The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Here’s a sad commentary on the state of Japan’s electronics industry: Some Japanese electronics giants are converting unused factories and fabs into agricultural growing facilities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last month, for example, Fujitsu began selling lettuce from the Aizu-Wakamatsu plant. It's officially over. IBM's talks to sell its chip unit to GlobalFoundries have offi... » read more

Blog Review: July 23


Mentor’s John Day says that within the decade you will be able to contact a real person from your car. Hopefully that doesn't mean marketing people will be able to contact you while you’re stuck in traffic. Cadence’s Brian Fuller says the future of EDA in the automotive market isn’t just about chips. Think security, software and cost reduction. It’s not just SoCs that are going ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IBM’s move to sell its chip business to GlobalFoundries may have stalled or is dead, according to the Albany Times Union and other news outlets. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will partner with over 100 private companies, led by GE, to launch the New York Power Electronics Manufacturing Consortium. GE will be a lead partner in a fab, housed at the CNSE Nano Tech co... » read more

Has 3D NAND Fallen Flat?


Today’s planar NAND technology will hit the wall at 10nm, prompting the need for the next big thing in flash memory—3D NAND. In fact, 3D NAND may extend NAND flash memory for the next several years and enable new applications. And it will also drive a new wave of fabs and tool orders. But the transition won’t be as smooth as previous rollouts. 3D NAND is harder to manufacture than pr... » read more

Applied Materials And Tokyo Electron Unveil Eteris


By Kevin Winston Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (TEL) achieved another important milestone, unveiling the name of our combined company—Eteris [pronounced: eh-TAIR-iss]. Tetsuro Higashi, chairman and CEO of TEL, and Gary Dickerson, president and CEO of Applied Materials, revealed the new company name and logo to an enthusiastic crowd assembled for Applied’s annual analyst briefing ... » read more

Mid-Year Market Review: A Tale Of Two Halves


The month of July brings 110-degree weather to Phoenix and a welcome trip to San Francisco for Semicon West. It also means the year is half over and it’s time to assess mid-year market dynamics. Spirits were high last week at Semicon West. Most equipment vendors made significant revenue gains in the first half of 2014 and expect the second half of the year to be just as good or even bette... » read more

Will 7nm And 5nm Really Happen?


Today’s silicon-based finFETs could run out of steam at 10nm. If or when chipmakers move beyond 10nm, IC vendors will require a new transistor architecture. III-V finFETs, gate-all-around FETs, quantum well finFETs, SOI finFETs and vertical nanowires are just a few of the future transistor candidates at 7nm and 5nm. Technically, it’s possible to manufacture the transistor portions of the... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


As feature sizes continue to shrink and new device architectures are introduced, the IC industry will require new breakthroughs. In fact, feature dimensions will soon have tolerances that are on the order of a few atoms. For the most advanced structures, conventional plasma etch and deposition processes are unable to meet these requirements. As a result, the industry will require tools th... » read more

Stacked Die Are Coming Soon. Really


Since the beginning of the decade there have been many predictions that stacked die were just over the hill, but the time it has taken to climb that hill has been longer than most people would have anticipated. In fact, TSMC has been fully capable of building stacked die since last year, with risk production expected to be completed by year, according to Gartner. But something very fundament... » read more

Blog Review: July 9


Cadence’s Richard Goering walks through a keynote speech from DAC, which was delivered by Imagination Technologies’ Peter McGuinness, about the evolving role of image processing and what it can do. There are lots of changes ahead in this space. Who’s financing the Internet of Things and what are they funding? ARM’s Brad Nemire takes a look at oort, a Bluetooth hub that looks like a ... » read more

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