About this time last year not many people wanted to believe me when I said that the Micro Logic market (microprocessors, microcontrollers, and DSP) would bounce back in 2H 2009 and with a strong upward trend.  Fear, uncertainty and dread (FUD) due to the worldwide economic crisis was driving companies to make severe cutbacks on [...]

The recent news regarding Dubai’s ominous financial situation may have caused some uncertainty and confusion about the impact on GlobalFoundries. It is well known that a significant portion of GlobalFoundries is funded by ATIC (Advanced Technology Investment Company) of Abu Dhabi. ATIC’s sole shareholder is the Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Dubai is one [...]

With reports of Q2 2009 foundry sales doubling compared to Q1 2009, foundries are increasing capital expenditures, beefing up design enablement tools and keeping their fingers crossed that improved sales will last for more than just two quarters.
The big news is that GLOBALFOUNDRIES is already making progress on their goal to win new sales from [...]

At a time when most companies are cutting back on capital investment and capacity expansions, the challenge of developing a high technology industrial park appears to be an impossible task.  But Silicon Border continues to seize that challenge.Â
Silicon Border is a 10,000 acre science park located in Mexicali, capital of Baja California.  The park hopes [...]

The race to mass produce the next innovation in nonvolatile semiconductor memory appears to have a new contender.   Phase change memory (PCM) has been touted by industry leaders for years.  As far back as December of 2006 Wilhelm Beignvogl, SVP, technical innovation, Qimonda AG, stated, “phase change memories have the clear potential to play an [...]

Solfocus opened a second manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona this week.  The new plant will produce glass reflectors, which are one piece of Solfocus’ CPV (Concentator Photovoltaic) arrays.  The 20,000 square foot expansion, combined with the company’s existing facility here, will produce two million reflectors a year, which equates to 30MW of solar [...]

This has been an active week for big foundry announcements.  On March 2, 2009 Intel/TSMC announced an MOU to collaborate on technology and IP infrastructure for SoCs.  At the same time, AMD announced it had closed their deal with Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and Mubadala Development Company of Abu Dhabi. [...]

The foundry market players continue to provide almost as much nail-biting suspense as a  TV reality program.  Drawing most of the media attention is the battle for large volume IDM and advanced technology customers.  Companies such as TSMC and the members of the Common Platform are developing strategies which involve unique advanced technologies.  The competition [...]

Several Semico analysts attended Semicon West this year.  Although the forecast for 2008 capital expenditures is for less spending, there was still a lot to get excited about at the show this year.Â
We talked to a few companies with innovative improvements to image sensor technology.  Sarnoff has developed a back illumination technology that utilizes SOI [...]

During the week of June 16th, 2008 at the VLSI Technology Symposium, there were a lot of compelling papers presented.  One in particular caught my attention because the findings had a very subtle underlying message.  I’m referring to the Intel paper on floating body cell (FBC).  The floating body cell is not new.  Intel talked [...]