Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Ramping capacity Samsung is considering building as many as 11 fabs in central Texas, investing an estimated $200 billion and creating as many as 10,000 jobs. The plans came to light when the company filed paperwork for tax breaks. Samsung already has broken ground on a new $17 billion fab in Taylor, Texas. The remaining nine fabs, including two in nearby Austin, would be built over the next c... » read more

Week in Review: Manufacturing, Test


Breaking the Logjam The U.S. government’s delay in funding strategic chip capacity is threatening supply chains that are critical to national security. In fact, classified meetings are being held this week on the subject. Meanwhile, recognizing that time is of the essence, a group of billionaires has backed the “America’s Frontier Fund,” a non-profit group that aims to spur U.S. chipma... » read more

Will Big Competition Attract More Talent For IC Companies?


Google is hiring a chip packaging technologist. General Motors is seeking a wafer fabrication procurement specialist. Facebook Reality Labs wants a materials researcher with experience in photolithography and nanoimprint techniques. Recent job postings by tech and automotive giants are enough to worry any chip company executive struggling to attract talent. But what may seem at first like a ... » read more

Embedded Software: Sometimes Easier, Often More Complex


Embedded software, once a challenge to write, update, and optimize, is following the route of other types of software. It is abstracted, simpler to use, and much faster to write. But in some cases, it's also much harder to get right. From a conceptual level, the general definition of embedded software has not changed much. It's still low-level drivers and RTOSes that run close to the hardwar... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Acquisitions & Investments California-based MaxLinear plans to acquire Taiwan-based Silicon Motion (SMI), in a cash and stock deal valued at about $3.8 billion. Silicon Motion’s NAND flash controller technology for solid state storage devices, will extend MaxLinear’s RF, analog, and mixed signal portfolio. ISMC will invest about $3 billion in a semiconductor plant in India’s south... » read more

CEO Outlook: Chip Industry 2022


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss broad industry changes and how that affects chip design with Anirudh Devgan, president and CEO of Cadence; Joseph Sawicki, executive vice president of Siemens EDA; Niels Faché, vice president and general manager at Keysight; Simon Segars, advisor at Arm; and Aki Fujimura, chairman and CEO of D2S. This discussion was held in front of a live audience... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


It's earnings season, and despite widespread reports of capacity issues and shortages, the chip industry turned in relatively solid results across the board. Intel exceeded January guidance for Q1, reporting first-quarter GAAP revenue of $18.4 billion, a 7% year-over-year decrease, and a 1% decrease year-over-year on non-GAAP basis. Record revenue was achieved in the Network and Edge Group, ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs Apple has rolled out its most powerful processor, dubbed the M1 Ultra, a multi-die chip that incorporates the company's new packaging technology. The M1 Ultra is incorporated in Apple’s new Mac Studio desktop. M1 Ultra features a 20-core CPU, a 64-core GPU, and a 32-core Neural Engine. The M1 Ultra also features UltraFusion, Apple’s new packaging architecture. M1 Ult... » read more

Data Center Architectures In Flux


Data center architectures are becoming increasingly customized and heterogeneous, shifting from processors made by a single vendor to a mix of processors and accelerators made by multiple vendors — including system companies' own design teams. Hyperscaler data centers have been migrating toward increasingly heterogeneous architectures for the past half decade or so, spurred by the rising c... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Pervasive computing, IoT and 5G The U.S. company SpaceX deployed more satellites into LEO (low earth orbit) Starlink constellation and launched a premium service for businesses that costs $500 a month, bringing download speeds of 150-500 Mbps and latency of 20-40ms. The regular Starlink service is $99 a month. Starlink has launched over 2,000 satellites into its constellation, according to sta... » read more

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