Semiconductors
Although TSMC can't claim to be the first fab to use extreme UV (EUV) lithography – that title goes to Samsung – they do get to claim to be the largest. As a result, the company has developed significant experience with EUV over the years, allowing TSMC to refine how they use EUV tooling to both improve productivity/uptime, and to cut down on the costs of using the ultra-fine tools. As part of the company's European Technology Symposium this week, they went into a bit more detail on their EUV usage history, and their progress on further integrating EUV into future process nodes. When TSMC started making chips using EUV lithography in 2019 on its N7+ process (for Huawei's HiSilicon), it held 42% of the...
NVIDIA's cuLitho to Speed Up Computational Lithography for 2nm and Beyond
Production of chips using leading-edge process technologies requires more compute power than ever. To address requirements of 2nm nodes and beyond, NVIDIA is rolling out its cuLitho software library...
31 by Anton Shilov on 3/27/2023
Gordon Moore, Intel's Co-Founder and Tech Industry Visionary, Passes Away At 94
Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have announced this evening that Gordon Moore, Intel’s famous co-founder and grandfather to much of the modern chip industry, has passed...
20 by Ryan Smith on 3/24/2023
Out With Organic, In With Glass? DNP Unveils Glass Core Substrate Tech For Chips
As the chip industry develops more sophisticated processors with higher heat dissipation requirements, some firms have moved on to chiplet-based designs. This not-so-gradual shift has resulted in chip packaging...
17 by Anton Shilov on 3/23/2023
Inflation Drives Up Fab Costs for Intel and Samsung by Billions of Dollars
To address future demand for semiconductors amid severe chip shortages of 2020 – 2022, all leading chipmakers announced plans to build new fabs and even disclosed their estimated costs...
15 by Anton Shilov on 3/16/2023
Samsung Seeks to Make South Korea No. 1 Chipmaker with $230B Investment Over 20 Years
Samsung on Wednesday unveiled their plan to invest $230 billion over the next 20 years in a new semiconductor production mega cluster in South Korea. The country's government believes...
22 by Anton Shilov on 3/15/2023
TSMC's 3nm Journey: Slow Ramp, Huge Investments, Big Future
Last week, TSMC issued their Q4 and full-year 2022 earnings reports for the company. Besides confirming that TSMC was closing out a very busy, very profitable year for the...
30 by Anton Shilov on 1/17/2023
TSMC Unveils Major U.S. Fab Expansion Plans: 3nm and $40 Billion by 2026
TSMC this week held its Arizona fab 'first tool-in' ceremony, where alongside celebrating its first US fab, the company also announced major expansion plans for the production facility. The...
17 by Anton Shilov on 12/7/2022
TSMC Forms 3DFabric Alliance to Accelerate Development of 2.5D & 3D Chiplet Products
Currently the majority of high-end processors are monolithic, but design methodologies are slowly but surely shifting to multi-chiplet modules as leading-edge fabrication technologies get more expensive to use. In...
9 by Anton Shilov on 10/27/2022
Micron Announces 20-Year Plan To Build $100 Billion U.S. Fab Complex
Now that the U.S. government has finally settled the matter of whether it would be providing subsidies to entice chip fabs to setup shop within the U.S., those fabs...
48 by Anton Shilov on 10/10/2022
Samsung Foundry Outlines Roadmap Through 2027: 1.4 nm Node, 3x More Capacity
Samsung outlined its foundry business roadmap for the next five years at its Foundry Forum event last week. The company plans to introduce its next generation fabrication technologies in...
14 by Anton Shilov on 10/10/2022
Micron Breaks Ground on Its $15 Billion EUV DRAM Fab in the U.S.
Micron this week broke ground on its leading-edge memory production facility near Boise, Idaho. The company will invest $15 billion in its new fab as a part of its...
23 by Anton Shilov on 9/14/2022
SK Hynix Starts Prepping for Next Semiconductor Boom with $11 Billion Memory Fab
When a major South Korean memory firm invests over $11 billion in a fab, that raises a couple of eyebrows. But when it comes within a major $100+ billion...
7 by Anton Shilov on 9/8/2022
Intel Kicks Off Fab Co-Investment Program with Brookfield: New Fabs to be Jointly Owned
Intel this week introduced its new Semiconductor Co-Investment Program (SCIP) under which it will build new manufacturing facilities in collaboration with investment partners – a sharp departure from the...
28 by Anton Shilov on 8/24/2022
Samsung's $15 Billion R&D Complex to Overcome Limits of Semiconductor Scaling
Samsung on Friday broke ground for a new semiconductor research and development complex which will design new fabrication processes for memory and logic, as well as conduct fundamental research...
26 by Anton Shilov on 8/19/2022
TSMC and ASML: Demand for Chips Remains Strong, But Getting Fab Tools Is Hard
TSMC's revenue this year is going to set an all-time record for the company, thanks to high demand for chips as well as increased prices that its customers are...
13 by Anton Shilov on 7/21/2022
Samsung Starts 3nm Production: The Gate-All-Around (GAAFET) Era Begins
Capping off a multi-year development process, Samsung’s foundry group sends word this morning that the company has officially kicked off production on its initial 3nm chip production line. Samsung’s...
22 by Ryan Smith on 6/30/2022
TSMC: N2 To Start With Just GAAFETs, Add Backside Power Delivery Later
When TSMC initially introduced its N2 (2 nm class) process technology earlier this month, the company outlined how the new node would be built on the back of two...
16 by Anton Shilov on 6/29/2022
TSMC to Customers: It's Time to Stop Using Older Nodes and Move to 28nm
We tend to discuss leading-edge nodes and the most advanced chips made using them, but there are thousands of chip designs developed years ago that are made using what...
20 by Anton Shilov on 6/29/2022
As HPC Chip Sizes Grow, So Does the Need For 1kW+ Chip Cooling
One trend in the high performance computing (HPC) space that is becoming increasingly clear is that power consumption per chip and per rack unit is not going to stop...
40 by Anton Shilov on 6/27/2022
TSMC to Expand Capacity for Mature and Specialty Nodes by 50%
TSMC this afternoon has disclosed that it will expand its production capacity for mature and specialized nodes by about 50% by 2025. The plan includes building numerous new fabs...
13 by Anton Shilov on 6/16/2022
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