Process Technology

SAN FRANCISCO--A system-on-a-chip for TVs introduced Thursday at the Intel Developer Forum heralds a new generation of silicon from Intel.

The CE4100 packs a number features onto one piece of silicon--the same design goal for future Intel chips that will be used in smartphones and Netbooks. The chip is designed to bring Internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players, and advanced set-top boxes, said Eric Kim, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Digital Home Group, in his keynote at IDF 2009 here Thursday.

Integration is the chip's strong suit. In addition to an Atom processor, the … Read more

How would you like a single-chip microprocessor with more than four times the performance (on some applications) of Intel's best Core i7?

Then consider that up to 32 of these chips can be directly connected to form a single server, achieving four times the built-in scalability of Intel's next-generation Nehalem-EX processor.

That's IBM's widely anticipated Power7, which it described at last week's Hot Chips conference. But if you're interested, you'd better be prepared to spend a lot more than four times as much per chip. IBM isn't talking about pricing, but large … Read more

The Hot Chips conference in Palo Alto, Calif this week is focusing on high-end chips for servers and scientific computers, with IBM's upcoming Power7 as a standout.

On Tuesday, IBM will give a presentation on its next-generation server chip, the Power7. IBM documentation describes the chip as having up to eight cores. A dual-chip module holds two processors for a total of 16 cores, according to IBM.

Each core has a rated performance of 32 gigaflops, providing 256 gigaflops per processor--one of the fastest chips to date based on this scientific-centric performance benchmark.

Power7 will be used in the … Read more

As chip geometries get infinitesimally small, IBM is looking to DNA to make the manufacture of future chips feasible.

On Monday, IBM researchers and collaborator Paul W.K. Rothemund, of the California Institute of Technology, announced an advancement of a method to arrange DNA origami structures on surfaces compatible with today's semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

"The cost involved in shrinking (chip) features to improve performance is a limiting factor in keeping pace with Moore's Law and a concern across the semiconductor industry," said Spike Narayan, a manager in the Science & Technology division of IBM Research, in … Read more

Globalfoundries, the manufacturing concern spun off from Advanced Micro Devices, plans to announce Wednesday that it has signed up STMicroelectronics--its first true outside customer.

Globalfoundries was created last year in order to eliminate the crippling overhead that AMD was incurring to manufacture its processors. Globalfoundries now conducts business as a contract chip manufacturer, commonly referred to as a foundry.

AMD owns 34.2 percent of the company, while Advanced Technology Investment Co. owns the rest. ATIC is an investment company wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.

Last week, Globalfoundries broke … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices' spinoff Globalfoundries will use a groundbreaking ceremony this Friday to proclaim that it's ready to go head to head with the world's largest chipmakers.

Globalfoundries, formerly the chip manufacturing operations of AMD, will break ground next week in Malta, N.Y., on a $4.2 billion facility that may put it among the elite chipmakers of the world. But to get there, it needs big customers. One--or more--of those names will be announced in the next 30 days, according to Jon Carvill, director of corporate communications at Globalfoundries.

Early customers may include companies that design … Read more

I spent Tuesday at Nvidia headquarters, attending the company's annual Analyst Day.

I've been to most of Nvidia's analyst events over the last decade or so, since I covered Nvidia almost from its inception while working as the graphics analyst at Microprocessor Report. These meetings are always a good way to get an update on the company's business operations, and sometimes--like this time--one provides exceptionally good insight into larger industry trends.

Nvidia has had a rough couple of quarters in the market, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang blamed in part on a bad strategic call in early 2008: to place orders for large quantities of new chips to be delivered later in the year. When the recession hit, these orders turned into about six months of inventory, much of which simply couldn't be sold at the usual markup.

In response, Nvidia CFO David White outlined measures the company plans to take to increase revenue, sell a more valuable mix of products, reduce the cost of goods sold, and cut back on Nvidia's operating expenses.

Three things stood out for me in this presentation:

Nvidia is planning an aggressive transition to state-of-the-art ASIC fabrication technology at TSMC, the company's manufacturing partner. Within "two to three quarters," White said, about two-thirds of the chips Nvidia sells will be made using 40-nanometer process technology. (The first of these chips were announced Tuesday.)

White also acknowledged something that I've long assumed to be true: Nvidia receives "preferential allocation" on advanced process technology at TSMC. It's logical that Nvidia should get the red-carpet treatment, having been TSMC's best customer for many years, but I don't recall hearing Nvidia or TSMC put this fact on the record before.

The third notable point from White's presentation: the gross margins for Nvidia's Tegra, an ARM-based application processor--which Nvidia's Mike Rayfield, general manager of the Tegra division, says has already garnered 42 design wins at 27 companies--are much higher than I'd have guessed--at "over 45 percent." That's quite excellent for an ARM-based SoC; it's a very competitive market.

More surprises The technical sessions at the event contained their own surprises.

For example, Nvidia effectively seized control of an old Intel marketing buzzword: "balanced."

For years, Intel used to talk about… Read more

Moore's Law may lapse by 2014, according to iSuppli. The high cost of chip manufacturing--not just the impossibly smaller geometries--may be the biggest threat.

Moore's Law, named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles roughly every two years. For more than four decades, chip geometries have gotten smaller and smaller, allowing Moore's Law to remain on track.

By 2014, however, the high cost of semiconductor manufacturing equipment will threaten Moore's Law, "altering the fundamental economics of the industry," according to a … Read more

Intel has invested in ASM International, a major semiconductor production equipment maker that has been struggling during the worldwide economic downturn.

Intel Capital's investment amounts to 4 percent of ASMI's total common share capital, based on approximately 54 million common shares outstanding. This follows an investment last week by Tokyo Electron, which took a 4.9 percent stake in the company.

ASMI is currently trading at about $12.40 a share.

"ASMI has been at the forefront of delivering materials and equipment innovation to integrated circuit manufacturers worldwide," Intel said in a statement. ASMI's equipment … Read more