Recent headlines suggest that Intel was not transparent about some of the products they showed at the CES keynote. Intel confirmed on Friday that they used ARM-based chips for some of the products but would not say which ones. When your company’s tag line is “Intel Inside” and you hold up a product during your keynote wouldn’t… Read More
Tag: tsmc
Intel Wafer Pricing Exposed!
One of the big questions on Intel’s foundry strategy is: Can they compete on wafer pricing? Fortunately there are now detailed reports that support what most of us fabless folks already know. The simple answer is no, Intel cannot compete with TSMC or Samsung on wafer pricing at 28nm, 20nm, and 14nm.
In fact, recent reports have shown… Read More
IP-SoC 2013 Top Class Presentations…
… were given to an ever shrinking audience. This is IP-SoC paradox: audience has enjoyed very good presentations made by TSMC (for the first time at IP-SoC, as far as I remember), SMIC, D&R, Gartner or ST-Microelectronic, to name just a few. The event is well organized, on the morning you can listen to keynotes in the largest … Read More
Can Intel Catch Samsung? Can Anybody Catch Samsung?
As a professional conference attendee I see a lot of keynotes, some good and some bad. I saw a great one from Kurt Shuler at the SEMICO IP Impact Conference last week. Why this conference was not standing room only I do not know. Kurt’s characterization of the semiconductor industry was well worth the price of admission. I didn’t actually… Read More
Xilinx and TSMC: Volume Production of 3D Parts
A couple of weeks ago, Xilinx and TSMC announced the production release of the Virtex-7 HT family, the industry’s first heterogeneous 3D ICs in production. With this milestone, all Xilinx 28nm 3D IC families are now in volume production. These 28nm devices were developed on TSMC’s Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate (CoWoS)… Read More
TSMC on Semiconductor IP Quality
It is important to note that the System On Chip (SoC) revolution that is currently driving mobile electronics has one very important enabling technology and that is Semiconductor Intellectual Property. Where would we be without the commercial IP market segment? Computers and phones would still be on our desks for one thing, and… Read More
Can Intel Compete in the IoT?
Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, is credited for the term “The Internet of Things” to describe an ecosystem where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors. Simply stated: rather than humans creating content for the internet IoT devices create the content. To be clear, this… Read More
TSMC ♥ Mentor (Calibre PERC)
As semiconductors become more integrated into our lives reliability is becoming a critical issue. As IP consumes more of our die, IP reliability is becoming a critical issue. As we pack more transistors into a chip, reliability is becoming a critical issue. As we move from 28nm to 20nm to 16nm, reliability is becoming a critical … Read More
TSMC Continues To Fire On All Cylinders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation is the world’s leading semiconductor foundry by revenue and, by extension, profitability. While I am deeply saddened that current CEO Morris Chang will be retiring (again) shortly, I am hopeful that his successor will be able to continue the legacy of foundry industry leadership… Read More
How Asia Works, phase 2/3
Success in manufacturing has two conditions: tariff barriers to shield the infant industries from external competition, and a rigorous focus on exports to ensure that manufacturing cannot just shelter behind the tariff barriers and reap monopoly profits inside the country. Each industry needs to have several companies enter,… Read More