There is much talk these days about continued scaling, including some recent posts by my colleague Ed Korczynski, in “Moore’s Law is Dead” Part 1 (What?) and Part 2 (When?). At The ConFab in June, keynote speaker, Dr. Gary Patton, vice president, semiconductor research and development center at IBM, talked about scaling, adding some historical perspective. I previously blogged about the “three fundamental shifts” that Patton believes will lead to…
Pete’s Posts
Three fundamental shifts
At The ConFab last week, Dr. Gary Patton, vice president, semiconductor research and development center at IBM, said there is a bright future in microelectronics (I heartily agree). He said that although there seems to be a fair amount of doom and gloom that scaling is ending and Moore’s Law is over, he is very positive. “There are three huge fundamental shifts that are going to drive our industry forward,…
The Rise of MEMS Sensors
Join us for a MEMS-focused webcast on Thursday, June 19th at 12:00pm Eastern time. Click here to go directly to the registration page. Jay Esfandyari, Director of MEMS and Analog Product Marketing at STMicroelectronics, will discuss the rise of MEMS sensors. Although Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) have been around for a long time, the introduction of the technology into consumer markets, with Nintendo’s Wii in late 2006, opened the floodgates with…
The next big thing: IoT
The semiconductor industry has greatly benefited from the push to mobile technology, but what’s next? It could well be the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes smart homes, smart cars, smart TVs, wearable electronics and beacons. According to an analysis by Business Insider, The Internet of Things alone will surpass the PC, tablet and phone market combined by 2017, with a global internet device installed base of around 7,500,000,000 devices.…
GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ Kengeri to speak at The ConFab
Subramani Kengeri, Vice President, Advanced Technology Architecture at GLOBALFOUNDRIES will speak at The ConFab 2014 on the “techno-economics” of how the relatively small semiconductor industry ($350 billion or $0.35 trillion) is driving the $85 trillion gross world product (GWP). He notes that semiconductors are only a fraction of GWP, but a critical enabler of global economic growth and productivity. Cost effective technology innovations have kept Moore’s law alive, although techno-economic…
What’s new in the latest ITRS
The newly revamped International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors was released in early April. It’s actually called the 2013 ITRS, which makes it seem already out of date, but that’s the way the numbering has always been. It’s a big undertaking, with input from the U.S., Europe, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Through the cooperative efforts of the global chip manufacturers and equipment suppliers, research communities and consortia, the ITRS identifies critical…
IITC: New Materials for Advanced Interconnects
On-chip interconnects have not been scaling at the same speed as transistors. When TSMC went from 20nm to 16/14nm, for example, they decided to replace the bulk MOSFET with a FinFET, but they left the interconnect stack as is. In part, interconnect scaling has been slow because companies don’t want to make too many major changes at the same time and introduce risk. Costs, of course, are also an issue.…
Extreme Stress for Existing Foundry/Fabless Model
Dr. Roawen Chen, senior vice president of global operations at Qualcomm, will provide the keynote talk at The ConFab 2014 this year. The event will be held June 22-25 at The Encore at The Wynn in Las Vegas. In his talk, Dr. Chen, will describe how the increased performance and the rapid shift from traditional handsets to consumer computing device post a number of manufacturing and supply chain challenges for…
At The ConFab 2014: The Outlook for the Semiconductor Industry
The semiconductor market will continue at a steady growth rate for the next several years. For a semiconductor company to achieve significant growth in this ultra-competitive environment, it needs to identify market opportunities and predict the future, in terms of markets, both regionally and globally, anticipate technological advancements, as well as envision new applications. At The ConFab in June, Session 1 will provide an overview of these critical issues. The…
The ConFab R&D Panel is Set
A panel session at The ConFab, to be held June 22-25 in Las Vegas, will focus on how the semiconductor industry can continue to innovate in an environment where lower revenue growth is combined with rising development costs and consolidation. The panel will discuss where the next big growth drivers will come from and the ability of the industry to continue scaling and remain on Moore’s Law through the introduction…
