The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Synopsys updated its family of software tools for photonic component and optical communication system design, adding new IMEC foundry component libraries and DSP algorithms for photonic chips, modulator circuits and coherent transceivers, as well as a new platform for modeling large-core multimode fibers. Deals Imagination inked two deals: one with ANSYS for its integrated circui... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Since the global economic recession of 2008-2009, the IC industry has pared down older fab capacity. From 2009-2014, semiconductor manufacturers have closed or repurposed 83 wafer fabs, including a few 300mm plants, according to IC Insights. Are 3D DRAMs finally here? SK Hynix is shipping mass production volumes of its first-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM1). Samsung is also backing it... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


After several delays due to a myriad of complex regulatory issues, Applied Materials’ proposed deal to buy Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) has been scrapped. Now, Applied Materials and TEL are separately re-grouping, and are back to where they originally started as competitors in the fab tool market. Applied Materials held a conference call to explain the situation with TEL. Applied Materials... » read more

Stacked Die, Phase Two


The initial hype phase of [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"] appears to be over. There are multiple offerings in development or on the market already from Xilinx, Altera, Cisco, Huawei, IBM, AMD, all focused on better throughput over shorter distances with better yield and lower power. Even Intel has jumped on the bandwagon, saying that 2.5D will be essential for extending [getkc id="74" comment="M... » read more

3D NAND Market Heats Up


After some delays and uncertainty in past years, the 3D NAND market is finally heating up. In 2013 and 2014, Samsung was the only vendor participating in the 3D NAND market. Most other suppliers were supposed to ship 3D NAND devices in volumes last year, but vendors pushed out their production dates for various business and technical reasons. Going into 2015, [getentity id="22865" e_nam... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IBM continues to cut jobs, according to IEEE Spectrum and an IBM employee organization. Meanwhile, IBM and SUNY Polytechnic Institute announced that more than 220 engineers and scientists who lead IBM's advanced chip R&D efforts at SUNY Poly's Albany Nanotech campus will become part of IBM Research. While military applications continue to experience strong growth in RF gallium-nitride (GaN)... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


This week, IBM began to cut jobs amid lackluster results. Big Blue is also in the process of selling its chip unit to GlobalFoundries. GlobalFoundries said the jobs are safe at IBM Micro, at least for now, according to a report the Press and Sun-Bulletin. What’s the latest with Applied Materials’ proposed acquisition with Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL)? “Germany, Israel and Singapore approv... » read more

Manufacturing And Packaging Changes For 2015


This year more than 26 people provided predictions for 2015. Most of these came from the EDA industry, so the results may be rather biased. However, ecosystems are coming closer together in many parts of the semiconductor food chain, meaning that the EDA companies often can see what is happening in dependent industries and in the system design houses. Thus their predictions may have already res... » read more

Solid Years: Cautious Optimism Drives Equipment Spending Into 2015


Worldwide semiconductor capital expenditure growth for this year is expected to be 11% and will increase another 8% in 2015. Throughout 2014, SEMI has tracked 177 facilities worldwide investing about US$34 billion on semiconductor equipment. In 2015, 190 facilities are being tracked with fab equipment spending worth over $40 billion. The double-digit growth in fab equipment spending for this ye... » 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

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