Semiconductors
To say that the global foundry market is booming right now would be an understatement. Demand for leading-edge process technologies driven by AI and HPC applications is unprecedented, and with Intel joining the contract chipmaking game, this market segment is once again becoming rather competitive as well. Yet, this is exactly the market segment that Rapidus, a foundry startup backed by the Japanese government and several major Japanese companies, is going to enter in 2027, when its first fab comes online, just a few years from now. In a fresh update on the status of bringing up the company's first leading-edge fab, Rapidus has revealed that they are intending to get in to the chip packaging game as well. Once complete, the ¥5 trillion ($32...
Samsung Details 11LPP Process Technology: 10 nm BEOL Meets 14 nm Elements
Samsung has added a new manufacturing technology into its roadmap. The 11LPP fabrication process is designed for mainstream and higher-end smartphone SoCs. The technology will come online next year...
23 by Anton Shilov on 9/29/2017
GlobalFoundries Weds FinFET and SOI in 14HP Process Tech for IBM z14 CPUs
GlobalFoundries this week formally introduced its new custom process technology that will be used to manufacture IBM's z14 CPUs, which in turn were announced earlier this year. The 14HP...
31 by Anton Shilov on 9/22/2017
GlobalFoundries Adds 12LP Process for Mainstream and Automotive Chips; AMD Planning 12LP CPUs & GPUs
GlobalFoundries on Wednesday announced its new 12LP (leading performance) fabrication process. The new manufacturing technology was designed to increase transistor density and improve frequency potential compared to GlobalFoundries’ current-gen...
32 by Anton Shilov on 9/21/2017
TSMC Teams Up with ARM and Cadence to Build 7nm Data Center Test Chips in Q1 2018
TSMC has announced plans to build its first test chips for data center applications using its 7 nm fabrication technology. The chip will use compute cores from ARM, a...
12 by Anton Shilov on 9/14/2017
GlobalFoundries Details 7 nm Plans: Three Generations, 700 mm², HVM in 2018
Keeping an eye on the ever-evolving world of silicon lithography, GlobalFoundries has recently disclosed additional details about its 7 nm generation of process technologies. As announced last September, the...
76 by Anton Shilov on 6/23/2017
Samsung and TSMC Roadmaps: 8 and 6 nm Added, Looking at 22ULP and 12FFC
Samsung and TSMC have made several important announcements about the present and future of their semiconductor manufacturing technologies in March. Samsung revealed that it had shipped over 70 thousand...
89 by Anton Shilov on 5/5/2017
GlobalFoundries to Expand Capacities, Build a Fab in China
GlobalFoundries has announced plans to expand manufacturing capacities for its leading edge and mainstream production technologies in the U.S., Germany and Singapore. After the upgrades of the fabs are...
49 by Anton Shilov on 2/11/2017
Intel to Equip Fab 42 for 7 nm
Intel this week announced plans to bring its Fab 42 online to produce semiconductors using a 7 nm fabrication process. It will take three to four years, and the...
24 by Anton Shilov on 2/9/2017
Samsung Foundry Announces 10nm SoC In Mass-Production
Today Samsung announced mass production of a SoC built on its third-generation 10nm "10LPE" manufacturing node. It was only this January that Samsung announced mass production of its 14LPP...
92 by Andrei Frumusanu on 10/17/2016
GlobalFoundries Updates Roadmap: 7 nm in 2H 2018, EUV Sooner Than Later?
GlobalFoundries recently announced the first details about its next generation 7 nm manufacturing technology, which is being developed in-house, and revealed plans to start production of chips using the...
76 by Anton Shilov on 10/3/2016
ARM Announces 10FF "Artemis" Test Chip
Today in collaboration with TSMC, ARM's physical IP division is announcing the tapeout of a 10nm test chip demonstrating the company's readiness for the new manufacturing process. The new...
24 by Andrei Frumusanu on 5/18/2016
Samsung Foundry Updates: 7nm EUV, 10LPP, and 14LPC
Earlier this week, Samsung announced a number of updates on the foundry side of their business. While process technology might not be necessarily as interesting as the actual end...
54 by Joshua Ho on 4/22/2016
EUV Lithography Makes Good Progress, Still Not Ready for Prime Time
At the recent annual SPIE Advanced Lithography conference, Intel, TSMC and other leading semiconductor companies said that significant strides have been made in extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) over the...
38 by Anton Shilov on 3/10/2016
Samsung Announces Second-Gen 14nm Low Power Plus (14LPP) Process Now In Mass Production
Today Samsung Semiconductor officialy announces mass production for its second generation 14nm FinFET manufacturing node. Early last year we saw Samsung announce mass production of its first generation FinFET...
32 by Andrei Frumusanu on 1/14/2016
The Samsung Exynos 7420 Deep Dive - Inside A Modern 14nm SoC
Over the past few years it’s been somewhat expected tradition for Samsung Electronics to employ a strategy of multi-sourcing the SoC for their mobile devices. Most notably it’s on...
114 by Andrei Frumusanu on 6/29/2015
Nantero Exits Stealth: Using Carbon Nanotubes for Non-Volatile Memory with DRAM Performance & Unlimited Endurance
The race for next generation non-volatile memory technology is already on at full throttle. We covered Crossbar’s ReRAM announcement last year and last week a very exciting company with...
35 by Kristian Vättö on 6/11/2015
Avago Acquires Broadcom Corporation For $37 Billion
Today Avago Technologies announced their acquisition of Broadcom for 17 billion dollars in cash and 20 billion dollars worth of Avago shares. This will leave Broadcom shareholders with 32%...
33 by Brandon Chester on 5/28/2015
GlobalFoundries Acquires IBM’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Business; IBM Bows Out
The history of the semiconductor manufacturing business is both a story of great success and great failure. On the one hand semiconductor manufacturing has allowed the creation of devices...
31 by Ryan Smith on 10/20/2014
An Introduction to Semiconductor Physics, Technology, and Industry
Learning about semiconductor physics and technology can be a daunting task. While it’s easy enough to understand what a transistor does and some of the terminology thrown around, getting...
77 by Joshua Ho on 10/9/2014
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
