At the Semico Summit held May 2, 2011 in Phoenix, Az, one of the most lively discussions occurred during the panel Challenges at 28nm. Mahesh Tirupattur, Analog Bits brought out the best from the audience as well as panel members.

Chi-Ping Hsu, Sr VP, Research & Development, Silicon Realization Group, Cadence
Mark Papermaster, Vice President, Switching Silicon [...]

The convergence of mobility, communication and computing has produced multifunctional end applications that are placing huge demands on semiconductor manufacturers.  These new devices require low power, high performance, and a lot  of advanced manufacturing capacity at a low cost.
At the 2011 Semico Summit, Gregg Bartlett, Senior Vice President of Technology and Research and Development, GLOBALFOUNDRIES [...]

The semiconductor industry grabs headlines as companies such as Intel announce the construction of multi-billion-dollar state-of-the-art research and manufacturing facilities. High performance servers, PCs and most of our electronic devices would not exist today if it weren’t for the continual advancements made in semiconductor manufacturing technology. While the most advanced chips supply the processing power [...]

It should come as no surprise that semiconductor foundry manufacturers are booming. The semiconductor industry has been transformed. But it’s not just fabless versus IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturer). Revenue has shifted from Embedded MPUs, MCUs, DSPs and Standard Cell ASICs to Special Purpose Logic chips. Integration has taken over MOS [...]

On February 14th, 2011, Valentine’s Day, IBM will be debuting “Watson” as a contestant on the popular game show, Jeopardy!. Watson is a supercomputer powered by an IBM POWER7 server and is programmed to handle a massive number of tasks at rapid speeds to analyze complex language and deliver responses to inquiries such as those [...]

On the heals of the Qualcomm/Atheros acquisition, on January 10th, 2011, SMSC and Conexant Systems, Inc. announced the signing of an agreement under which SMSC will purchase Conexant in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $284 million.
Conexant’s imaging, audio, embedded modem and video products will be combined with SMSC’s connectivity solutions targeting [...]

This is a personal thank you to the semiconductor industry, an industry that I have worked in for almost forty years.  My thank you is for a new hand.�
In 1962 I was in a line-of-duty military accident that resulted in the amputation of my left hand.  Soon after, in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, I [...]

Over the last 18 months the semiconductor industry experienced another roller coaster ride as demand outpaced capacity, causing double bookings and raising average selling prices. So are we destined to overbuild capacity, over stock inventory and suffer a corresponding downward cycle that has been so characteristic of the semiconductor industry? A slowdown is inevitable [...]

October has been a big month for China announcements. Texas Instruments announced the purchase of Cension Semiconductor, a 200mm fab previously operated by SMIC in Chengdu, China. This week Intel announced the grand opening of their first 300mm fab in Dalian.
China is becoming a more powerful force in [...]

MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) are perceived as being simple mechanical devices manufactured on 6-inch wafers or smaller, utilizing mature semiconductor fab technology.  Recently MEMS devices have experienced high growth rates as they revolutionized the smart phone screen orientation and game controllers for motion detection. Now the foundries and EDA/IP vendors are salivating over the [...]