The two large EDA companies offering SOC prototyping with FPGA-based boards are Synopsys and Cadence, however there’s a smaller vendor called Polaris Design Systems that also have a product in this important design verification category. I spoke on Wednesday with Rahm Shastry, CEO of Polaris to learn more about this company and vision. Rahm and I both worked together at Viewlogic in the 90’s.
Continue reading “SOC Prototyping with FPGAs from a Smaller Vendor”
Sometime early in 2013, Intel will tape out its first production chip for 14nm and it won’t be an x86 processor. It’s neither necessary nor prudent to lead with a new x86 processor when the one missing element that the mobile market desperately needs is nowhere to be found: an ultra low power 4G LTE chip that fits under the battery life envelope of smartphones and would be warmly received in tablets, ultrabooks and notebooks as well. Intel’s Eye on the Mobile Tsunami Prize is within reach once its Trigate process is ramped. More importantly the 4G LTE chip will serve as the Tip of the Spear dragging in the Atom processor and graphics solution at a lower power and better economics than what the ARM camp has on the drawing boards (the picture is an IBM 14nm wafer provided by GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Intel did not have one for public consumption.)
Earlier this year, during Intel’s earnings conference call it was noted that CapEx was increasing to $12.5B in 2012 to enable a Fab footprint by Q4 2013 that is twice as large as what was available in 2011. Many are still wondering how it is to be filled and Apple is one of the educated guesses. Along with the CapEx announcement though was the 21% increase in R&D budget to $10.1B. The increase is so large it will consume the additional profits expected this year. More products are coming, however it seems the best bang for the buck is where the trigate process can solve a problem that the fabless vendors can’t seem to fix at 28nm or 20nm (non-trigate).
The mystery seems to be solved in the unveiling of Apple’s New iPAD that contains a 50% larger battery in order to handle the increased power consumption of the higher resolution Retina display and the inclusion of Qualcomm’s 4G LTE wireless solution. The battery size grew from 25 Watt hours to 42.5 Watt hours causing the thickness and weight of the iPAD to grow in a direction that I am sure would not make Steve Jobs happy. A compromise was made on the iPAD to win the Screen War, however the iphone is different and not some accommodating to more weight and lower battery life. And so a dilemma unfolds as to how long and by what means will the iPhone receive 4G LTE with its much smaller battery. Unlike today’s smartphone rivals who ship 4G today, Apple has to be careful not to tarnish its brand with a device that shows poor battery life.
Steve Wildstrom, a veteran PC columnist, recently wrote an article recommending that Apple skip LTE on the next version of the iPhone for reasons of battery life and the presumed lack of benefit of increased data performance. The correct platform to watch movies is the iPAD, which has the larger screen and battery to accommodate the power draw. I agree with the practical conclusions that were drawn here, however with Apple’s competitors surrounding them with 4G smartphones, it will be hard due to marketing reasons alone to hold off forever.
While the buzz drones on in 2012 over 4G LTE, Intel will force march its engineers to tape out one version of 4G LTE after another until it can sample a 14nm version by no later than early summer 2013 to an anxiously awaiting market. Intel will make the argument to the larger mobile market that they have solved the power issues regarding 4G LTE with a process technology that can operate down to “near” threshold (0.7V) voltages and if a vendor is looking for a competitive edge in the smartphone market, Intel has the answer. The x86 now has a Trojan Horse Platform for undercutting ARM in the mobile space. It reminds me of a strategy penned not too long ago.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am Long AAPL, INTC, ALTR, QCOM
The verification IP (VIP) for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) announcement from Synopsys is the first fruit issued from the acquisition of ExpertIO. With the proliferation of Nand Flash based storage equipment, or Solid State Drives (SSD), the move from pure SATA based solution was to be expected, sooner or later. Not because SATA protocol itself will fail to support future storage equipment, but because the PCI Express protocol is offering more capabilities, as highlighted by Earl Cohen, Chief Architect, Sandforce (now LSI Logic): “NVM Express is a critical building block for flash-based Enterprise storage through the use of the PCIe interface and a standards-based, highly efficient, scalable storage protocol. By providing a channel for applications to send intelligence about the data actually being stored, NVM Express promises to extend the value proposition of flash-based solid-state storage solutions in terms of reliability, performance and endurance.” Moreover, the SATA PHY roadmap, or the lack of PHY solution after SATA 3.0 running at 6 Gbps, was also a good reason to move to PCIe, already available at 8 Gbps today with gen-3.
Because, as soon as a new interface protocol is defined, the market need the related verification IP (VIP), the Synopsys release of VIP for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), is a cleaver move. “With the addition of the NVM Express protocol to its leading serial ATA (SATA) and serial attached SCSI (SAS) verification IP, Synopsys expands its portfolio in verification IP for storage protocols. The first-to-market release of NVMe verification IP was enabled by Synopsys’ recent acquisition of ExpertIO, which brought expertise and a strong portfolio of storage-based verification IP. ExpertIO has been an active member and contributor to the NVM Express architectural committee since its inception. NVMe provides a command set, queuing layer and register interface optimized for PCI Express-based SSDs. The NVMe verification IP is a new upper-level protocol layer that can be integrated with Synopsys’ industry-proven ExpertIO PCI Express verification IP”. Interesting to notice, Synopsys is also promoting PCIe VIP from ExpertIO, although the company had developed their own VIP product for PCI Express…
“NVM Express is a key enabler for high-performance PCIe SSDs,” said Amber Huffman, chair of the NVM Express Working Group and principal engineer of the Intel Storage Technologies Group. “The availability of verification IP for NVM Express at this stage of development will enable faster adoption of this exciting new technology. We expect to see NVM Express SSD products shipping later this year.” To comment this quote, I would just say that seeing SSD replacing HDD is certainly a good move, I mean as a end user who has seen his PC crashing due to a HDD failure. And seeing PCI Express pervasion into new storage application will open many more possibilities, as the PCIe specification is offering a lot more features than SATA, that cleaver architects will certainly exploit, it’s just a question of creativity…
By Eric Esteve from IPNEST
Getting a feature to take off in today’s smartphone market is tricky. It requires a combination of hardware support, OS support, app integration, and maybe most importantly carrier adoption. Ideas that seem ready technologically, like NFC, get stopped in their tracks by silly things like the William J. LePetomaine Thruway toll booth.
Continue reading “No, gosh darn it, I said the NFC is near!”
Next week is a big deal because it’s when Synopsys has their annual user group meeting, SNUG in Santa Clara at the Convention Center from Monday through Wednesday. I’d love to hear if they have made any decisions on the new product roadmap after the Magma acquisition, although it’s probably too early to tell.
Traditionally the marketing folks are kept away from the podium, and it’s really about users talking about their design challenges and how they used one or more Synopsys tools in their design flow to get the job done.
If you haven’t registered yet online, no problem, just show up and register at the event. There’s no charge if you are a Synopsys customer.
Enjoy the free WiFi and now you can even give your feedback for each session using an online system instead of paper.
You can expect to be joined by about 2,000 other engineers at this SNUG in Silicon Valley.
Post a SNUG trip report HEREand qualify to win an iPad2!
On Monday morning the welcome message is from John Busco, an NVIDIA engineer that I follow online and also the Technical Chair for SNUG Silicon Valley. Aart de Geus is the keynote speaker.
John Cornish from ARM is the keynote speaker on Tuesday morning.
Dr Chenming Hu from UC Berkeley will be the keynote speaker on Wednesday.
In my last article I talked about the physical design aspect of 3D-IC. Now looking at its verification aspect, it spans through a wide spectrum of test at hardware as well as software level. The verification challenge goes much beyond that of a SoC which is at a single plane. Even a typical SoC that comprises of a processor core, memory controller, GPU, IP block and peripheral units is very difficult to test as a whole system together. A cycle accurate level of testing needs RTL level of description of the whole system and that cannot be attempted at the very early stages of the SoC. Therefore the usual practice is to test the SoC through Virtual Platform to start with. Hardware, software co-verification can take place in the Virtual Platform environment. At this stage, by using SystemC TLM (Transaction Level Modelling), embedded software can be verified at Untimed (UT) and architectural exploration and verification can be done at Loosely Timed (LT) or Approximately Timed (AT) abstraction levels as per need. Most of the major architecture level design issues need be sorted out at this stage. Then the design passes through verification at each stage of design cycle till GDS. Nevertheless, provision for test access architecture like Built-In-Self-Test (BIST) needs to be provided in the chip for testing of manufacturing defects.
Now if we consider a 3D-IC, it can have multiple processor cores, memory controller, cache, high speed peripherals etc. on multiple planes. Each die and the whole stack need to be tested. The dies can come with different IPs or design components from different vendors and can be heterogeneous. The order of magnitude of testing increases exponentially. One faulty die would mean the whole stack to be useless. The individual die can be assumed to be tested by the vendor, provided that is certified on a common test standard. Here are some of the complexities and methodologies of testing which need attention –
Testing in Virtual Platform – Virtual Platform is very appropriate to test the whole system together at higher level of abstraction above RTL. For 3D-IC level of test, it needs to augment the notion of design assembly in multiple planes. The software needs to account for effects of TSVs (Through Silicon VIA) and interconnects across the dies adding into delays.
Die testing – It is important that each die is tested thoroughly to be converted into KGD (Known Good Die). Testability needs to be included by the vendor and that needs test standards, discussed below. Comprehensive testing of die needs more advanced fault models other than stuck-at, bridging and transition faults. Mentor has developed what is called user defined fault model (UDFM) which can be cell aware. The die should also be accessible and testable after being packaged into the stack.
Interposer and TSV testing – Like KGD, interposer and TSV also need to be certified to be known good interposer and TSV for robust inter-die connection and good yield. The die interconnect should be accessible and testable.
Package (Stack) testing– This needs a test architecture which can enable transport of test data and control signals through all dies and interconnects in the stack. External IOs are typically located at the bottom most die, hence the test signals at a die need to pass through the die below it to finally arrive at the external IO. This asks for a standard configuration of test circuitry at every die which is interoperable as the dies in a stack can come from different vendors. In the stack, testing can be done at partial as well as full stack level.
IEEE standards for test – IEEE1149 describes the boundary scan test which is a mature DFT technique used at board level and can be used through the bottom die. IEEE1500 has been developed for test re-use and embedded core test. It has serial as well as parallel test access architecture and rich instruction set for testing cores and associated circuitry. It uses core test language (CTL) for describing test data and wrappers. IEEE1687 describes standard for access and control of instruments embedded into the chip for debugging purposes. To address the issues of heterogeneous dies from multiple vendors, IEEE1838 has been proposed which is die-centric and leverages features from IEEE1149, IEEE1500 and IEEE1687.
Standardizing test access architecture helps IP, die and stack providers to document and deliver appropriate level of information on test access architecture and data. EDA vendors can provide tools to generate and make use of the standard test access architecture. This is specifically necessary for 3D-IC and SoC as there are multiple parties involved in its making.
By Pawan Kumar Fangaria
EDA/Semiconductor professional and Business consultant
Email:Pawan_fangaria@yahoo.com
The launch from Cadence of the PCI Express 3.0 Controller IP was officially done about one year ago, and demonstrated at the June 2011 PCI-SIG Developer’s Conference, where Cadence Design IP for PCI Express 3.0 controller IP implemented as a high-performance, dual-mode, 128-bit data-path, x8 PCI Express 3.0 controller configuration was shown, implemented in a customer’s ASIC, see here.
The associated Verification IP (VIP), made of Compliance Management System (CMS) which provides interactive, graphical analysis of coverage results, and PureSuite which provides the PCIe associated test cases, clearly demonstrate that the acquisition of Denali has greatly helped Cadence to position on the advanced PCIe IP market, with design IP (Controller) and VIP.
Maybe some history will help. Back in 2006, Denali was known for their VIP products for Interface functions like PCIe, USB or SATA, when they first launch a PCI Express (gen-1 at that time) Controller IP. It was quite surprising, especially for their former partners, suddenly becoming their competitors! Nevertheless, they found a place on the market, positioning on the high end (and expensive) side, supporting Root Port and soon Single Root I/O Virtualization (SRIOV), a solution targeting the PC Server market when Synopsys and PLDA where positioned on the mainstream PCIe IP market. Then PCIe 2.0 specification was issued, in 2007, and Denali was still in the race. With the launch of this PCIe 3.0 solution, supporting single root I/O virtualization (SR I/OV), Cadence was initially targeting the high end, advanced applications, like storage, supercomputing, enterprise and networking. But, with the release from Intel of the Z68 chipset, PCIe gen-3 ready, in May 2011 and the launch from the motherboard manufacturers (ASUS, ASRock…) of products based on the Z68 chipset, the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] generation of PCI Express is now available on products sold on the mainstream market.
Initially, Denali was positioning their PCIe Controller IP on the high end and high price market only, leaving the mainstream to the competition. With PCIe gen-3 becoming the solution for the mainstream market, Cadence should increase their market share in the PCIe Controller IP mainstream market and consolidate their share in the high end, thanks to the support of SR-IOV. What is SR-IOV? Briefly, SR-IOV is a specification that allows a PCIe device to appear to be multiple separate physical PCIe devices. PCI-SIG created and maintains the SR-IOV specification with the goal of having a standard specification to help promote interoperability. One of the milestones achieved for Cadence’s design IP for PCI Express Gen3 is proving SR-IOV interoperability in silicon against an Intel chipset.
Why is it important? The two main advantages of an SR-IOV PCIe device are:
You will find more information about SR-IOV, as well as a nice video showing how have Cadence customers used PCI Express Gen3 SR-IOV to solve their design problems here.
The PCIe core includes these features:
Single-Root I/O Virtualization
The PCIe core provides a Gen 3 16-lane architecture in full support of the latest Address Translation Service (ATS) specification, Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) specification, including Internal Error Reporting, ID Based Ordering, TLP Processing Hints (TPH), Optimized Buffer Flush/Fill (OBFF), Atomic Operations, Re-Sizable BAR, Extended TAG Enable, Dynamic Power Allocation (DPA, and Latency Tolerance Reporting (LTR). SR-IOV is an optional capability that can be used with PCIe 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0 configurations.
Dual-mode operation
Each instance of the core can be configured as an Endpoint (EP) or Root Complex (RC).
Power management
The core supports PCIe link power states L0, L0s and L1 with only the main power. With auxiliary power, it can support L2 and L3 states.
Interrupt support
The core supports all the three options for implementing interrupts in a PCIe device: Legacy, MSI and MSIx modes. In the Legacy mode, it communicates the assertion and de-assertion of interrupt conditions on the link using Assert and De-assert messages. In the MSI mode, the core signals interrupts by sending MSI messages upon the occurrence of interrupt conditions. In this mode, the core supports up to 32 interrupt vectors per function, with per-vector masking. Finally, in the MSI-X mode, the controller supports up to 2048 distinct interrupt vectors per function with per-vector masking.
Credit Management
The core performs all the link-layer credit management functions defined in the PCIe specifications. All credit parameters are configurable.
Configurable Flow-Control Updates
The core allows flow control updates from its receive side to be scheduled in a flexible manner, thus enabling the user to make tradeoffs between credit update frequency and its bandwidth overhead. Configurable registers control the scheduling of flow-control update DLLPs.
Replay Buffer
The Controller IP incorporates fully configurable link-layer reply buffers for each link designed for low latency and area. The core can maintain replay state for a configurable number of outstanding packets.
Host Interface
The datapath on the host interface is configurable to be 32, 64, 128 or 256-bits. It may be AXI or Host Application Layer (HAL) interface.
Offering the PCIe 3.0 IP Controller and VIP is a must, as Cadence is clearly and strongly positioned on Verification IP and well positioned on a few interface IP, essential to support SoC design, like DDR3, DDR4, LPDDR2, LPDDR3, and PCIe. Several design-in for PCIe gen-3, like those at PMC-Sierra, Cray Research or Marvell have demonstrated that Cadence commitment to the PCI Express market has lead to success. Cadence has enhanced the memory controller products inherited from Denali by moving to a hard PHY solution, will they consolidate their penetration in the PCIe IP market the same way, by adding PHY IP to their port-folio?
By Eric Esteve from IPNEST
Holman Jenkins, the distinguished writer of business trends for the Wall St. Journal, recently penned an article entitled “The End of Apple’s Roach Motel?” (Personally, I think that since Apple is in California, he should have used Hotel California in his title), questioning the iPhone and iPAD maker of its ability to continue selling devices at high ASPs while competitors build out similar functioning cloud based ecosystems. The article makes a valid point that a $600 iPhone is likely to come down in price but neglects to highlight the cost offsets that are about to come based on Apple’s expanding supply chain, including the raft of semiconductor companies that have been operating with 50%+ Gross Margins for what seems like eternity.
The fabless model as it evolved from the 1990s to today was based on a fast turn cycle in semiconductor design married to a CapEx model that spread risk (read cost) across the industry horizon. Within the PC space, there was no end to the demand for processor performance and thus Intel was not that interested in participating in areas beyond the processor and the chipset. The chipset was the gate that locked in hundreds of Taiwanese motherboard and notebook designs to the Intel platform, completely incompatible to the presume competitors like AMD, Cyrix and Transmeta.
At the turn of this century, WiFi opened up a new avenue for fast moving fabless vendors like Broadcom to enter into the PC space with significant value but outside Intel’s “Desktop & Notebook designated Fence.” But with WiFi came greater portability, smaller formfactors and the need to consider battery life not MHz as the key defining factor. Intel responded initially with Centrino but then flagged until the Smartphone and Tablet markets kicked them out of bed.
The surprise though that Apple unleashed was a vertically integrated Software and Semiconductor model that mirrored the PC duopoly of Microsoft and Intel at a revenue multiple that in 2H 2012 will be on a run rate that is 1.5 times as large vs. five years ago when it was roughly one fourth. With a low operating overhead (especially R&D), Apple has the flexibility to trickle down prices as needed but also at the same time expand the number of underlying platforms that reside within the nice iPAD and iPhone enclosures. And here is where they will probably invest a good portion of their R&D efforts over the coming year to stay ahead of competitors.
Nothing says that the 50%+ gross margins that are typical of nVidia, Broadcom, Marvell, TI and AMD/ATI graphics and the rest of the mobile supply chain is sacrosanct. I would in fact argue that as Apple increases market share and splits its business that these gross margins will drop into the mid 30s. Given that the Fabless companies have R&D budgets that as a percentage of sales are 25% and higher, this is going to cause some severe pain and likely cutbacks. Intel, as a contrast invests 16% of Sales in R&D, which includes process development.
Value migration is on a warpath and will come in multiple waves. The first wave will be head to head competitor price discounts. Following this is the likely scenario where Apple funds Fab CapEx to reduce the margins of the foundry as well. With demand risk removed, it is no longer viable for TSMC or Samsung or Global to charge 50% gross margins on a wafer. In effect Apple will squeeze the margins at both ends.
One could argue for the moment that Apple is still a relatively small piece of the PC and smartphone markets, therefore the collapse of margins is overstated. All true, however on the other side of the vise is Intel who by my estimation is willing to sell Atom processors at scortched earth pricing based off a depreciated 32nm fab today and at half the die size next year. The true value of Mobile Tsunami platforms, if one hasn’t guessed yet, is in the kitchen sink communications chip (4G/3G, WiFi, Bluetooth etc…) and in the processor that furthest extends the life of the battery. People value being connected – All Day.
Apple’s leveling of the semiconductor supply chain is coming, with an assist from Intel. The Fabless model is going to come under some extreme duress as it applies to leading edge process technology where many of the wafers are targeting Smartphones, Tablets and Ultrabook PCs. Expect Qualcomm and Apple to take the lead in financing leading edge fabs in partnerships with either TSMC or Samsung (and perhaps Global Foundries).
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am long AAPL, INTC, QCOM and ALTR
John Stabenow is the marketing group director at Cadence for the Virtuoso products and it has been awhile since we last talked, so we met for lunch on Friday at McMenamins in a city called West Linn, half-way between where we both live in Oregon. I had blogged about Interoperability at DAC 2010 and we had a public exchange at Chip Design Magazine. This time we had a wide ranging discussion on IC topics.
Q: What’s new in IC EDA these days?
A: One new thing is from Orora, a start-up in Seattle, they have an analog model generation tool called Arana that looks interesting. You provide it a transistor-level netlist and it produces an Analog Behavioral Model (ABM) out. ST is an early user. Dr. Richard Shi is the founder.
Q: What tools does Cadence offer for generating analog models?
A: We have something called Schematic Model Generator (SMG).
Q: Why are analog models so important?
A: There’s a great need to abstract analog behavior into higher-level models that can be quickly and accurately simulated, because you cannot SPICE everything you want in a short enough time.
Q: What did you learn from the Neolinear acquisition since 2004?
A: That analog synthesis and analog layout synthesis is very difficult.
Q: What benefit will Synopsys have after acquiring Magma?
A: They can recover some of the simulation customers lost to FineSIM and P&R tools. They also need to decide which IC layout tools survive: IC Designer (a Virtuoso clone) or Magma Titan? Magma probably has more IC layout design customers than Synopsys does.
Q: As the technology nodes get smaller, what issues are your IC customers experiencing?
A: Layout Dependent Effects (LDE) is a growing area of concern in IC design. Transistor performance now depends on what is placed next to each MOS device. You need more than just DRC rules, you need some automation that can be used by a circuit designer first. We will never eliminate the IC layout designer job.
Q: How is your relationship with ClioSoft?
A: They are a great Hardware Configuration Management (HCM) partner, their product is well liked and highly regarded by customers, it’s very complimentary with Virtuoso. IC Manage and Methodics are other HCM vendors. Data management for analog asks the basic question, “What changed on my schematic or layout?” Digital data management is quite different because they look at their task as one of software source code management mostly.
Q: Does Cadence create analog IP for sale?
A: Yes, we have an analog IP design group in Columbia, MD that provides that service. They use Virtuoso tools and tell us unfiltered what they think. Their customers don’t reveal their identities.
Q: What is your take on Carl Icahn raiding Mentor Graphics?
A: My personal opinion is that it would be a mistake to breakup Mentor into pieces.
Q: Is EDA360 still alive now that John Bruggeman left Cadence?
A: We’ve organized our product marketing people back into the business units now, instead of having them centralized. I wish John all the best. CDNLive is not promoting the EDA360 banner front and center.
Q: What were some of the highlights of CDNLive last week?
A: The GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm reference flow was a highlight. Freescale did a paper on LDE. Other customers presenting on the IC side include: IBM, Maxim, LSI and TSMC. ADI had a paper on using Circuit Prospector for design reuse and they showed how design constraints could be automated in just seconds. Orora has a paper on the second day showing how an AMS design optimization was reduced from 6 days to just 6 minutes.
Summary
I learn so much when I talk to a seasoned EDA executive like John Stabenow, and look forward to blogging more about how Cadence works with foundries on advanced nodes like 20nm to ensure that the tools, PDKs and methodology are in place to create successful IC designs.
Even though my Dresden trip was fraught with fail points it went off without a hitch. Flying over was easy, I connected through London Heathrow, flying back I connected through Frankfurt. The last time I connected through Frankfurt was right after the 9/11 attacks so I had a bit of deja vu. I was in Munich, Heathrow was closed, I was routed through Frankfurt and experienced the most frightening security procedures ever. TSA procedures today are nothing compared to Frankfurt during 9/11.
Day 1 was a visit to Fab 1. I get the VIP treatment which is very flattering because really, I’m just a regular guy trying to put four kids through college. To be completely honest, I’m not a fan of the GFI marketing pitch where they expound on the GLOBAL part of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, having fabs in different countries equals less risk for the customer. Even suggesting that a natural disaster can take out the Taiwan fabs is a horrible mental image, especially if they mention the Tsunami in Japan. I’ve experienced several Taiwan earthquakes, including the big one on September 1999, then again in July 2009. Thousands of people were killed and injured yet the fabs are still there. Last year my earthquake karma was better. My March trip ended early so I was in the air for the Thursday 6.9 earthquake. My next trip started late with a Monday evening arrival so again I was in the air for the Monday 6.5 quake, as I blogged before, my Taiwan friends joke that I bring California earthquakes to Taiwan. One of my better blogs on the subject “TSMC Earthquake Damage Redo” might be worth a read.
Rather than stay in a western hotel, I stayed in a renovated mansion near city center. This way I was able to walk downtown and get a feeling for the Dresden culture and taste the local cuisine. Too cold and rainy for the beer gardens but I did get out for beer and pretzels. Even though it was cloudy and dreary, it was still a very nice visit with very friendly people and a very tourist safe environment. The only dissappointment is that I did not see one Porsche in Dresden. The taxis were all Mercedes and there were lots of VWs but not a Porsche in sight.
After the marketing presentation and a nice Dresden lunch I got a tour of the fab. I opted out of the clean room tour this time and spent an hour or so with a materials science guy. These guys are physicists and honest to a fault so I trust them implicitly. I also look at the equipment and when I see state of the art electron and ion-beam microscopes costing many millions of dollars I know these people are in it to win it. One thing I did not know is how much semiconductor history Dresden had. My tour guide was one of the people who opened the fab in the late 1990’s starting at .18 micron. That is a very deep pool of experience. It was also good to see University interns at the microscopes, young and old eyes looking together.
After the fab tour I went to the Dresden Military History Museum. It wasn’t as depressing as the Dachu Concentration Camp tour I did in Munich but it was very blunt about the atrocities of World War II. They gave me an iPad Touch and I roamed the halls for a couple hours. The thorough bombing of Dresden by the Allies remains one of the more controversial actions and it was described in detail from both points of view. Very interesting. There were also cars and military vehicles of the period which I’m really into. Definitely time well spent.
Bottom line: GLOBALFOUNDRIES has done an incredible thing in combining the Chartered Semiconductor Fabs with the AMD fabs, integrating the IBM process technology and building a world class pure-play foundry. I think as long as they can control the public relations and marketing people and keep expectations realistic, GFI will be a major player in the semiconductor ecosystem for the long term. As an internationally recognized industry blogger that is my heartfelt opinion, believe it.
