A long-time evangelist of 3D integration technologies, Herb Reiter puts more than 20 years of experiences in technical and business roles at semiconductor and EDA companies to work, providing a holistic perspective and insight on how to bring 3D integration to the masses.
SEMI Kicks off Year Three of the SCC and Startups for Sustainability
It is popular for mainstream media to publicize different industry’s energy consumption and environmental habits. The semiconductor industry is not immune to this occasional finger-pointing concerning energy consumption, water consumption, and hazardous chemicals that are used to produce the chips that are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Major publications highlight...
Taking Stock of Global Investments in Semiconductor Manufacturing
The geopolitical race to take the lead in semiconductors is heating up as global investments in semiconductor manufacturing take hold. Several weeks ago, the Department of Commerce finally made a big US CHIPS Act award, giving Intel $8.5 billion of the allotted 38 billion set to go to semiconductor manufacturing....
Electronics Recycling: There’s Gold in Those Old Electronic Gadgets!
When you replace your PC with an AI-enabled one, will you make sure your old device goes into an electronics recycling program? In November of 2023, I wrote about artificial intelligence (AI) personal computers (PCs) possibly being a growth driver of the 2024 PC and semiconductor growth. Our trusty editor...
Will the Intel Foundry Model Succeed?
The foundry world has been big news in the past few weeks. TSMC started up the Kumamoto Fab, Japan’s leading-edge semiconductor technology center, partnering with Tenstorrent on RISC-V and chiplets to be manufactured at Rapidus. The biggest non-surprise news flash was the roll-out of Intel’s Foundry Direct Connect, which they...
What the Ski and Semiconductor Industries Have in Common
From November to April for the past seven years, I have spent a considerable amount of time on the snow as a ski instructor. In 2019 the International Ski and Snowboard Federation implemented a ban on fluorinated waxes that took place in July of 2021. The change left skiers scrambling,...
No Slow Down In Sight for Semiconductor Growth in China
At ISS 2024, SEMI reported that fab equipment sales look to be flat in 2024 — right around $100 billion. We won’t know for sure until the final numbers are in for the year, but at the moment, it’s a pretty good estimate. TechInsights has wafer fab equipment (WFE) coming...
The Semiconductor Cycle: Looking Into the Future
“It ain’t over till it’s over.” is a frequently used Yogi Berra saying. The current semiconductor cycle has that feeling. While for some parts it appears to be over, for other parts it looks like most segments are at the bottom, and there are no strong growth indicators for the...
ESG Resolutions
Happy 2024! For many the start of the New Year includes resolutions or goals to try to accomplish throughout the year. From a sustainability standpoint, this means that the ESG teams are collecting the data from 2023 to determine if they achieved what they had published in their 2022 sustainability...
IEDM 2023: The Trillion Transistor Dilemma
It all depends upon who you talk to at IEDM 2023. The semiconductor chip industry is either moving into a new realm that will be based upon chiplet technology, or the industry is continuing to drive front-end and backend technology forward and the two technologies are morphing together to drive...
Semiconductor Sustainability at IEDM 2023
The Semiconductor industry has been ramping up its focus on sustainability for the past three to four years. Strong sustainability efforts have been in place for ST Microelectronics and Intel since 2011 and have trickled down to their suppliers through a sustainability focus on the supply chain. When Apple and...