Semiconductor articles

Intel finalizes design for Intel 20A and Intel 18A process nodes

US restrictions see China's chip imports plummet 27% in first two months of 2023

Opinion: Semis Top Five

Editor's take: The industry has changed a lot in the eight years since we wrote our first analysis on the top five chip companies. We anticipated semis were no longer a growth industry and the only way for companies to keep growing was to win market share (hard) or buy other companies. This is especially true in semiconductors because most of these companies outsource their manufacturing to foundries like TSMC and GlobalFoundries.

Chinese companies are filling warehouses with chipmaking equipment in preparation for more restrictions

China on autos: Consider yourselves warned

Intel denies rumors of 3nm delays, says planned 2024 releases are on schedule

UK lagging behind as US and EU race to secure crucial semiconductor supply

Netherlands and Japan agree to restrict export of chipmaking tools to China

Japanese chip company plans 2nm prototype production by 2025

When it comes to semiconductors, leading is not everything

Editor's take: Undeniably, we usually spend a lot of time talking about leading edge semiconductor manufacturing. This is a common mistake that everyone falls into when discussing semis, one which we are as guilty of as anyone. The world is rightly focused on the scarcity of companies capable of operating at the leading edge, but there is a lot more to semis.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger says semiconductors will become more important than oil in geopolitics

Big quote: It's often said that there are three significant influences on global politics (and wars): oil, land, and religion. According to Intel boss Pat Gelsinger, semiconductors will join that list and become more important than the location of oil reserves for the next five decades.

Taiwan chip exports jumped 18.4% last year as US sanctions crushed China's imports

Waning consumer demand sees TSMC miss revenue forecasts for first time in two years

Samsung's quarterly profits hit 8-year low as chip and smartphone demand crash

TSMC set to begin mass production of 3nm chips

Huawei patents EUV lithography tools used to make <10nm chips

How did TSMC get so good?

The big picture: By now, we are all familiar with the fact that TSMC is, by far, the most capable semiconductor manufacturer in the world, with all the entails for the industry and geopolitics. And as this reality sets in, many people have been asking us how did they get so good?

CPU and GPU SRAM caches are not shrinking, which could increase chip cost or reduce performance

Why it matters: An interesting article posted at WikiChip discusses the severity of SRAM shrinkage problems in the semiconductor industry. Manufacturer TSMC is reporting that its SRAM transistor scaling has completely flatlined to the point where SRAM caches are staying the same size on multiple nodes, despite logic transistor densities continuing to shrink. This is not ideal, and it will force processor SRAM caches to take up more space on a microchip die. This in turn could increase manufacturing costs of the chips and prevent certain microchip architectures from becoming as small as they could potentially be.

Chinese newspaper claims the US "tricked" TSMC into building Arizona fabs, is stealing tech from "our Taiwan"

Lattice Semiconductor expands to mid-range FPGAs, goes after Intel's Arria and AMD's Xilinx offerings

The EU Chips Act: €43 billion to build a new European chipmaking industry

In context: The tech industry is still suffering from a microchip shortage, and Europe is getting ready to invest a lot of billions to free itself from external dependencies. The EU Council will now need to negotiate with the European Parliament to decide its final proposal.

TSMC's 2024 Arizona fab to upgrade from 5nm to 4nm after Apple's request

The big picture: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) Arizona factory project has become more apparent over the last few weeks. The company intends to move some of the most advanced node processing to the United States, much of it for Apple's iPhones. The company will soon announce an upgrade to its plans.

Disengaging from China manufacturing is hard, but it's happening slowly

A hot potato: Like a train leaving the station, it now seems inevitable that US companies are moving to reduce, or entirely eliminate, their reliance on China. It took a long time to get started, companies had been complaining about changing conditions in China for a decade. The 2018 trade war was the spark that really got them moving, and their progress has only been gaining momentum since then. This process will take years, maybe decades, but at this point is probably unstoppable.

Home Depot for DIY Chips: What's the going trend?

The big picture: Earlier this year we were reviewing Analyst Day slides from leading semiconductor companies and a clear theme emerged. Large companies are all shifting in a similar direction, posing some potential challenges for their long-term positions. More and more customers are looking for special purpose chips, a coping mechanism for dealing with the slowdown in Moore's Law. And the big players are all looking to support those customers.

Apple set to purchase chips from TSMC Arizona plant as it lessens reliance on Asia