The Week In Review: May 25
By Mark LaPedus
The French National Research Agency and the CEA signed an agreement forming the Grenoble Institute of Technological Research (IRT): NanoElec Program. The R&D activities will focus on 3D IC integration and integrated silicon-photonics, in which STMicroelectronics and Mentor Graphics are involved.
Mentor Graphics also struck five separate deals in three product areas. In one deal, Mentor announced the availability of a new DFM Analysis Service based on the Calibre platform for TSMC’s 40nm and 28nm foundry customers. Then, three foundries—GlobalFoundries, SMIC and TowerJazz—separately said they are using Mentor’s Calibre PERC tools for electrostatic discharge applications. And finally, AT&S (Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik), a manufacturer of printed circuit boards, is using Mentor’s PCB design-through-manufacturing flow.
United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) broke ground on its new 300mm Fab 12A Phase 5 and 6 complex in Tainan, Taiwan. The fab is geared for 28nm and 20nm production.
Intel will invest more than $40 million over the next five years in a worldwide network of university research communities called the Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). Researchers will explore body-area-networking, secure computing and other technologies.
Element Six, a supplier of synthetic diamonds, announced the opening of its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Silicon Valley. Synthetic diamonds provide thermal conductivity and electric insulator properties in semiconductor and other applications.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) this week rolled out its R-Series accelerated processing unit (APU) chips for the embedded market. The devices are based on the same architecture as its recently announced A-Series APUs for PCs. Like the A-Series, the R-Series APUs are based on a 32nm process as well as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology from Soitec. Both the A-Series and R-Series are manufactured by GlobalFoundries.
Two new smartphone lines from Samsung—the Galaxy Beam and Ace 2—are using ST-Ericsson’s integrated baseband/application processor solution, dubbed NovaThor ModAp. ST-Ericsson is also developing a new 28nm solution based on FD-SOI from Soitec.
Tags: AMD, AT&S, CEA, Element Six, French National Research Agency, GlobalFoundries, Intel, Mentor Graphics, Samsung, SMIC, Soitec, ST-Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, TowerJazz, TSMC, UMC