And the Winner is…


Semiconductor Engineering now has its first full year under its belt, and I have to say it has been an incredible year. Not only did we exceed a million page views in our first year, but we also got started on the Knowledge Center, an endeavor the likes of which has never been attempted in our industry. It is still very young and has a lot of growing up to do, but it is a wonderful start. We wo... » read more

Is The Stacked Die Ecosystem Stagnating?


It is now widely agreed that not much has been happening in terms of adoption for 2.5D interposer and 3D ICs. “It seems like everyone is still at the starting line waiting for the race to begin," said Javier DeLaCruz, senior director of engineering of [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"]. "Interposer assembly and IP availability for effectively using the [getkc id="82" comment="2.5D IC... » read more

IBM, Intel And TSMC Roll Out finFETs


At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Franciso, IBM, Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) this week will separately present the latest details of their respective 16nm/14nm finFET technologies. As expected, Intel and TSMC will continue to use bulk CMOS. IBM will continue to go with rival silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. At IEDM, Intel ... » read more

What’s Next For DNA Chips?


The field of genomic personalized medicine is an emerging and promising area. Using lab systems called DNA sequencers, these units could provide vital information about an individual’s genetic makeup. In this area, several companies are developing next-generation DNA sequencers, built around CMOS-based semiconductor technology. But CMOS-based DNA sequencing chips, and the competing techno... » read more

New Machine Tops The Green500 List


The Green500 has released its latest list of the top 500 most energy efficient Supercomputers and there is a new machine, L-CSC from the Helmholtz Center that is the first supercomputer to surpass the 5 GigaFLOPS/watt barrier. The machine is yet another heterogeneous system and is based on AMD FirePro S9150 GPU accelerators and Intel Xeon E5-2690v2 10C 3GHz processors. IBM and NVIDIA aren’... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 2


Storage ring EUV source Needless to say, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is delayed. Chipmakers hope to insert EUV at the 7nm node, but that’s not a given. As before, the big problem is the EUV light source. So far, the source can’t generate enough power to enable the required throughput for EUV in mass production. Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have one p... » read more

Hybrid Memory Cube – Ready For Prime Time


With the release this week of Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) 2.0, designers can get their hands on mature, standards-based IP that can be used to significantly scale the performance of servers and data centers. HMC offers bandwidths up to 320 GB/s – 12X that of standard memory solutions like DDR4 – while consuming significantly less power. These benefits are too significant to ignore for ASIC, So... » read more

An Inside Look At The GlobalFoundries-IBM Deal


GlobalFoundries' proposed acquisition of IBM Microelectronics is the kind of deal that will have business schools talking for many years to come—a gargantuan combination of expertise and technology, built on the back of high-profile business successes and failures, long-running legal struggles and global politics—with far-reaching implications for all parts of the semiconductor supply chain... » read more

Transistor Options Narrow For 7nm


Chipmakers are currently ramping up silicon-based finFETs at the 16nm/14nm node, with plans to scale the same technology to 10nm. Now, the industry is focusing on the transistor options for 7nm and beyond. At one time, the leading contenders involved several next-generation transistor types. At present, the industry is narrowing down the options and one technology is taking a surprising lea... » read more

RF SOI Foundry Biz Heats Up


The foundry business is undergoing a new round of acquisition and fab expansion activity. As before, the big foundry vendors are getting bigger, while some may fall by the wayside. And at times, the events cause some uncertainty, if not jitters, in the supply chain. For example, [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]in October signed a definitive agreement to acquire the chip uni... » read more

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