3: Leti, Intel Keynote, 450mm (Pic!) and Innovation Keynote

SEMICON Day 3: Leti, Intel Keynote, 450mm (Pic!) and Innovation Keynote
by Paul McLellan on 07-15-2015 at 11:59 am

Let’s start with yesterday evening, so technically yesterday. It was July 14th, which is the equivalent of Independence Day in France. So the perfect day for Leti, based in Grenoble, to present a lot of the work that they are doing on 3D “more than Moore” type technologies, including photonics. Also, wafer-scale… Read More


Who Needs to Lead at the 14, 10 and 7nm nodes

Who Needs to Lead at the 14, 10 and 7nm nodes
by Scotten Jones on 07-11-2015 at 12:00 pm

IBM recently disclosed a working 7nm test chip generating a lot of excitement in the semiconductor industry and also in the mainstream media. In this article I wanted to explore the 14nm, 10nm and 7nm nodes, the status of the key competitors at each node and what it may mean for the companies.

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Intel 10nm delay confirmed by Tick Tock arrhythmia leak-"The Missing Tick"

Intel 10nm delay confirmed by Tick Tock arrhythmia leak-"The Missing Tick"
by Robert Maire on 07-06-2015 at 7:00 am

Our 6/15 report of more 10nm Intel delays confirmed by leaked info…
The delay appears to have interrupted Intel’s Tick Tock cadence…
Kabylake replaces Skylake – Cannonlake pushed out over horizon?

The news we broke is now confirmed…
On 6/15 we put out a report that broke the news of further delays… Read More


Why Did Intel Pay $15B For Altera?

Why Did Intel Pay $15B For Altera?
by Paul McLellan on 06-30-2015 at 12:00 pm

While I was at the imec Technology Forum someone asked me “Why did Intel pay $15B for Altera?” (the actual reported number is $16.7B).

The received wisdom is that Intel decided that it needs FPGA technology to remain competitive in the datacenter. There is a belief among some people that without FPGA acceleration available for vision… Read More


Xilinx in an ARM-fueled post-Altera world

Xilinx in an ARM-fueled post-Altera world
by Don Dingee on 06-29-2015 at 5:30 pm

When the news broke about the on, off, and on-again Intel-Altera merger a few weeks ago, I checked off another box on my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon scorecard. That plus a $5 bill gets me a Happy Meal at McDonalds, but in a post-Altera world, it might be worth more.

On January 16, 2008, I’m sitting in a meeting with some Intel strategic marketing… Read More


DAC Keynote: Moore’s Law Isn’t Dead

DAC Keynote: Moore’s Law Isn’t Dead
by Paul McLellan on 06-10-2015 at 5:00 am

There were two keynotes at DAC this morning. I think the official designation of the first one was a “visionary talk” and the main difference was that it was only 15 minutes long. Vivek Singh, an Intel fellow, talked about Moore’s Law at 50: No End in Sight.

He started with a graph showing transistor speed versus… Read More


Why is Intel going inside Altera for Servers?

Why is Intel going inside Altera for Servers?
by Eric Esteve on 06-02-2015 at 12:30 pm

You should be happy to listen that Intel will buy Altera FPGA challenger, if you expect always more power to be consumed in datacenter! In 2013 the power consumption linked with the Servers and Storage IC activity, plus the electricity consumed in the systems cooling these high performance chips has reached 91 BILLION KWh (or the… Read More


Changing Trends at the Top of Semicon Space

Changing Trends at the Top of Semicon Space
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-31-2015 at 5:00 am

As we have moved down from a CAGR of ~9% over last three decades to a CAGR of ~5% in the current decade, it’s time to check the realities. It can be definitely argued that a 5% of CAGR over a solid base of ~$378 billion should be considered good enough. In my view that’s the sign of maturity in the semiconductor market. At the same time we are… Read More


Semiconductor Acquisitions will Fuel Innovation!

Semiconductor Acquisitions will Fuel Innovation!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-30-2015 at 7:00 am

Has the semiconductor world gone acquisition crazy? It certainly seems that way with the more than $60B in M&A activity which may now include Altera. We are probably getting close to the 80/20 rule where 80% of the semiconductor revenue is being generated by 20% of the companies. Not far off from where we were at 25 years ago when… Read More