TSMC
Intel and TSMC have announced an agreement in which TSMC will acquire a 10% stake in IMS Nanofabrication. IMS, controlled by Intel, produces multi e-beam photomask writing tools, whose significance is on the rise. TSMC has collaborated with IMS Nano since 2012, and this investment is expected to deepen their partnership. TSMC's acquisition of a 10% stake in IMS Nano is priced at $430 million, aligning with the company's valuation of approximately $4.3 billion. Earlier this year, Intel divested a 20% stake in IMS Nano to Bain Capital for $860 million, aiming to enhance its independence and valuing the company at the same $4.3 billion. After this transaction with TSMC, Intel will still hold about 70% of the multi-e-beam photomask tool company. "TSMC has been working...
Xilinx Expands Versal AI to the Edge: Helping Solve the Silicon Shortage
Today Xilinx is announcing an expansion to its Versal family, focused specifically on low power and edge devices. Xilinx Versal is the productization of a combination of many different...
25 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/9/2021An AnandTech Interview with TSMC: Dr. Kevin Zhang and Dr. Maria Marced
In the past week, TSMC ran its 2021 Technology Symposium, covering its latest developments in process node technology designed to improve the performance, costs, and capabilities for its customers...
18 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 6/8/2021TSMC Manufacturing Update: N6 to Match N7 Output by EOY, N5 Ramping Faster, Better Yields Than N7
As part of a regular TSMC Technology Symposium, the foundry published updates on its status on it’s current leading-edge manufacturing technologies, the N7, N5 and their respective derivatives such...
50 by Andrei Frumusanu on 6/1/2021AMD Demonstrates Stacked 3D V-Cache Technology: 192 MB at 2 TB/sec
The AMD team surprised us here. What seemed like a very par-for-the-course Computex keynote turned into an incredible demonstration of what AMD is testing in the lab with TSMC’s...
93 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 5/31/2021AMD Ryzen 5000G: Zen 3 APUs for Desktop Coming August 5th
Back in April of this year, AMD announced its new series of Ryzen 5000G processors with integrated graphics. These processors were an upgrade over the previous generation of 4000G...
35 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 5/31/2021TSMC Update: 2nm in Development, 3nm and 4nm on Track for 2022
For TSMC, being the world's largest foundry with nearly 500 customers has its peculiarities. On the one hand, the company can serve almost any client with almost any requirements...
74 by Anton Shilov on 4/26/2021Sales of Fab Tools Surge to Over $71 Billion in 2020
SEMI, an organization representing chipmakers and producers of semiconductor production tools, published this week that sales of wafer processing equipment has surged to an all-time record of $71.19 billion...
18 by Anton Shilov on 4/15/2021TSMC Q1 2021 Process Node Revenue: More 7nm, No More 20nm
This week TSMC has disclosed its full quarterly financial results for Q1 2021. In those results the company often explains where the revenue demand is for its technologies, and...
40 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 4/15/2021AMD Ryzen 5000G APUs: OEM Only For Now, Full Release Later This Year
With the high demand for semiconductors causing most companies to focus on their high margin, high profitability components, I wasn’t expecting to see many launches of low-to-mid range hardware...
67 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 4/13/2021TSMC to Spend $100B on Fabs and R&D Over Next Three Years: 2nm, Arizona Fab & More
TSMC this week has announced plans to spend $100 billion on new production facilities as well as R&D over the next three years. The world's largest contract maker of...
45 by Anton Shilov on 4/2/2021EUV Pellicles Ready For Fabs, Expected to Boost Chip Yields and Sizes
Foundries started limited usage of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of chips in 2019. At the time, ASML's Twinscan NXE scanners were good enough for production...
35 by Anton Shilov on 3/31/2021Intel’s x86 Designs No Longer Limited to Intel on Intel: IP Blocks for Foundry, Cores on TSMC
Today Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has outlined two key changes to Intel policy: one derived from Intel’s plans to offer foundry services to external partners, and the other from...
70 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 3/23/2021Report: Semi Demand 30% Above Supply, 20% Year-on-Year Growth
Semiconductor foundry offerings are thriving due to unprecedented demand for semiconductors and processors in recent quarters. Analysts from TrendForce believe that in Q1 2021 foundries will increase their revenue...
31 by Anton Shilov on 2/25/2021Xbox Series X SoC: Power, Thermal, and Yield Tradeoffs
This week at ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference), Microsoft presented a talk titled ‘Xbox Series X SoC: A Next Generation Gaming Console’, with hardware engineer Paul Paternoster presenting...
82 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 2/15/2021AMD Reports Q4 2020 Earnings: Analyst Q&A Transcript
At the end of every financial call, invited financial analysts have an opportunity to probe the key members of the company on the numbers, as well as future products...
11 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 1/26/2021Marvell Announces 112G SerDes, Built on TSMC 5nm
So far we have three products in the market built on TSMC’s N5 process: the Huawei Kirin 9000 5G SoC, found in the Mate 40 Pro, the Apple A14...
15 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 11/17/2020AMD Zen 3: An AnandTech Interview with CTO Mark Papermaster
The announcement of the new Ryzen 5000 processors, built on AMD’s Zen 3 microarchitecture, has caused waves of excitement and questions as to the performance. The launch of the...
202 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 10/16/2020AMD Zen 3 Announcement by Lisa Su: A Live Blog at Noon ET (16:00 UTC)
One of the most anticipated launches of 2020 is now here. AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, is set to announce and reveal the new Ryzen 5000 series processors using...
90 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 10/8/20203DFabric: The Home for TSMC’s 2.5D and 3D Stacking Roadmap
Interposers. EMIB. Foveros. Die-to-die stacking. ODI. AIB.TSVs. All these words and acronyms have one overriding feature – they are all involved in how two bits of silicon physically connect...
9 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 9/2/2020TSMC Launches New N12e Process: FinFET at 0.4V for IoT
One of the main drivers for the semiconductor industry is the growth in always-connected devices that require silicon inside, either for compute, communication, or control. The ‘Internet of Things&rsquo...
27 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/27/2020