The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Test and packaging In a major surprise, Cohu has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Xcerra for approximately $796 million. With the deal, Cohu will enter the ATE market. Last year, a group from China entered into a definitive agreement under which it would acquire Xcerra. But the U.S. blocked Xcerra’s sale to the Chinese group. Ironically, at one time, Cohu was reportedly lobbyin... » read more

Design Rule Complexity Rising


Variation, edge placement error, and a variety of other issues at new process geometries are forcing chipmakers and EDA vendors to confront a growing volume of increasingly complex, and sometimes interconnected design rules to ensure chips are manufacturable. The number of rules has increased to the point where it's impossible to manually keep track of all of them, and that has led to new pr... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Legal Back in 2013, Synopsys filed suit against ATopTech for copyright infringement. The courts found in favor of Synopsys and ATopTech was damages were set at a little over $30M. With appeals unsuccessful, ATopTech announced that it has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and has filed a motion to sell its businesses using a stalking horse bidder (an initial b... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


For years, Altera’s sole foundry was TSMC. Then, not long ago, Altera selected Intel as its foundry partner for 14nm. TSMC still handles 20nm and above work for Altera. Now, Altera will soon select a foundry partner for 10nm. “Altera will make a decision on which foundry partner it will choose for 10nm finFET at the end of 1Q15, noting it will decide between Intel and TSMC,” said John Vin... » read more

Partition Lines Growing Fuzzy


For as long as most semiconductor engineers can remember, chips with discrete functions started out on a printed circuit board, progressed into chip sets when it made sense and eventually were integrated onto the same die. The primary motivations behind this trend were performance and cost—shorter distance, fewer mask layers, less silicon. But this equation has been changing over the past ... » read more

Favorite Forecast Fallacies


It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. – An Old Danish Proverb. The GSA Silicon Summit was held on Thursday, April 10th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. The opening panel session was entitled Advancements in Nanoscale Processing. The panelists were Rob Aitken (ARM), Adam Brand (Applied Materials), Peter Huang (TSMC), Nick Kepler (VLSI Researc... » read more

Experts At The Table: Improving Yield


By Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss yield issues with Sesh Ramaswami, senior director of strategy at Applied Materials; Luigi Capodieci, R&D fellow at GlobalFoundries; Kimon Michaels, vice president and DFM director at PDF Solutions; Mike Smayling, senior vice president at Tela Innovations; and Mark Mason, director of data integration at Texas Instr... » read more

Experts At The Table: Improving Yield


By Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss yield issues with Sesh Ramaswami, senior director of strategy at Applied Materials; Luigi Capodieci, R&D fellow at GlobalFoundries; Kimon Michaels, vice president and DFM director at PDF Solutions; Mike Smayling, senior vice president at Tela Innovations; and Mark Mason, director of data integration at Texas Instr... » read more

Experts At The Table: Improving Yield


y Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss yield issues with Sesh Ramaswami, senior director of strategy at Applied Materials; Luigi Capodieci, R&D fellow at GlobalFoundries; Kimon Michaels, vice president and DFM director at PDF Solutions; Mike Smayling, senior vice president at Tela Innovations; and Mark Mason, director of data integration at Texas Instrum... » read more

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