ARM Holdings may be accelerating its development cycles in a bid to offer better solutions for the booming market of smartphones and the emerging market of low-power servers, according to a high-tech analyst. Faster design cycles mean that ARM is making a step closer to Intel's tick-tock cadence. Technologies developed …
Read More »Intel’s 10nm Cannonlake processors due in mid-2016 – leaked roadmap
Intel Corp. will speed up development and launch of its future-generation code-named “Cannonlake” processors, if an alleged slide from the company’s roadmap is genuine. The first chips to be made using 10nm process technology may hit the market as early as in the middle of next year, but they will …
Read More »Nvidia: TSMC is our primary partner for 10nm and 16nm chips
Being one of the largest fabless designers of semiconductors in the world, Nvidia Corp. is a very special customer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. For more than a decade, TSMC has been the primary producer of Nvidia graphics processing units and despite of Nvidia’s recent engagement with Samsung Foundry, TSMC …
Read More »AMD delays introduction of K12-based processors to 2017
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday said that it will delay high-volume shipments of microprocessors powered by its custom ARMv8-compatible “K12” cores to 2017. The company did not reveal any reasons behind the postponement. AMD’s “K12” core is the company’s first 64-bit ARMv8-A-compatible microprocessor engine designed entirely in-house. Development of the …
Read More »STMicroelectronics will not develop 10nm process technology
STMicroelectronics, one of a few semiconductor manufacturers from Europe, said that it would not develop 10nm process technology. Essentially, this means that the company will close its chip manufacturing facility in Crolles, France, at some point in the future. “We do not have any 10nm planned, and we do not …
Read More »GlobalFoundries is working on 10nm process technology internally
Just like other contract makers of semiconductors, GlobalFoundries is already developing its next-generation 10nm process technology. However, despite of the fact that GlobalFoundries is about to acquire IBM’s semiconductor manufacturing business and the company’s close ties to Samsung Electronics, the 10nm fabrication tech is developed completely internally at the moment. …
Read More »Samsung to invest additional $9.2 billion in its $14.4 billion fab
Samsung Electronics plans to invest additional $9.2 billion in capacity expansion of the world’s largest semiconductor fab, a media report claims. At present it is unclear how exactly Samsung plans to expand its fab, but the cost of the whole project – around $23.6 billion – already looks staggering. Samsung …
Read More »ASML sells 15 EUV lithography scanners, possibly, to Intel
ASML Holding NV, one of the world’s leading makers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, this week said that it had signed an agreement with one of its major U.S.-based customers to deliver at least 15 ASML extreme ultraviolet (EUV) EUV lithography systems. Given the scale of the order it is highly likely …
Read More »ARM: 20% of servers to be ARM-based by 2020
Despite of a lot of hype about ARM-based servers in the recent years, actual number of their deployments remains very low. However, ARM Holdings is optimistic about its market opportunities and expects 20 per cent of servers to be ARM-based by 2020. In a bid to dramatically increase its share of …
Read More »TSMC: We will start risk production of 7nm chips in 2017
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. remains optimistic about its abilities to make chips using thinner process technologies going forward. Last week the company said that it would start risk production of integrated circuits using its 7nm process technology in 2017. Mass production of commercial 7nm products will likely begin in 2018, …
Read More »ARM CPU roadmap revealed: Ares, Prometheus, Ananke and Mercury in development
ARM Holdings is developing a broad family of general-purpose processing cores that will be made using 10nm and 16nm process technologies, according to a roadmap that was revealed earlier this month. Just like today, the upcoming cores from ARM will address different segments of the market. Earlier this year ARM …
Read More »Intel: We are not discussing our 10nm schedules
Intel Corp. is confident that its 10nm manufacturing process will enable it to build central processing units cost-efficiently. However, the company does not want to reveal when exactly it plans to start making chips using its next-generation 10nm fabrication technology. In accordance with Moore’s law and Intel's tick-tock cadence, the company needs to …
Read More »Intel: 10nm and 7nm technologies have perfect economic feasibility
It is not a secret that transitions to newer chip manufacturing processes are getting more difficult from financial capital standpoint since not only research and development costs more than before, but also production equipment is getting more expensive. In a bid to keep their prices at current levels, semiconductor companies need …
Read More »Intel is quietly delaying 10nm production – report
Intel Corp. delayed mass production of 14nm chips by nearly a year because of insufficient yields. According to a media report, something similar may happen to its 10nm manufacturing technology. Intel is setting up a small pilot line for 10nm production in D1X development fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, reports SemiconductorEngineering. …
Read More »TSMC’s 10nm goals: higher density and performance at lower power
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week unveiled first details about its 10nm fabrication process at the TSMC Technology Symposium in the U.S. The official goals are slightly less ambitious than those discussed last year, but the general focus of TSMC’s 10nm manufacturing technology is clear: considerable increase of transistor density compared to …
Read More »Intel and Altera acquisition talks end due to price disagreement
Negotiations between Intel Corp. and Altera have ended because the companies could not agree on price. The world’s largest maker of microprocessors did not want to pay a hefty premium for the company, which is more profitable than Intel itself. If the chipmaker really wants to get Altera, the talks will …
Read More »Intel: Moore’s law will last for another 10 years
Intel Corp. predicts that Moore’s law will last for at least another decade and the number of transistors per chip will keep doubling every two years. While there are challenges ahead, Intel’s engineers are going to solve them. Later this month Moore’s law will hit 50 years, an unprecedented date for the …
Read More »Samsung to use world’s largest $15 billion fab to produce DRAM – report
Samsung Electronics overwhelmed the world of semiconductors when it announced plans to build a chip production plant that will cost almost $15 billion last October. At the time it was unclear for what the giant plans to use its fab in Pyeongtaek, a city south of Seoul. According to a …
Read More »TSMC looking at new materials, transistor structures for sub-10nm tech
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week confirmed that it has a team of engineers working on a manufacturing process that will succeed 10nm fabrication technology towards the end of the decade. While the company did not reveal details about its sub-10nm process, it said that it considers various options for …
Read More »Micron begins trial production of DRAM using 10nm-class process tech
Micron Technology said this week that it had already begun trial production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips using its 10nm-class fabrication process. The manufacturing technology is still under development, but trial production indicates that it is proceeding as planned. “1x nanometer DRAM development is also proceeding well and …
Read More »Intel gets ready for its largest acquisition ever – report
Intel Corp. is negotiating with Altera Corp., a developer of system-on-chips, field programmable gate arrays and other specialty devices, over a possible takeover. The acquisition could strengthen Intel’s positions across many markets. The transaction could top $10 billion, which will be Intel’s biggest purchase ever. Altera develops and sells field …
Read More »Nvidia could outsource production of GPUs to Intel – analyst
After using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. to make all of its chips almost exclusively for nearly a decade, Nvidia Corp. this year signed an agreement to produce a portion of its products at Samsung Foundry. But that could only be a part of Nvidia’s new strategy, according to a financial …
Read More »TSMC: IoT devices and 10nm process tech will transform industry
A high-ranking executive of TSMC said this week that in the coming years various ultra-mobile, small electronics and smart accessories will become so pervasive that such devices will not only become a major driver for the semiconductor industry, but will turn out to be a huge part of this industry. …
Read More »Intel ‘Skylake’ processors for PCs will not support AVX-512 instructions
Intel Corp.’s forthcoming central processing units code-named “Skylake” for personal computers will not support any AVX-512 instructions, according to a media report. Only Xeon processors for servers and, possibly, workstations will support 512-bit instructions. Support of 512-bit SIMD instructions – known as AVX3 – was expected to be a key …
Read More »TSMC: We will close the gap with Intel at 10nm!
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. believes that its 10nm fabrication process will not only be available around the same time when Intel Corp. starts to use its 10nm technology, but will also offer similar performance and density as Intel’s. In a bid to speed up time-to-market of their manufacturing processes featuring FinFET …
Read More »Samsung: 10nm technology in development, 7nm will require new transistors
Kinam Kim, the president of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor business, presented his view on the development of chip manufacturing technologies at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2015 this week. Samsung is already developing its next-generation 10nm FinFET fabrication process, but in order to continue scaling down structures of chips, new materials …
Read More »Intel: 7nm process technology will require new materials
The semiconductor industry has realized the benefits of Moore’s Law for 50 years, making chips that have grown from tens to billions of transistors and performing an increased range of functions from memory to logic to signal processing. Next year or in 2017, the world’s largest maker of microprocessors will …
Read More »TSMC to invest $15.9 billion in expansion of manufacturing capacities
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has announced that it will invest NT$500 billion ($15.9 billion) in expansion of its manufacturing capacities in central Taiwan. The company did not outline details of the upgrade plan, but it looks like the company is getting ready to significantly increase its abilities to produce semiconductors …
Read More »Intel vows to ship 10nm chips in early 2017, retracts its promise
While Intel Corp. has confirmed development of 10nm fabrication process as well as appropriate microprocessors, the company has never revealed exactly when it plans to introduce chips that will succeed its next-generation code-named “Skylake” CPUs. A couple of weeks ago a representative for Intel finally said that its first 10nm …
Read More »TSMC to start volume production of 10nm chips in 2017
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has delayed volume production of chips using 16nm FinFET manufacturing technologies by several quarters. As a result, it now has to reconsider plans regarding production of semiconductors using 10nm FinFET fabrication process. Previously it was expected that the company will produce 10nm chips in late 2016, …
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