If we check the many articles daily published in Semiwiki, I am sure that Moore’s Law has been mentioned every single day. There is a good reason why we constantly write about new technologies and advanced features like FinFet, FD-SOI, 450 mm wafers or double patterning: all of these are new challenges that the SC industry will have… Read More
There still seems to be a lot of confusion here so let me set the record straight. In regards to the Apple Ax SoC, the Apple iPhone 5s will have Samsung 28nm Silicon. Samsung 28nm is still ramping but Samsung can make enough wafers and eat the yield issues no problem. The Apple iPhone 6 in 2014 will have TSMC 20nm as I reported previously.… Read More
EDA needs more CEOs like Amit Gupta. Solido, which is now profitable, is his second AMS EDA company. The first, Analog Design Automation (ADA), was purchased by Synopsys for a hefty multiplier. Prior to becoming an EDA entrepreneur, Amit was product manager for the wireless group at Nortel and a hardware engineer for the RF communications… Read More
In my never ending quest to promote the fabless semiconductor ecosystem I cannot pass up a discouraging word about one of the oldest financial services companies. You can consult with me for $300 per hour to answer your questions about the semiconductor industry on the phone or you can buy me lunch and get it in person (lunch will probably… Read More
Disclaimer: I’m a blogger and by definition I share my observations, opinions, and experiences. Journalists and Analysts on the other hand are held to a much higher legal standard which is why they cite undisclosed sources and use double speak to shield themselves legally. Why trust a SemiWiki blogger over a Journalist or an Analyst?… Read More
The biggest surprise embedded in the Intel 22nm SoC disclosure is that they still do NOT use Double Patterning which is a big fat hairy deal if you are serious about the SoC foundry business. The other NOT so surprising thing I noticed in reviewing the blogosphere response is that the industry term FinFET was dominant while the Intel… Read More
The big news in Taiwan last week was another increase in TSMC capital expenditures to $9B in 2013. That number could grow however. Last year TSMC CAPEX was set at $6B and ended up at $8.3B due to rapid 28nm capacity expansion and an accelerated 20nm program. 2013 will be all about FinFETs and manufacturing Apple SoCs so $9B may not cover… Read More
Our EDA industry loves three letter acronyms so credit the same industry for creating a five letter acronym CoWoS. Two weeks ago TSMC announced tape-out of their first CoWoS test chip integrating with JEDEC Wide I/O mobile DRAM interface, making me interested enough to read more about it. At the recent TSMC Open Innovation Platform… Read More
The second annual TSMC Open Integration Platform Ecosystem Forum was last week and let me tell you it was excellent. Great update on the TSMC process technology road maps, great for networking within the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, great for seeing what’s new in EDA and IP, and great for SemiWiki. It was time well spent for … Read More
My luck continues as I missed last week’s typhoon. Fortunately it did not disrupt the annual Dragon Boat Festival. More than just a Chinese tradition, dragon boat racing is an international sports event with teams from around the world coming to Taiwan every year. It is very exciting with the colorful dragon boats and the wild beating… Read More
