Fab Spending Hits New High


The latest update to the World Fab Forecast report, published on May 31, 2017 by SEMI, reveals record spending for fab construction and fab equipment. Korea, Taiwan, and China all see large investments, and spending in Europe has also increased significantly. In 2017, over US$49 billion will be spent on equipment alone, a historic record for the semiconductor industry. Spending on new fab cons... » read more

System Bits: June 6


Silicon nanosheet-based builds 5nm transistor To enable the manufacturing of 5nm chips, IBM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Samsung, and equipment suppliers have developed what they say is an industry-first process to build 5nm silicon nanosheet transistors. This development comes less than two years since developing a 7nm test node chip with 20 billion transistors. Now, they’ve paved the way for 30 billi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Market research IC Insights has released its capital spending forecast by company. In total, there are 15 companies that are forecast to have semiconductor capital expenditures of $1.0 billion or more in 2017, up from 11 in 2016, according to IC Insights. Four companies—Intel, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, and SK Hynix—are expected to represent the bulk of the increase in spending, accord... » read more

IoT Security Challenges, Opportunities


The specter of cybersecurity is haunting the Internet of Things—or more specifically, the lack of it. Big companies in information technology and telecommunications have embraced the [getkc id="76" kc_name="IoT"] as a significant business opportunity, and the field is inspiring hundreds of startups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Venture capitalists hungrily eye the IoT, betting on which ... » read more

Sourcing Used Equipment


Emerald Greig, executive vice president for the Americas & Europe at SurplusGlobal, sat down to discuss fabs and the used/refurbished equipment market with Semiconductor Engineering. SurplusGlobal is one of the world’s largest suppliers of secondary fab equipment. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What is the status of the 200mm new or used equipment market today? ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Samsung has formed a new foundry division and rolled out a range of new processes. Specifically, Samsung plans to develop 8nm, 7nm, 6nm, 5nm and 4nm. It also introduced an 18nm FD-SOI technology. GlobalFoundries has provided more details about its 300mm fab plans in China. The company and the Chengdu municipality have announced an investment to develop an ecosystem for its 22nm ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools Startup Austemper Design unveiled a functional safety tool suite that includes safety analysis that applies default values from industry standards ISO26262 and/or IEC61508 for Failures-in-Time (FIT) rates, tools to handle safety synthesis and augment design structures, and a parallel fault simulator with hybrid simulation capabilities. SystemVerilog and VHDL parsers from Verific serve ... » read more

Foundry Wars, Take Two


Samsung, GlobalFoundries, TSMC and Intel all have declared their intention to fill in nearly every node possible with multiple processes, different packaging options, and new materials. In fact, the only number that hasn't been taken so far is 9nm. It's not that one foundry's 10nm is the same as another's. Each company defines its nodes differently, and these days comparing nodes is almost m... » read more

Samsung Unveils Scaling, Packaging Roadmaps


Samsung Foundry unveiled an aggressive roadmap that scales down to 4nm, and which includes a fan-out wafer-level packaging technology that bridges chips in the redistribution layer, 18nm FD-SOI, and a new organizational structure that allows the unit much greater autonomy as a commercial enterprise. The moves put [getentity id="22865" e_name="Samsung Foundry"] in direct competition with [get... » read more

The Race To 10/7nm


Amid the ongoing ramp of 16/14nm processes in the market, the industry is now gearing up for the next nodes. In fact, GlobalFoundries, Intel, Samsung and TSMC are racing each other to ship 10nm and/or 7nm technologies. The current iterations of 10nm and 7nm technologies are scaled versions of today’s 16nm/14nm finFETs with traditional copper interconnects, high-k/metal-gate and low-k diele... » read more

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