Semiconductors

TSMC's 3D-stacked system-on-integrated chips (SoIC) advanced packaging technologies is set to evolve rapidly. In a presentation at the company's recent technology symposium, TSMC outlined a roadmap that will take the technology from a current bump pitch of 9μm all the way down to a 3μm pitch by 2027, stacking together combinations of A16 and N2 dies. TSMC has a number of advanced packaging technologies, including 2.5D CoWoS and 2.5D/3D InFO. Perhaps the most intriguing (and complex) method is their 3D-stacked system-on-integrated chips (SoIC) technology, which is TSMC's implementation of hybrid wafer bonding. Hybrid bonding allows two advanced logic devices to be stacked directly on top of each other, allowing for ultra-dense (and ultra-short) connections between the two chips, and is primarily aimed at high performance...

IBM to use Samsung 7nm EUV for Next-Gen POWER and z CPUs

IBM has announced it has signed an agreement with Samsung Foundry to produce its next-generation processors. This includes processors for IBM Power Systems, IBM z, and LinuxONE systems, all...

24 by Anton Shilov on 12/21/2018

Intel to Expand Production Capacities at Multiple Fabs

Intel this week reiterated plans to expand its production capacities in a bid to more quickly respond to increased demand. In the coming years the company intends to increase...

24 by Anton Shilov on 12/19/2018

Intel Further Boosts CapEx to Meet Demand for 14nm Chips

Earlier this year Intel said that it had reaffirmed its plan to invest $1 billion in a bid to increase the number of chips made using its 14 nm...

21 by Anton Shilov on 12/6/2018

Intel: EUV-Enabled 7nm Process Tech is on Track

Originally planned to enter mass production in the second half of 2016, Intel’s 10 nm process technology is still barely used by the company today. Currently the process is...

79 by Anton Shilov on 12/6/2018

GlobalFoundries and Chinese Authorities Reconsider Plans

Because of its renewed focus on specialized process technologies and competition, GlobalFoundries has opted to reconsider its plans concerning its Fab 11 located near Chengdu, China. Rather than offer...

21 by Anton Shilov on 11/26/2018

GlobalFoundries Establishes Avera Semiconductor: a Custom Chip Company

GlobalFoundries this week announced that it has spun off its ASIC Solutions division, establishing Avera Semiconductor, a wholly owned subsidiary that will help fabless chip developers to design their...

11 by Anton Shilov on 11/2/2018

Samsung Starts Mass Production of Chips Using Its 7nm EUV Process Tech

Samsung Foundry on Wednesday said that it had started production of chips using its 7LPP manufacturing technology that uses extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) for select layers. The new fabrication...

42 by Billy Tallis & Anton Shilov on 10/17/2018

TSMC: First 7nm EUV Chips Taped Out, 5nm Risk Production in Q2 2019

Last week, TSMC made two important announcements concerning its progress with extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). First up, the company has successfully taped out its first customer chip using its...

50 by Anton Shilov on 10/9/2018

GlobalFoundries Enables Connectivity IP: New RF SOI and Ensigma BLE on 22FDX

GlobalFoundries this week made two important announcements concerning its radio and connectivity-related capabilities. First up, the company said that Imagination’s Ensigma connectivity IP is now available for its 22FDX...

2 by Anton Shilov on 9/27/2018

Cadence Announces The Tensilica DNA 100 IP: Bigger Artificial Intelligence

Cadence is an industry player we don’t mention nearly enough as much as we should - they make a lot of IP and specialises in accelerator blocks which augment...

9 by Andrei Frumusanu on 9/19/2018

Samsung Foundry Updates: 8LPU Added, EUVL on Track for HVM in 2019

Samsung recently hosted its Samsung Foundry Forum 2018 in Japan, where it made several significant foundry announcements. Besides reiterating plans to start high-volume manufacturing (HVM) using extreme ultraviolet lithography...

29 by Anton Shilov on 9/6/2018

Micron to Expand Its Fab 6 in Virginia, Build New R&D Center

Micron this week announced plans to expand production of DRAM and NAND memory at its fab in Manassas, Virginia. In total, Micron intends to invest $3 billion into the...

11 by Anton Shilov on 8/31/2018

AMD's 7nm CPUs & GPUs To Be Fabbed by TSMC, on Track for 2018 - 2019

With the announcement that its long-time manufacturing partner (and outright former fab) GlobalFoundries is dropping out of the race for bleeding-edge manufacturing nodes, the second big question of the...

28 by Ryan Smith & Anton Shilov on 8/27/2018

GlobalFoundries Stops All 7nm Development: Opts To Focus on Specialized Processes

GlobalFoundries on Monday announced an important strategy shift. The contract maker of semiconductors decided to cease development of bleeding edge manufacturing technologies and stop all work on its 7LP...

127 by Anton Shilov & Ian Cutress on 8/27/2018

Hot Chips 2018: Xilinx DNN Processors Live Blog

Xilinx has several talks this year at Hot Chips, and aside from the ACAP earlier in the day, the talk about their Deep Neural Network processor also looks interesting...

3 by Ian Cutress on 8/21/2018

Hot Chips 2018: Going Deep on NVSwitch Live Blog (8:45am PT, 3:45pm UTC)

The first talk on Day 2 of Hot Chips is from NVIDIA, going into more detail about how the NVSwitch works with a lot more detail than from previous...

2 by Ian Cutress on 8/21/2018

TSMC: Outbreak of Malware That Triggered Delays & Losses Caused by Software for New Tool

TSMC announced this week that it suffered a computer malware outbreak, resulting in a roughly 3 day outage for parts of the fab while systems were restored. As a...

42 by Anton Shilov on 8/9/2018

MRAM Developer Day, GlobalFoundries Keynote Live Blog

Second Keynote today is from GlobalFoundries, Everspin's MRAM partner.

1 by Ian Cutress on 8/6/2018

ASML Ships Twinscan NXT:2000i Scanner for 7nm and 5nm DUV

ASML, the company known for producing equipment for the manufacture of processors and semiconductors at foundries, has started to ship its new Twinscan NXT:2000i DUV (Deep Ultra Violet) scanner...

15 by Anton Shilov on 8/2/2018

SK Hynix Set to Build a New Memory Fab

SK Hynix last week announced plans to build another semiconductor fab near its headquarters in Icheon, South Korea. The production facility is not going to be as big and...

16 by Anton Shilov on 7/30/2018

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