MPU Cores and Legal Boors

As reported by The Register, AMD has been sued by a customer who claims that the number of Bulldozer cores in some Opteron and FX microprocessor (MPU) chips are fewer than advertised. The claim is based on the argument that…

The First Degree – Ominous Threshold Reached

In light of the Paris climate talks going on this week, I’m delighted to turn this blog over to a guest blogger, Mike Czerniak. Mike is the Environmental Solutions Business Development Manager at Edwards, and has been working in the semiconductor industry for more than 30 years.

Thermoplastically Deformable Electronic Circuits

Philips is testing a technology developed by imec and CMST (imec’s associated lab at Ghent University) to create low-cost 3D LED packages. As shown at last month’s International Microelectronics Assembly and Packaging Society (IMAPS 2015) meeting, these thermoplastically deformable electronic…

Is the Semiconductor Industry Ready for Industry 4.0 and the IIoT?

An industrial revolution is in the making, equivalent some say to the introduction of steam power at the tail end of the 18th century. Known as smart manufacturing, Industry 4.0 (after the German initiative Industrie 4.0), the industrial internet of things (IIoT), or simply the fourth industrial revolution, the movement will radically change how manufacturing is done.

Nowhere Near Room Temp Superconductors

On-chip metal interconnects limit IC speed in many advanced design today, and with signal delay proportional to the product of the resistance (R) of wires and the capacitance (C) of dielectric insulation, wires with R lower than that of copper…

EUV Cost at 1000 Daily Exposures

On October 14, 2015, ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) published its 2015 third-quarter results:  Q3 net sales of €1.55 billion with gross margin of 45.4% (in line with guidance), and guided Q4 2015 net sales at approximately €1.4 billion and a…

Check out the finalists for MEMS & Sensors Technology Showcase at MEMS Executive Congress 2015

The annual crowd-pleasing favorite, MEMS & Sensors Technology Showcase at the 11th annual MEMS Executive Congress US 2015, on November 4, features a wealth of cool contestants. But only one can be the winner.

Leti Shows MEMS on 300mm Wafers

As reported by EETimes from the European MEMS Summit last month, French research institute CEA-Leti has manufactured accelerometer MEMS devices on 300mm-diameter wafers. This technology is currently being transferred to Tronics Microsystems SA (Grenoble, France), which currently only manufactures on…

Silex’ Strategic Acquisition by China

A secretive investment holding company out of Hong Kong named GAE Ltd has acquired 98% of the shares in Silex Microsystems AB (Jarfalla, Sweden). The transaction took place on July 13th of this year when the former major shareholders agreed…

300mm ams Fab Bet on IoT

Leading-edge IC fab investments are multi-billion-dollar risky bets. Insufficient demand for ICs dooms the line to economic failure regardless of the quality of design and manufacturing. Thus, it is a big deal that Austrian-headquartered ams AG—world leader in production of…