Items tagged with SOI
When AMD held its Analyst Day a few weeks ago, the company focused on how it was fundamentally changing its approach to semiconductor research and product development. Years of attempting to compete with Intel drained company coffers and exposed it to tremendous competitive pressure. Consumers unquestionably profited -- Intel's prices for various parts dropped dramatically in the early 2000s as AMD entered specific markets -- but Sunnyvale took a ferocious beating in the process. Forbes has published a major article on the company's turbulent last few years and current plans. It credits Dirk Meyer with saving the company after Hector Ruiz's tenure as CEO ended in mid-2009, but quotes no less...
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Intel made headlines last year when it announced that it would fab 22nm products for FPGA designer Achronix. This week, the company has unveiled an additional 22nm partner. Santa Clara will also be building parts for Tabula and will build that company's new Spacetime microprocessors. Tabula claims that its new chip "uses time as a third dimension to deliver unmatched capability and affordability. Tabula achieves this breakthrough by combining the Spacetime hardware that dynamically reconfigures logic, memory, and interconnect at multi-GHz rates with the Spacetime compiler that manages this ultra-rapid reconfiguration transparently." That's so meaningless it hurts. It's a reconfigurable FPGA that...
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This week has been a good news / bad news for Sunnyvale--but the bad, at least, was somewhat expected. The company gave notice today that its third quarter revenue would be lower than expected, with estimated quarterly income up 4-6 percent from Q2 levels. That's significantly less than AMD's original projection of ~10 percent, plus or minus two percentage points. The company's notice comes a month after rumors began that Bulldozer shipments might be delayed due to manufacturing problems. AMD announced it was shipping its server CPU, Interlagos, for revenue several weeks ago, but that announcement was originally expected in August. The company's news release states: The less-than-forecasted preliminary...
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Both TSMC and GlobalFoundries have released new information on their respective plans for the next few years. TSMC has announced its intention to double its 2011 R&D capital expenditure to $700 million, while it simultaneously spends $7.8B over the next year in order to increase its manufacturing capacity by approximately 20 percent. This is presumedly over and above what the company has spent thus far on constructing its new "gigafab" foundry, Fab 15. TSMC began work on Fab 15 last summer, but the plant isn't scheduled to come online until 2012; TSMC is most likely building out capacity at an already established plant. TSMC's production growth over the past few years. Information provided...
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On September 1, GlobalFoundries played host to the first annual Global Technology Conference (GTC for short). While there were a fair number of partner presentations on display, the conference was primarily driven by GlobalFoundries executives and announcements. When we spoke to GlobalFoundries in March we remarked on the company's aggressive roadmap; we were curious to see if the company would still be on track six months later... GlobalFoundries Details Plans For 2011 And Beyond...
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On September 1, GlobalFoundries played host to the first annual Global Technology Conference (GTC for short). While there were a fair number of partner presentations on display, the conference was primarily driven by GlobalFoundries executives and announcements. When we spoke to GlobalFoundries in March we remarked on the company's aggressive roadmap; we were curious to see if the company would still be on track six months later. Based on comments made by company CEO Doug Grose, GlobalFoundries is on track to realize some $4 billion in revenue for the year 2010 and plans to double its size within two years (it's unclear if this refers to revenue, wafer starts, or customer base). The company's...
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TSMC officially began building its next-generation Fab 15 foundry on Friday. The facility, or 'gigafab' in TSMC parlance, will begin coming online in 2012, long-term capacity is said to be upwards of 100,000 wafer starts a month. In contrast, GlobalFoundries New York facility currently under construction is targeting 60,000 wafer starts / month once in full production. According to TSMC, the new fab has a price tag of some $9.4 billion and will come online with both 40nm and 28nm production nodes. We're guessing TSMC's goal here is to further extend its glowing record as a leading edge node provider—after the company's stellar 40nm rollout and ramp, it'll be a challenge to shaft customers...
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Q1 was the first quarter AMD reported its results entirely separate from those of GlobalFoundries, and the company's numbers were quite good. Revenue for the quarter was a record-setting $1.57B, the company reported an operating income of $247 million, and an operating profit of $182 million. That's an excellent shift from a year ago, when the company lost $298 million on revenue of just $1.18 billion. The company's gross margin of 47 percent (up two percent from Q4), thanks to a richer product mix. Revenue in both AMD's CPU and GPU businesses fell sequentially, in line with standard seasonal trends. AMD didn't break out its estimated market gains by segment, but believes it gained ground in...
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It's been just over a year since AMD completed its spinoff of GlobalFoundries in an attempt to radically change its own financial trajectory. The gamble appears to have paid off for both companies; we recently sat down with GlobalFoundries executives to talk about the company's first year and plans for the future. GlobalFoundries current roadmap is as follows: The company will ship 40nm LP (low power) silicon starting this quarter and 32nm SOI in the back half of 2010. The left edge of each box denotes 'risk production,' aka early commercial production. One of the reasons we originally contacted GF was to clear up some confusion around the 32nm/28nm process nodes. When GlobalFoundries first...
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AMD-derived GlobalFoundries broke ground today on what will become the company's leading-edge manufacturing facility and (according to it, at least) the largest and most technically-advanced fab in the United States. The $4.2 billion facility should start production within two years, and is expected to begin volume production in 2012. Currently, GlobalFoundries predicts the plant will debut using 300mm wafers and 28nm process technology, only to transition to 22nm as it enters volume production. Those numbers frankly seem optimistic. Over the last nine years, it's taken AMD two years or more to launch products at any given node. There were a number of technological issues that had to be overcome...
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