Well today is the day. I am officially retired from Fairchild after 36 years and 9 months on the job. I have worked for Fairchild Camera and Instrument, Fairchild a Schlumberger Company, National Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor. It’s been everything I was hoping for and more. By the way, I walked out the front door… Read More
Tag: semiconductors
To EUV, or not to EUV, that is the question!
SPIE is next week so if you would like to meet me in person that is where I will be. SPIE is the big lithography and patterning conference for semiconductor professionals. Since I work with the foundries during my day job, SPIE is an important conference. SemiWiki blogger Scott Jones will also be there. During the day Scott does semiconductor… Read More
Evaluating the Performance of Design Data Management Software
In the wake of increased global competitiveness and shorter time-to-market windows, there has been a renewed focus by design management on the underlying data management infrastructure of the design teams. An increasing number of systems-on-chip (SoCs) now have some type of analog, digital and/or RF modules, making it imperative… Read More
My Life at Fairchild – 1979 Part 2
To pick up on my last post, I wanted to expand a bit on my duties and experiences back in 1979 in the 3″ Diffusion area of fab.
I am a morning person so I was usually at work between 6am – 7am. I would immediately go into fab to check on my engineering hold table and speak with the production operators to get a sense of the problems… Read More
Automobiles and the DMCA
When you drive a car off the dealer’s lot, you own the whole vehicle, right? For decades, car owners have popped the hood and crawled under the car to do their own maintenance; and for those mechanically inclined, even make modifications to improve performance or handling. However, in an era where a car is increasingly controlled… Read More
Are FinFETs too Expensive for Mainstream Chips?
One of the most common things I hear now is that the majority of the fabless semiconductor business will stay at 28nm due to the high cost of FinFETs. I wholeheartedly disagree, mainly because I have been hearing that for many years and it has yet to be proven true. The same was said about 40nm since 28nm HKMG was more expensive, which … Read More
Free Copy of EDAgraffiti!
Last month we offered a free PDF version of our book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry”, for the greater good. More than thirteen thousand people have downloaded it thus far so we would like to keep the momentum going with another book giveaway. Paul McLellan has graciously offered his book… Read More
EUV – So late to the party it may already be over!
Stocks in the semiconductor equipment space continue to fall only this time along with the broad market. We had recently pointed out that LRCX was the last to fall among the large cap companies in the space but now the question becomes when have they fallen enough to say its over, and which stocks have more to fall……
ASML… Read More
China: drag on global semiconductor market?
The Chinese stock market (as measured by the Hang Seng Index) dropped 11% from August 14 to August 24 over concerns of a slowing economy. In reaction, the U.S. stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) dropped 11% from August 17 to August 25. The China market has since rebounded 2% while the U.S. market rebounded 5%. Will a slowing… Read More
ASMC 2015 Preview
From May 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] to May 6[SUP]th[/SUP] the 26[SUP]th[/SUP] annual Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC) will be held in Saratoga Springs, New York.
The ASMC offers a unique view of challenges to the semiconductor industry focusing on things like defect reduction, metrology and fab operations. In… Read More