In the mid 1980’s, Tommy George, then President of Motorola’s Semiconductor Sector, pointed out to me that the semiconductor revenue per unit area had been a constant throughout the history of the industry including the period when germanium transistors made up a large share of semiconductor revenue. I began tracking the numbers… Read More
Sometimes we get to see, up close, leaders who make a truly enormous contribution to society. Dr. Sunlin Chou was one such leader and I was a fortunate fellow traveler. Sunlin led the exponential rise of transistors for 35 years, accelerating the waves of revolutionary digital technologies serving humanity.
Fifty years have … Read More
Mentor continues to invest in conferences such as DAC, no matter the location, for which I am very grateful. They have a long list of activities this year but I wanted to point out my top three:
Wally Rhines has a talk in the DAC Pavilion which is first on the list. Wally’s expert industry perspective is the result of tireless research… Read More
Last week we warned of a further down leg due to China trade. We were surprised how quickly our prediction came true as it appears we are now in the midst of giving back all the upside built in to stocks based on a peaceful resolution of the trade conflict which obviously isn’t happening.
Many of the semi stocks we cover were down… Read More
The problem of traditional FinFET Extension Implant doping concerns the awkward 3-dimensional structure of the fin. Because the Extension Implant defines the conductive electrical pathway between the Source/Drains and the undoped channel portion of the fin, it is essential that the fin be uniformly doped all three of its surfaces… Read More
The global semiconductor market grew 13.7% in 2018, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). Each year, we at Semiconductor Intelligence review semiconductor forecasts and compare them to the final WSTS data. We used projections which were publicly released from late 2017 through early 2018, prior to the … Read More
There was an interesting keynote at DVCon last month. It was titled “Thriving in the Age of Digitalization” which introduced the concept of digital twins for design and production. It was presented by Fram Akiki who is a relative newcomer to EDA but has an interesting history so I will start there.
Fram and I got started in the semiconductor… Read More
One of the key growth areas for the semiconductor ecosystem is IP which of course includes IP related EDA software. In May of 2017 design management/collaboration expert (one of my personal favorite EDA companies) ClioSoft announced designHUB[SUP]®[/SUP] for IP management and re-use. Using designHUB, semiconductor companies… Read More
Bob Smith is executive director of the ESD (for electronic system design) Alliance that many Semiwiki readers will remember as the EDA Consortium. As Bob explains, the semiconductor industry is changing and evolving, and the electronic system design ecosystem with it. I encourage you to take a break from what you’re doing and … Read More
Semiconductors are not only critical to modern life, semiconductors are critical to National Security. Now that leading edge semiconductor foundries have left the United States one of the more pressing challenges is secure semiconductor manufacturing. This applies to all countries of course so let’s take a look at the International… Read More
