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David Lammers looks at the stories behind the news shaping the semiconductor industry, including analysis, personality profiles, and quirky happenings.

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Peering into Nanocrystal NAND

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on May 18, 2009

Freescale Semiconductor’s assertion that nanocrystal (NC) NOR flash will go into manufacturing next year raises the question: Can nanocrystals be employed to extend NAND flash scaling?   NAND is a much bigger market than NOR now, and its potential is nearly as limitless as the data we store. However, NAND faces the same scaling and reliability challenges that NOR faces. As the polysili ...... Read More

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Otellini and Intel’s EU Appeal

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on May 13, 2009

The $1.45B fine levied by the European Commission on Intel Corp. for alleged anti-competitive practices brings to mind a similarly important anti-trust case, one where the fine was never paid. In a Chicago district court in 1907, Judge Kenesaw M. Landis (later to become the commissioner of baseball) fined the Standard Oil Company $29,240,000, the maximum possible, for allegedly driving out competi ...... Read More

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Done Deals, and Those Not Taken

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on April 27, 2009

Will the planned mega-merger between NEC Electronics and Renesas Technology work out? The deal creates a $13B semiconductor company a year from now, one that is about the same size as current No. 3 Texas Instruments and No. 4 Toshiba Corp. That $13B is an impressive number. But asTom Starnes, an analyst who follows the MCU market at Objective Analysis, points out, bigger is not necessarily better. ...... Read More

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Whither Goest Sokudo?

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on April 7, 2009

Will Sokudo Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan) continue to compete in the track business dominated by Tokyo Electron Ltd.? (Update: The company announced its twin-track Sokudo Duo system on April 21st, after this blog was first published.)   Formed three years ago, on July 3, 2006, Sokudo is 52% owned by Dai Nippon Screen and 48% by Applied Materials. The two companies signed a deal to attack the track ...... Read More

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Industries: Lithography

Cheering for the Home Team

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on March 4, 2009

  Do U.S. foundry customers care if their chips are Made In the U.S.A.?   Doug Grose, CEO of the new foundry GlobalFoundries, thinks so.   Asked if big fabless companies such as Qualcomm really care if their chips are made in New York or in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Grose answered, “I think they do. They are American-based companies, and they want to see the United States regain its t ...... Read More

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Industries: Fab Facilities

The $300B Jinx

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on February 25, 2009

Whatever happened to the $300B semiconductor industry?   Gartner Inc. analysts today (Feb. 25) issued a report worth noting, predicting that semiconductor revenues will decline between 24.1% and 33% this year. If the optimistic minus 24.1% scenario holds up, semiconductor revenues will be $194.5B this year.   The veteran Gartner analyst Bryan Lewis warned, “Semiconductor supp ...... Read More

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Industries: Business/Market

Considering the Options at Intel

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on February 24, 2009

Mark Bohr, as the Intel senior fellow in charge of pathfinding R&D at Intel’s Logic Technology Development Group (Hillsboro, Ore.), is in a job where he must balance cost concerns with technology considerations.   The use of silicon carbon to create a tensile stress in the NMOS transistors is a good example. The appeal stems in part from the game-saving success of silicon germanium ...... Read More

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Industries: Materials

IEDM and the Intel Replacement Gate Update

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on December 15, 2008

Already, rumors are swirling at the 2008 International Electron Device Meeting, which kicked off Sunday with two short courses here in cold and rainy San Francisco. A high-k expert said he has heard that Intel Corp. may shift its high-k/metal gate process for the 32 nm node, using a gate-first flow for the nFET and the replacement metal gate (RMG) approach for the pFET.   Maintaining the work ...... Read More

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Mark Bohr and the Drive Current Debate

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on December 10, 2008

It’s IEDM time, and tis the season for Intel and IBM to throw snowballs at the competition. Intel senior fellow Mark Bohr got in the spirit the other day while briefing reporters about  Intel’s 32 nm technology.   Bohr claimed that Intel was “more than a generation ahead of the competition.” Asked what he meant, Bohr said his assessment was not simply the two- ...... Read More

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Industries: Wafer Processing

Luther Forest, Just in Time

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on November 14, 2008

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches in the United States, people in the U.S. chip manufacturing business should make a quick bow towards Abu Dhabi and take another moment to sing a bar or two of Billy Joel’s joyful New York State of Mind. The Luther Forest fab which Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif.) and the Abu Dhabi Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) plan to build near ...... Read More

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Big Wafers, Big Prices

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on November 7, 2008

Dean Freeman, the Gartner semiconductor equipment analyst, threw out a zinger when he came to Austin for a SEMI market outlook gathering. The early 450 mm wafers will be in the $15-20,000 dollar range, Freeman said in a matter-of-fact tone. After his presentation, he said large wafer customers such as Intel Corp. may get a break, paying $10-15,000 in the early going when pilot 450 mm production is ...... Read More

Comments (2)
Industries: Materials , Business/Market

Three Innovations to Watch

David Lammers
Posted by David Lammers on October 31, 2008

Innovation is the fourth great economic input, along with labor, capital, and machines, and the hardest to predict. Three innovations which may pay off involve the semiconductor manufacturing and equipment industries: new transistors, printed electronics, and single electron trapping (SET) medical devices.   Yale Professor T.P. Ma has suggestedUnipolar CMOS, which could be a game changer. The ...... Read More

Comments (1)
Industries: Materials , Fab Facilities
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