Items tagged with TSMC
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...
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Reports from multiple foundries suggest that the industry has had trouble ramping 28nm production, despite early bullish promises and repeated assurances. The situation is something of a high-tech 'I told you so.' As we've previously covered, each new process node has been an increasingly difficult shift as...
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Five of the largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturers have signed a joint development and research agreement in what might be a record-breaking partnership. It's not unusual to see IBM, Samsung, and GloFo pairing up—all three companies are part of the Common Platform Alliance--but the presence of...
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Samsung and Apple have been fighting legal battles in Asia, Europe and the US, with the majority of victories thus far going to Apple. Samsung has decided to retaliate on its own turf and is planning to ask Korean courts to ban the iPhone 5 as soon as the device is launched. At present, the two companies are engaged...
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GlobalFoundries and Samsung announced today that they intend to synchronize their 28nm high-performance/low-leakage production facilities. This new agreement follows a 2010 collaboration between GloFo, Samsung, IBM, and STMicroelectronics in which all four firms agreed to cooperate in building out their low-power 28nm process nodes. One of...
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For a CPU that hasn't seen the light of day, there's a great deal of debate surrounding Apple's A6—and the suggestion that it may not appear until later in 2012. The A6 is a complex bit of hardware; rumors indicate that the chip is a quad-core Cortex-A9 CPU built on 28nm at TSMC and utilizing the latter's 3D fabrication technology. We've...
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Up until now, Samsung has handled all of Apple's CPU manufacturing needs, including the A4 and A5 processor. New rumors, however, suggest that TSMC has been tapped for the company's next-generation A6. Apple hasn't committed to actually purchasing chips at this point, but has handed the Taiwanese foundry what it needs to test product yields....
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It's only been two weeks since Apple and Samsung jointly sued each other for alleged patent infringement, but relations between the two companies have apparently already turned ice cold. Rumors in April suggested that Apple was discussing an arrangement with TSMC (there's been no official confirmation on either side). Gus Richard, an analyst...
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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...
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At yesterday's Common Platform technology day, IBM and the other members of the Common Platform Initiative made a major announcement. While plans to use gate-first technology at the 32nm/28nm node remain unchanged, the coalition will move to gate-last technology when it makes the jump to 20nm production. As...
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Oops. Yesterday we published a story (since taken down) noting that AMD had apparently flip-flopped on its 28nm plans and would use TSMC for 28nm production in the 2012 timeframe rather than going with GlobalFoundries. The original piece we discussed ran Cens.com, which bills itself as "Taiwan's Economic News." We're not going to link it again,...
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The International Trade Commission has announced its findings in the NVIDIA/Rambus patent infringement lawsuit and it's not the sort of ruling Team Green would've preferred. The commission found NVIDIA to be in violation of three Rambus patents. The trade panel also granted an injunction Rambus had requested, which theoretically prevents NVIDIA...
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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 /...
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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...
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When AMD renegotiated its x86 licensing deal with Intel last year, one of the most significant long-term changes was a marked reduction in how much of GlobalFoundries AMD had to own in order to remain within the terms of its manufacturing license. As a result of this change, AMD announced last month that it intended...
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We don't normally cover TSMC directly, but the firm's 40nm troubles had a material impact on both AMD and NVIDIA in the past few quarters, so we thought we'd take a peek at the company's financials. The company's quarterly results were excellent; net income rose 162.5 percent compared to a year ago, while revenue was up 42.6 percent. Broken...
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The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity for AMD. Since the beginning of the fourth quarter, the manufacturer has launched new ATI HD 5000 series parts in the high-end, enthusiast, and mainstream market segments, settled its antitrust lawsuit with Intel, renegotiated its x86 licensing agreement and...
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Earlier this month, we covered news that the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) issued a press release confirming that it had signed a definitive agreement to purchase Chartered Semiconductor. Chartered's business will be rolled into GlobalFoundries, with Doug Grose serving as CEO of the combined entities...
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Intel, TSMC Reach Agreement to Collaborate on Technology Platform, IP Infrastructure, SoC SolutionsIntel to port Atom CPU cores to TSMC’s technology platform to expand market for Atom Processors SoC Customers Santa Clara, CA & Hsin-chu, Taiwan, March 2, 2009 – Intel Corporation and TSMC today announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU)...
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We've witnessed Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (better known as TSMC) work hand-in-hand before, but according to a breaking report from Reuters, the two are about to realign in a big way this Monday. A so-called "strategic announcement" will be made in just two short days, which has led the market to speculate that Intel...
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While everyone is still “oooohing” and “ahhhhing” at the raw power and efficiency provided by 45nm chips such as Intel's Penryn lineup, TSMC was looking forward to the next big thing: 40nm.“Following successful tapeouts and customer announcements of its 45nm process technology in 2007, TSMC has moved forward quickly and developed an enhanced...
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Digitimes, using information obtained from motherboard manufacturers, is reporting that TSMC will likely build the GPU portion of AMD's upcoming Fusion processors, while the CPU cores will be made by either AMD themselves or partner Chartered Semiconductor. "AMD's Fusion processor will consist of a GPU manufactured on a 55nm process...
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