IBM

Foundry veteran Simon Yang told Semicon China while things are looking up the country cannot count on ‘traditional’ methods or advantages if it's to be a major chipmaker.

The International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) has once again provided a chance for the major chipmakers to go head-to-head with their latest processes - this time with finFETs.

GlobalFoundries is to acquire IBM's fabs in a deal that sees the server maker pay the foundry $1.5bn over five years and agree to exclusivity to 10nm.

STMicroelectronics is using the OpenPDK standard from Si2 to speed up the production and delivery of process design kits (PDKs) and asks for wider adoption by foundries.

At the VLSI Technology Symposium a team led by STMicroelectronics described the techniques used for the upcoming 14nm FD-SOI to boost speed and density over the 28nm version.

Panel discusses Moore's law scaling beyond the 14nm node to 5nm, where economic, device, interconnect, materials, lithography and design issues abound

Can applications provide useful input for verification? They can but not when run straight out of the box, panelists at DAC 2014 said.

But some research and process collaboration is set to continue in the background as Samsung, GlobalFoundries and IBM chart their own priorities.

The Indian government will meet up to a quarter of initial capital costs for a foundry capable of nodes up to 45nm and 40,000 wafer starts per month at 300mm.

Taking place in Chelmsford, MA on 27 August, the conference will feature user-authored papers, tutorials, a designer expo and keynotes from Cadence and IBM.