And the 2013 Mobile Winner is … Micron?

And the 2013 Mobile Winner is … Micron?
by Ed McKernan on 12-03-2013 at 9:00 am

To the surprise of nearly all observers and due to no extraordinary technological advancement, there is one true mobile winner of the past year and that is Micron, whose stock has soared in 2013 from $5 to $21. I know, you’re probably saying, “Micron, you can’t be serious.” Let’s run through the … Read More


Hybrid Memory Cube Shipping

Hybrid Memory Cube Shipping
by Paul McLellan on 09-25-2013 at 4:37 pm

Today Micron announced that it is shipping 2GB Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) samples. The HMC is actually 5 stacked die connected with through-silicon-vias (TSVs). The bottom die is a logic chip and is actually manufactured for Micron in an IBM 32nm process (and doesn’t have any TSVs). The other 4 die are 4Gb DRAM die manufactured… Read More


Did you miss Cadence’s MemCon?

Did you miss Cadence’s MemCon?
by Eric Esteve on 09-05-2013 at 4:42 am

That’s too bad, as you have missed latest news about the Hybrid Memory Cube (presentation by Micron), Wide I/O 2 standard, as well as other standards like LPDDR4, eMMC 5.0, and LRDIMM,the good news is that you may find all these presentations on MemCon proceedings web site.
I first had a look at Richard Goering excellent blog: wideI/ORead More


Reshoring Semiconductor Manufacturing

Reshoring Semiconductor Manufacturing
by Paul McLellan on 06-06-2013 at 5:29 pm

So where in the world do you think semiconductor manufacturing is increasing the fastest? OK, Taiwan, that was pretty easy. But in second place, with over 20% of the world’s semiconductor equipment capital investment is the US. Growing faster than Europe, China, Japan and equal with Korea.

This was not the case half a dozen… Read More


Modeling TSV, IBIS-AMI and SERDES with HSPICE

Modeling TSV, IBIS-AMI and SERDES with HSPICE
by Daniel Payne on 02-21-2013 at 8:10 pm

The HSPICE circuit simulator has been around for decades and is widely used by IC designers worldwide, so I watched the HSPICE SIG by video today and summarize what happened. Engineers from Micron, Altera and AMD presented on how they are using HSPICE to model TSVs, IBiS-AMI models and SERDES, respectively.… Read More


Semiconductors Down 2.7% in 2012, May Grow 7.5% in 2013

Semiconductors Down 2.7% in 2012, May Grow 7.5% in 2013
by Bill Jewell on 02-06-2013 at 10:29 pm

Guidance 1Q13 292x300

The world semiconductor market in 2012 was $292 billion – down 2.7% from $300 billion in 2011, according to WSTS. The 2012 decline followed a slight gain of 0.4% in 2011. Fourth quarter 2012 was down 0.3% from third quarter. The first quarter of the 2013 will likely show a decline from 4Q 2012 based on typical seasonal patterns and theRead More


The Semiconductor Landscape – II

The Semiconductor Landscape – II
by Pawan Fangaria on 01-01-2013 at 9:15 pm

It has been a year since my article Semiconductor Landscape in Jan 2012 I wanted to look back into the major events over the year and then anticipate what’s in store going forward. What has happened over the year is much more than what I could foresee. Major consolidation in EDA space – Synopsys acquired Magma, SpringSoft, Ciranova,Read More


Is DDR4 a bridge too far?

Is DDR4 a bridge too far?
by Don Dingee on 09-11-2012 at 8:30 pm

We’ve gone through two decades where the PC market made the rules for technology. The industry faces a question now: Can a new technology go mainstream without the PC?

By now, you’ve certainly read the news from Cadence on their DDR4 IP for TSMC 28nm. They are claiming a PHY implementation that exceeds the data rates specified for … Read More


Micron ReRAM Patent Alert

Micron ReRAM Patent Alert
by Ed McKernan on 09-11-2012 at 3:16 pm


Micron recently was awarded patents related to ReRAM. As everyone knows, patents are the lifeblood of technology based industries and the memory business is no different. But what can you learn from a patent? In the first of a series of Blogs, Christie Marrian moderator of the ReRAM-Forum asks that question in the context of patents… Read More


3D Memories

3D Memories
by Paul McLellan on 09-02-2012 at 4:42 pm

At DesignCon earlier this year, Tim Hollis of Micron gave an interesting presentation on 3D memories. For sure the first applications of true 3D chips are going to be stacks of memory die and memory on logic. The gains from high bandwidth access to the memory and the physically closer distance from memory to processor are huge.

Micron… Read More