Last year, TSMC announced that development for 5nm, 3nm, and even 2nm process nodes were in progress and it appears that everything is going well. TSMC’s 7nm process is on track for 2018 and their 5nm process is on track for early 2019. While details on their 3nm process was relatively sparse, it appears that 3nm is on track as well given a recent announcement from TSMC confirms that they’ve  already selected the location for their next generation semiconductor manufacturing.

According to the short announcement, TSMC’s upcoming 3nm fab will be built in the Tainan Science Park in southern Taiwan. TSMC selected the site in order to “…fully [...]

Samsung announced today that its new fab in Pyeongtaek, South Korea has entered mass production and is shipping its first products to customers. The newly-opened plant which will be the largest single fab in the industry will focus on production of Samsung’s latest 4th generation, 64-layer 3D V-NAND. Samsung’s 64-layer TLC 3D NAND enables capacities of up to 256Gbit per chip bringing increased performance and storage capacity to consumer and enterprise devices. The new factory represents a major step towards Samsung’s goal of shifting 50% of its production to 64-Layer 3D NAND by the end of this year.

Within the next four years, Samsung is also [...]

According to a recent article from Digitimes, two of the world’s largest memory manufacturers may be having a hard time perfecting their sub-20nm DRAM processes. Micron is experiencing low yield rates transitioning into its 1xnm DRAM node, while Samsung had to recently recall a large batch of DRAM modules built on its 18nm process.

Last month, Micron announced that it was planning to spend $1 billion to upgrade its TaiChung fab to 1x nm, aiming to make its chips ready for the market by the end of the year. Due to the lower yields, its products may be delayed.

Samsung on the other hand had to recall more than 100,000 DRAM modules after PC OEMS reported [...]

Despite Toshiba’s financial woes, their memory division is pressing on, recently announcing that they’ve begun construction on their latest semiconductor fabrication facility, Fab 6 at Yokkaichi, Japan.

Like all the other new fabs that were constructed or retrofitted, Fab 6 will be built to produce Toshiba’s latest BiCS 3D NAND flash. Construction of the new fab will occur in two phases with Phase 1 slated to be complete in the summer of 2018. This will allow Toshiba to re-evaluate and re-asses continued investment in the event NAND flash demand takes a nosedive.

In addition to Fab 6, Toshiba also announced the construction of a new Memory [...]

Who said American manufacturing was dead? Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and US President Donald Trump recently announced at the White House that Intel is planning to invest $7 Billion into the completion of Fab 42 in Chandler, Arizona. Fab 42 is expected to produce Intel’s next generation 7nm processors, slated to launch in 2020.

According to the announcement, Fab 42 will take approximately 3 to 4 years to complete and will create approximately 3,000 high tech jobs directly through the facility with an additional estimated 10,000 additional jobs indirectly tied to the support of of the facility as well.

It’s no secret that China wants advanced chip manufacturing technology and will do whatever it takes to get it. However, after several failed attempts by China’s state sponsored technology investment group, Tsinghua Unigroup, to acquire US chip manufacturing companies such as Western Digital and Micron, it appears that they have given up on acquiring the manufacturing capability altogether and have decided invest into building their own manufacturing capability instead.

According to a recent statement from Tsinghua Unigroup, the investment group recently revealed plans to invest $30 billion into the construction and development of a DRAM and 3D NAND fab in [...]

The world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, is investing for the future as recent reports reveals that they plan to build a new $500 Billion NTD ($15.7 Billion USD) chip fab for producing upcoming 5nm and 3nm chips.

TSMC has already asked the government to help look for possible future manufacturing sites. The site will require somewhere between 50-80 hectares of land and according to Taiwan’s Minister of Science and Technology, Yang Hung-duen, it’ll likely be located somewhere in Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung. The new fab is expected to be built and operational as early as 2022.

Currently, TSMC’s most advanced 16nm FinFET [...]

Although the DRAM and NAND industry has seen quite a bit of consolidation over the past 10 years, it looks like some new players from China may be entering the market soon bringing some welcome competition to the market. According to a recent article by DigiTimes, three China based firms may be gearing up to enter the market with all three expected to begin competing for the Chinese market in 2018.

Yangtze River Storage Technology (YRST)

YRST, or Yangtze River Storage Technology, is the most promising of the companies as it’s backed by Tsinghua Unigroup, a Chinese state run technology company. YRST already owns a 12-inch wafer fab which is [...]

Looks like Toshiba is ramping up big time with their 3D NAND as they recently announced plans to begin construction on a new state of the art fabrication facility at Yokkaichi Operations in order to expand production of their BiCS 3D NAND technology.

The construction of the new fab is expected to begin February 2017. Like their relatively recently completed Fab 5 facility also in Yokkaichi Operations, Toshiba will construct their new fab in two stages with the first stage expected to be completed by summer 2018. Toshiba will also build a new Memory R&D Center in order to help promote flash memory development by moving all flash memory R&D personnel to the new [...]

After recently telling investors that they’re planning to make a record $27 Trillion Won ($23.59 Billion USD) investment this year, Samsung recently announced that they’re planning another $1 Billion investment towards their manufacturing facility at Austin, Texas in 1H2017. According to Samsung, the investment will be used to enhance production capabilities of their System LSI plants which produce advanced SoCs (system-on-chip) products for devices such as smartphones, tablets, etc.

Samsung’s Austin Fab, also known as Fab S2 is one of Samsung’s most advanced semiconductor fabrication facilities, producing chips using their 14nm FinFET process [...]