semiconductors

AMD has talked up their "chiplet" based approach used in their upcoming products, and according to some reports, Marvell is already selling products based on the chiplet concept. But the next logical step from that approach is to move from 2D to 3D, where different dies are "stacked" on top of...

The Taiwanese news outlet Digitimes seems to have many sources in the chipmaking industry, and according to their cited "market observers," Taiwain Semiconductor is expected to post their first annual profit drop in 8 years. For reference, both Nvidia and AMD manufacture their latest GPUs on...

A group of researchers claim to have developed gallium nitride memory devices that can work at temperatures over 300 degrees Celcius (or 572 Fahrenheit, which is coincidentally about 572 Kelvin as well). As any overclocker already knows, silicon-based transistors don't work particularly well...

Many still think of Intel as the top semiconductor manufacturer in the world, but the chip giant actually lost the crown to Samsung back in 2017. The gap only widened in 2018, but, thanks to the cliff DRAM and flash prices are falling off of right now, IC Insights thinks that Chipzilla could...

Researchers from MIT and other institutions have reportedly come up with a new 2D circuit fabrication method that could be significantly cheaper than traditional chip making processes. Instead of progressively depositing multiple layers of different materials onto a disposable substrate, the...

At the American Physical Society meeting in Boston this year, Intel is highlighting several of the advances they've made in the field of quantum computing. Between Monday and Thursday this week, Intel will hold several talks on things ranging to 49-qubit processors, the testing of qubits on...

However impressive your phase change or LN2 setup may be, it looks like Intel has you beat. According to a recent press release from the chip giant, Intel is making extensive use of extreme cooling in their Cryogenic Wafer Probe, a contraption designed to analyze quantum bits on 300mm wafers at...

In case you missed the original presentation, AMD just uploaded the part of their Next Horizon event where they discussed the upcoming use of 7nm process technology. AMD has traditionally stuck with their former internal fab, GlobalFoundries, for most chip designs, and they're reportedly still...

Late last year, Intel announced that they were working on a new type of transistor that could offer a massive performance leap over current CMOS chips. "MESO" transistors, as they call them, could operate at voltages as low as 100mV, but at the time, Intel said the technology was at least a...

Late last year, EE Times published a report claiming that Intel was already shipping MRAM products to undisclosed customers. At the time, Intel only confirmed that their MRAM was "production ready" and didn't elaborate any further. But now, the news outlet says that Intel presented a paper on...

Nvidia GPUs are the undisputed king of the machine learning hardware market today, but more and more companies are throwing their hat into the AI ring. Google has already introduced their machine learning-focused TPU, and other giants like Amazon and Intel are reportedly following suit, while a...

Earlier this year, substandard chemicals forced Taiwan Semiconductor's Nanke 14 factory to shut down production after the company reportedly lost "tens of thousands of wafers." The production of cutting edge 16nm/12nm NVIDIA, MediaTek, and Huawei chips were reportedly affected by the incident...

A recent Digitimes report claims that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company will be "the exclusive supplier of Apple's custom-designed chips dubbed the A13 that will power the 2019 series of iPhones." Apple sourced chips from multiple foundries in the past, which led to measurable power...

As we've noted in previous articles, manufacturers are quickly hitting the limits of chip shrinking, which means cutting edge processors will increasingly have to turn to advanced packaging solutions (like Intel's "Foveros" and EMIB designs or AMD's chiplet-based products) for performance gains...

About two weeks ago, Oregon Live published a report claiming that Intel is preparing to spend "billions" on a massive expansion to their D1X research factory. Yesterday, Intel confirmed the report, telling the 50 residents near the research facility's campus that it will "build a third phase,"...

IEEE Spectrum reports that Rakesh Kumar and his associates are working on a "wafer-scale" interconnect for GPUs. Instead of fabricating multiple GPUs on a massive silicon wafer, or using power hungry and slow traditional interconnects like existing supercomputers use, Kumar wants to use a...

Chip manufacturing processes play a critical role in the performance, and price, of CPUs and GPUs, but the chip making market is different than it was a few years ago. Globalfoundries dropped out of the bleeding edge process race, while rumors suggest that Intel's fabs aren't really a viable...

As we've said before, squeezing more performance out of denser silicon chips every few years is becoming a more difficult endeavor. Intel's 10nm process has been nothing but trouble so far, Globalfoundries dropped 7nm because it was too expensive, and TSMC (who are reportedly making AMD's...

Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan say they've developed a 128mb MRAM test chip that can achieve a write speed of 14 nanoseconds. The researchers say that's "currently the world's fastest write speed for embedded memory application with a density over 100Mb." The title of the associated...

Anonymous sources told Nikkei Asian Review that Foxconn, the largest manufacturer in the world, is getting into the chip making business. Foxconn, the Chinese city of Zhuhai, and other investors are reportedly dumping about $9 billion USD into a 300mm chip fab, and construction is set to start...

Following a update to their manufacturing plans earlier this week, rumors are swirling about Intel's future in the custom foundry business. As pointed out by SemiWiki, Intel pitched the idea of opening up their chip manufacturing business to other companies in 2014, but public info about that...

Alternative non-volatile memory technologies like MRAM are a hot area of research, and some companies like Everspin are already producing MRAM products for niche use cases. However, a recent report by EE Times claims that Intel is shipping products made on a "22FFL" process with "the first...

Researchers from the University of Colorado and MIT claim to have fabricated the smallest 3D transistors ever. The engineers used a relatively new process called thermal atomic layer etching to create FinFET transistors on an indium gallium arsenide base. The researchers claim their transistors...

As we've said before, Moore's law is slowing down and new nodes become less practical, so semiconductor companies and institutions are pouring more and more time and resources into alternative memory research. Magnetoresistive random access memory is one of the more promising alternatives, and...

Working with researchers at Berkeley, Intel has "invented" a magneto-electric spin-orbit device that could theoretically operate 10-30 times more efficiently than today's consumer electronics. While Intel doesn't directly comment on the rapidly approaching limits of CMOS scaling in their press...

At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, IBM unveiled a 8-bit analog chip with phase change memory. Abu Sebastian, the lead researcher for the project, says that in-memory calculations are a key to the efficiency of the chip. Instead of storing a single bit of information like a...

In what was reportedly set to be "the biggest semiconductor deal globally," Qualcomm announced plans to acquire NXP Semiconductor back in 2016. But, as U.S. and China relations deteriorated, the Chinese government later claimed they would block the deal, and Qualcomm announced that they were...

While AMD recently gained notoriety for using a "chiplet" based design in their EPYC CPUs, Semiconductor Engineering says that numerous other companies are working on chiplet-based products. The report claims that Marvell is actually the first, and only, company to deploy the chiplet concept...

Spinning platters aside, there are three major types of writable memory used inside modern computers: SRAM, DRAM, and NAND. A considerable amount of money has been spent optimizing all three over the years, which means most companies are hesitant to invest in new memory technologies. However...

Heat is the enemy of high power electronics. As chips continue to shrink, power density has been steadily increasing, and it's becoming more and more difficult to effectively protect chips from heat damage. But researchers at Stanford university have come up with a solution can be baked into...

As silicon microchip manufacturing becomes more difficult, and more expensive, manufacturers are increasingly looking for alternative methods the chip industry needs to sustain its growth. One promising area is the field of spintronics, which exploits an electron's spin in addition to its...

Yesterday, GlobalFoundries announced the formation of Avera Semiconductor, made up of what used to be GlobalFoundries' Custom ASIC Business. Interestingly, the new company claims it will offer clients "access to alternate foundry processes at 7nm and beyond." In spite of previous promises that...

Samsung announced their 7nm EUV process some time ago, and it looks like production came right on schedule. In a press release, Samsung announced that it finished development of its 7nm LPP EUV process, and is starting wafer production. The new process uses extreme ultraviolet radiation with a...

Researchers from UCLA, UT Austin, and Hunan University developed a novel way for making semiconducting nanosheets. The approach involves "electrochemical intercalation of quaternary ammonium molecules into 2-D crystals, followed by a mild sonication and exfoliation process." Among other things...

Graphene transistors are nothing new, in fact IBM has been working on them for quite some time. However, actually using graphene in large scale integrated circuits is a challenge. In an article published in Nature, IBM researchers claim they've successfully used graphene as a base to hold other...