The TSMC OIP Forum was very upbeat this year and now we know why. It wasn’t long ago that some media outlets and a competitor said 7nm would not be a popular node because it is too expensive blah blah blah. People inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem however know otherwise. As I have said before, 7nm will be another strong node … Read More
The “20 Questions with Wally Rhines” series continues
Throughout the history of the EDA industry, pricing models have caused discontinuities in the way the industry operates. For a variety of competitive reasons, individual companies have developed ways to change the pricing model in an attempt to secure competitive… Read More
EDA has been flirting with the cloud unsuccessfully for many years now and it really comes down to a familiar question: Who can afford to spend billions of dollars on data center security? Which is similar to the question that started the fabless transformation: Who can afford to spend billions of dollars on semiconductor manufacturing… Read More
Recent talk of AMD vs Intel market share share is misguided, the real race for superiority is TSMC vs Intel underlying that, tech dominance between US & China.
There has been much discussion of late about market share between Intel and AMD and how much market share AMD will gain at Intel’s expense due to Intel’s very… Read More
One of the interesting rumors in Taiwan last week was the possibility that UMC and GF will do a deal to merge or UMC will buy some GF fabs. I have talked to quite a few industry experts about it and will talk to more this week at the GSA US Executive Forum (more at the end). The US Executive Forum is what they call a C Level event which means it… Read More
This is an ongoing conversation inside the semiconductor ecosystem, especially when I am traveling. Everyone wants to know what is going on here or there and since I just returned from Taiwan I will post my thoughts. Last week was also my birthday which was cut short due to the time change but I did get preferential treatment on the … Read More
Could this be more bad news for semicap spend? Negative for US chip independence & AMD costs ? Rumors of Global Foundries dropping out of the 7NM race have been increasing rapidly. What could be a fatal blow to the GloFo 7NM program was AMD deciding to go with TSMC for 7NM first for one product and finally for its next generation CPUs.… Read More
One of my favorite traditions at the Design Automation Conference is the Synopsys foundry events (the videos are now available). I learned a long time ago that the foundries are the foundation of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and your relationships with the foundries can make or break you, absolutely. I also appreciate … Read More
Applied reported a more or less in line quarter, slightly beating weaker expectations. As we had projected, the October quarter is expected to have revenues down 10% which is at the low end of our expected 10-15% drop in business. Applied services helped partially make up for some of the equipment sales weakness. Revenue came in … Read More
Applied Materials (AMAT) is batting clean up in a quarter that has not been pretty. Lately semi stocks seem to have been hit by not only stock specific issues but continued and increasing memory concerns coupled with more macro issues. On top of all this, China trade issues which have in the meantime taken a back burner to other issues… Read More
