I found a patent recently (May,14 2013) granted to TSMC “Planar Compatible FDSOI Design Architecture”, the following sentences, directly extracted from this patent, advertise FDSOI design better than a commercial promotion! “Devices formed on SOI substrates offer many advantages over their bulk counterparts, including… Read More
Tag: tsmc
Intel Versus TSMC 14nm Processes
Intel has begun to release some details on their 14nm process. I thought it would be interesting to contrast what Intel has disclosed to TSMC’s 16nm process disclosure from last year’s IEDM (TSMC calls their 14nm process 16nm).
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Should we pay the price of Innovation?
I agree that this question sounds stupid: nobody is forcing me to buy an innovative product, or even a gadget, if I don’t want to pay a high price, I just don’t buy the product. But it seems that some people don’t really think that way. The story is related to Qualcomm sales in China, and recently announced partnership with SMIC…
The Partnership… Read More
Who will Manufacture Apple’s Next SoC?
Just to review: The brain inside the current Apple iPhone 5s is the A7 SoC manufactured by Samsung using a 28nm process. The A6 (iPhone 5) and A5 (iPhone 4s) are based on Samsung 32nm. The rest of the Apple SoCs also used Samsung processes. I think we can all now agree that the coming Apple A8 SoC (iPhone 6) will use the TSMC 20nm process.… Read More
eSilicon and the Ten Minute Quote
One of the challenges in bringing a design into production is getting a quote that includes all the various stages of the process. The quote cycle typically takes a couple of weeks. It is also pretty wasteful. A typical design might be quoted by 3 manufacturers and so 2 out of 3 quotes are wasted expense because the design is lost to a … Read More
Temperature – The Fourth Aspect to Look at in SoC Design
In my career in semiconductor industry, I can recall, in the beginning there was emphasis on design completion with automation as fast as possible. The primary considerations were area and speed of completion of a semiconductor design. Today, with unprecedented increase in multiple functions on the same chip and density of the… Read More
Xilinx: Revenue Down, Profit Up, FinFET on Schedule
Xilinx announced their results today and had their conference call this afternoon, which I listened to. For them this is 1Q fiscal 2015 which means you have to be careful since there is a big difference between talking about fiscal quarters and calendar quarters. Xilinx’s conference calls are interesting for a couple of … Read More
Samsung Foundry Explained!
Rather than watch the World Cup battle for third place, my beautiful wife and I spent last Saturday afternoon at the CASPA Wearables Symposium. The most interesting presentation was from Samsung because it included slides on their foundry offering. In regards to wearables, I still don’t see the ROI I need to buy one, yet. We are getting… Read More
Cadence Announces Quantus Next Generation Extraction
Today Cadence announced their next generation extraction solution called Quantus QRC. Actually they are technically announcing it tomorrow, since it is being announced at CDNLive in Korea where it is already Tuesday morning.
As with the other recently announced tools that end in -us, Tempus (timing signoff) and Voltus (power… Read More
The Intel Resurgence?
There is an interesting article on Seeking Alpha about Intel. Interesting because it is written by someone with both fabless semiconductor experience and a talent for strategic thinking. It’s a good read and like most Seeking Aplha semiconductor articles the comments are hilarious. Give the guy a penny and click over HERE, he … Read More