Tag Archives: semiconductor

Last year, Intel announced plans to build new facilities in Europe to boost chip production. Now, that plan has been finalised, with Intel today announcing plans to invest as much as 80 billion euros in the EU over the next decade, as well as plans to create six new facilities …

Following on from reports earlier this year, today TSMC and Sony are making their new partnership official. The two companies will jointly launch a new chip factory in Japan in an effort to address the growing demand for processors. The new factory will launch under a new subsidiary, Japan Advanced …

For months now, it has been suspected that Nintendo did intend to launch a Switch Pro this year, but had to pivot to the Switch OLED as an alternative due to the ongoing global chip and components shortage, which is impacting DIY PC hardware and games consoles across the board. …

Since last year, the tech industry has been dealing with a major chip shortage, leading to increased prices and lower supply in most major product categories. Due to demand for supply lines, TSMC is reportedly going to be raising its prices by as much as 20 percent.  According to The …

Back in 2014, IBM struck a deal to sell its chip-making business to GlobalFoundries for $1.5 billion. There were a number of provisions in this deal, some of which IBM believes weren't met and as a result, the company is threatening legal action – something that GloFlo is already looking …

IBM has announced a new breakthrough today, unveiling the world's first chip using 2nm nanosheet technology. The new 2nm design can bring several improvements, including big leaps in performance and efficiency.

Recently, Intel announced plans to greatly expand its manufacturing, with a $20 billion investment going towards new chip making facilities. Today, we have an update on that front, with Intel announcing plans to spend $3.5 billion upgrading its factory in New Mexico.  As reported by VentureBeat, Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, …

Late last month, Intel announced plans to invest $20 billion to build new foundries to produce chips for other companies and compete with the likes of TSMC. It seems that TSMC has some major plans of its own, with the semiconductor company reportedly set to invest $100 billion in expanding …

It's no secret that semiconductor factories are expensive, with companies often pouring billions upon billions into new plants. However, 2021 looks to be a record-breaking year, with an expected growth of 24 percent. Back in 2011, it was estimated that semiconductor equipment reached sales of $41.8 billion – a number …

Intel is back on top of the semiconductor market as the company with the highest revenue for 2019 – after ranking second behind Samsung in both 2017 and 2018. The main factor behind this change is said to be a decreased demand for DRAM, which has hit Intel's competition hard. …

Back in 2018, Samsung managed to break Intel’s 25-year long streak as the largest chipmaker in the world. Intel had been holding the title since the early 90s, but a boom in NAND and DRAM demand led to significant growth for Samsung, putting it over the top in 2017 and …

Back in 2018, Samsung managed to break Intel's 25-year long streak as the largest chipmaker in the world. Intel had been holding the title since the early 90s, but a boom in NAND and DRAM demand led to significant growth for Samsung, putting it over the top in 2017 and …

Last month, we learned that TSMC might be struggling to meet demand for 7nm chip production, which could have raised production lead times from two months to as high as six months. This would be a major bottleneck in the supply chain but fortunately, TSMC is already prepared to invest …

Just a few weeks ago, GlobalFoundries levied a lawsuit against TSMC claiming patent infringement on chips sold and used within the products of some of the world’s most high-profile tech companies. At the time, TSMC did state that it was prepared to defend itself and now, we are seeing the …

Samsung has been battling it out against Apple for the number one spot in the smartphone market for years and now, it looks like the company will begin taking on another major US company. It turns out that Samsung's semiconductor business is now successful enough to rival Intel, meaning Samsung …

Reports have surfaced in the Japanese press that TSMC has quit on its bid to buy Toshiba's rather precious NAND-flash business, leaving Foxconn in the lead position. Foxconn has offered to pony-up 3 trillion Yen (around $30 billion), or $21.2 billion more than what Reuters had reported as the sought-after …

Right now, Apple designs all of its processors for its iOS devices, though the manufacturing and fabrication is outsourced to other companies, like Samsung or TSMC. However, that could change in the future as Apple just purchased what used to be a semiconductor manufacturing plant. The building measures in at …

Toshiba is apparently in advanced talks to sell its image sensor business to Sony for as much as $165 million. This comes just a few weeks after we learned that Sony also acquired sensor start-up company, SoftKinetic. So far, this news is coming from multiple sources, ranging from Japanese newpaper, …

GlobalFoundries on Friday confirmed that the first products to be made using the company’s advanced 14nm LPP [low-power plus] manufacturing technology had been taped out. The contract maker of chips did not reveal any details, but indicated that prototype chips had demonstrated “excellent” performance and yields. One of the customers, …

GlobalFoundries, which started to manufacture chips using 14nm low-power early (14LPE) manufacturing technology several months ago, said on Friday that its yields exceed its original expectations. One of the world’s largest contract makers of semiconductors does not reveal its actual 14nm volumes, but since the chips are made for customers, …

GlobalFoundries is working on its own 7nm and 10nm fabrication processes and it does not look like the company has plans to license technologies from the outside. The contract maker of semiconductors hopes that specialists from IBM’s microelectronics unit will help it to design world-class leading-edge manufacturing processes. GlobalFoundries, which …

China's National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund has reportedly approached GlobalFoundries about possible acquisition or cooperation. Chinese investors intend to take over GlobalFoundries in order to significantly improve Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and make it one of the world’s largest contract makers of semiconductors. China-based Hua Capital Management, which …

SK Hynix, one of the leading manufacturers of NAND flash and the second largest maker of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), plans to spend 31 trillion won ($25.94 billion) to build two semiconductor production facilities in South Korea over the next 10 years. The expansion of production capacities will unlikely …

Although Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is behind Samsung Foundry with its first-generation FinFET fabrication technology, which is why it lost orders from Apple and Qualcomm, it will still produce chips using 16nm FinFET manufacturing process for other major customers, including Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia Corp. Advanced Micro Devices plans …

Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., claims that despite of lack of any announcements concerning its contract semiconductor manufacturing business unit, the latter is growing and is still an important opportunity for the chip giant. Moreover, it has new customers that Intel just cannot name. Intel established its …

Samsung Foundry this week said that it had officially added its 10nm FinFET fabrication technology into its foundry roadmap. The company also clarified that it will start mass production of chips using its third-generation manufacturing process with FinFET transistors in late 2016, which means that the first 16nm commercial chips …

For quite a while, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has been talking about using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for its advanced 10nm process technology. However, since appropriate scanners are not ready and will not be for at least a couple of years, the company will be unable to take advantage of …

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week disclosed some additional details about its 7nm fabrication process. TSMC reiterated plans to start qualifications of the technology in early 2017 and then initiate volume production in 2018. The 7nm process will use certain elements derived from the 10nm fabrication process, which will help …

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week denied any delays of risk or mass production of chips using its 10nm process technology. The company intends to start volume production of semiconductors at 10nm node late next year, which means that its clients will receive their first 10nm chips in the first quarter …

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced on Thursday that it had started volume production of chips using its 16nm FinFET manufacturing technology in the second quarter of 2015. The world’s largest contract maker of semiconductors is delivering the first batch of products made at 16nm node to its customers right now, …