200mm Demand Surges


A surge in demand for various chips is causing shortages for select 200mm foundry capacity as well as 200mm fab equipment, and it shows no signs of abating in 2021. Foundry customers will face a shortfall of 200mm capacity at select foundries at least in the first half of 2021, and perhaps beyond. Those customers will need to plan ahead to ensure they obtain enough 200mm capacity in 2021. Ot... » read more

Startup Funding: November 2020


Numerous chipmakers pulled in funding in November 2020, with investors putting money into interconnects, memories, AI hardware, and quantum computing. Launching from stealth was a startup aiming to combine AI and 5G. Autonomous delivery did well, too, with one company raising a massive $500M. This month, we take a look at 28 companies that raised a collective $1.1B. Semi & design Connec... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 17


Intel’s gate-all-around FETs At the upcoming IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), Intel is expected to present papers on its efforts to develop gate-all-around transistors. One paper from Intel describes a more conventional gate-all-around transistor technology called a nanosheet FET. Another paper involves a next-generation NMOS-on-PMOS nanoribbon transistor technology. (F... » read more

Adaptive Test Gains Ground


Not all devices get tested the same way anymore, and that’s a good thing. Quality, test costs, and yield have motivated product engineers to adopt test processes that fall under the umbrella of adaptive test, which uses test data to modify a subsequent test process. But to execute such techniques requires logistics that support analysis of data, as well as enabling changes to a test based ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Earlier this year, the semiconductor industry saw little merger and acquisition activity. More recently, though, there has been a flurry of deals. In July, ADI moved to acquire Maxim. Then, Nvidia announced plans to acquire Arm for $40 billion, followed by AMD’s proposed move to buy Xilinx for $35 billion. Not to be outdone, Marvell has announced plans to buy Inphi. Companies a... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade and government The U.S. continues to tighten its export controls for hi-tech, including a move to restrict fab technologies that enable 5nm chip production. The U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed controls on six more technologies, bringing the total to 37. They include: hybrid additive manufacturing/computer controlled tools; computational lithography software designed for EUV masks... » read more

Regaining The Edge In U.S. Chip Manufacturing


The United States is developing new strategies to prevent it from falling further behind Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps even China in semiconductor manufacturing, as trade tensions and national security concerns continue to grow. For years, the U.S. has been a leader in the development of new chip products like GPUs and microprocessors. But from a chip manufacturing standpoint, the U.S. is losin... » read more

Blog Review: Oct. 14


Arm's Hongsup Shin explains a machine learning application that can determine which tests are most likely to find hardware bugs, improving efficiency and reducing the number of tests that need to be run. Synopsys' Pieter van der Wolf and Dmitry Zakharov take a look at the increasing need for low power processors optimized for machine learning tasks as IoT, smart home, and wearable devices pr... » read more

eBeam Initiative Surveys Report Upbeat Photomask Market Outlook


Every year, the eBeam Initiative conducts surveys that provide valuable insight into the key trends that are shaping the semiconductor industry. This year, industry luminaries representing 42 companies from across the semiconductor ecosystem participated in the 2020 eBeam Initiative Luminaries survey. 89% of respondents to the survey predict that photomask (mask) revenues in 2020 will stay the ... » read more

Deals That Change The Chip Industry


Nvidia's pending $40 billion acquisition of Arm is expected to have a big impact on the chip world, but it will take years before the effects of this deal are fully understood. More such deals are expected over the next couple of years due to several factors — there is a fresh supply of startups with innovative technology, interest rates are low, and market caps and stock prices of buyers ... » read more

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