Semiconductors
To address future demand for semiconductors amid severe chip shortages of 2020 – 2022, all leading chipmakers announced plans to build new fabs and even disclosed their estimated costs. But spiraled inflation, caused by the disruption of supply chains by the pandemic and then by the Russian war against Ukraine, increased costs of fabs for Intel and Samsung by billions of dollars, according to reports. When Intel announced plans to establish a new manufacturing site near Magdeburg, Germany, last year, it said that its first production fab and supporting facilities would require investments of $18.7 billion (€17 billion) and negotiated $7.2 billion of state aid. But because of high inflation, increasing costs of materials, and high energy prices, the company now believes that the initial...
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 2/9/2017Samsung 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 10/17/2016GlobalFoundries 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 10/3/2016ARM 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 5/18/2016Samsung 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 4/22/2016EUV 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 3/10/2016Samsung 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 1/14/2016The 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 6/29/2015Nantero 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 6/11/2015Avago 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 5/28/2015GlobalFoundries 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 10/20/2014An 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