Bigger Wafers, Bigger Risk


At 22/20/16/14nm the semiconductor industry is experiencing a rather new twist on Moore’s Law. Smaller, as in smaller feature sizes, is no longer assumed to be cheaper—or at least not for everyone. In fact, the cost per transistor for the first time in more than half a century could rise in some cases. Whether this outlook improves as the semiconductor industry gains more experience wit... » read more

FinFET Isolation: Bulk vs. SOI


Terry Hook of IBM recently contributed an article to ASN about FinFET isolation issues on bulk vs. SOI.  It generated immense interest, and created lots of discussion on various LinkedIn groups.  In case you missed it, here it is again. (This article is based on an in-depth presentation Terry gave at the SOI Consortium's Fully-Depleted Tech Workshop, held during VLSI-TSA in Taiwan, April 2... » read more

Upbeat Prediction


By Clark Tseng The semiconductor industry started out quite strong in 2012 but declined rapidly in the second half of the year, resulting in a slight year-over-year decline of 2.7% in worldwide semiconductor sales. On the other hand, worldwide capital equipment market recorded a decline of 15% from $43.5 billion in 2011 to $36.9 billion in 2012 according to the SEMI WWSEMS report. While indust... » read more

GF’S Two Flavors Of FD-SOI


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ Hearing the news that GlobalFoundries would be offering two flavors of FD-SOI, ASN asked the company to explain the strategy further. Here are the responses provided by Subi Kengeri, Vice President of Advanced Technology Architecture.   [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="110"] Subi Kengeri, VP Advanced T... » read more

ST-Ericsson 28nm FD-SOI/ARM Chip Hits 2.8GHz at CES


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ What a great start to 2013: at CES in Las Vegas, ST-Ericsson announced the NovaThor™ L8580 ModAp, “the world’s fastest and lowest-power integrated LTE smartphone platform.” This is the one that’s on STMicroelectronics’ 28nm FD-SOI, with sampling set for Q1 2013. And it’s a game changer – for users, fo... » read more

Changes Ahead


Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design talks with GlobalFoundries EVP Mike Noonen about future challenges in IC manufacturing, the future of stacked die and ecosystem challenges ahead. [youtube vid=Wdp9JYvBeSk] » read more

Winners And Losers


By Joanne Itow Semiconductor revenues will log in a relatively lackluster growth for 2012, only 3% more than 2011. That is below the 4.8% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the past five years and well below the 8.4% CAGR over the past 10 years. On the other hand, semiconductor units continue to show healthy growth, driving up wafer demand. Units will grow slightly faster compared to the ... » read more

CMP, ST et al offer 28nm FD-SOI for prototyping, research


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ What would a port to 28nm FD-SOI do for your design?  A recent announcement by CMP, STMicroelectronics and Soitec invites you to find out.  Specifically, ST’s CMOS 28nm Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) process – which uses innovative silicon substrates from Soitec and incorporates robust, compact model... » read more

The GaN Plan


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Given the need to control power in high-end market segments such as servers, notebooks, mobile handsets and wired communications equipment, the market for gallium nitride (GaN)-based chips is poised for explosive growth. Case in point: Server farms are using more and more electricity, and the cost of that power is getting to be a significant fraction of the operati... » read more

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