What are the topics covered this week? There’s a new company looking to establish a 2nm logic process, problems for an analogue processor pioneer, PTSL buying ThinkMEMS, the question of why Taiwan is so good at chip manufacturing and TSMC planning a 1nm fab…
5. Rapidus set up in Japan to pursue 2nm logic
A new chip company called Rapidus, backed by the government, is being set up in Japan to establish a 2nm logic process. Ten companies will participate including Toyota, Sony, Kioxia, NEC, NTT, Softbank and Denso with each company putting in $6.8 million. Leading the establishment of Rapidus has been Tetsuro Higashi formerly CEO of Tokyo Electron. Rapidus will be a vehicle for US-Japan co-operation in co-development of semiconductor technology.
4. Mythic strapped for cash
After raising $165.2 million in venture capital, it looks as if Mythic, the analogue processor pioneer, has run out of cash, Mythic “ran out of runway with the investors before we could get to revenue,” wrote Mythic’s vp engineering Ty Garibay on LinkedIn earlier this week. Garibay said he’s looking for a job.
3. PTSL buys ThinkMEMS
Probe Test Solutions Ltd (PTSL) of Glasgow, the ATE test hardware specialist, is acquiring ThinkMEMS of Dallas. ThinkMEMS offers process IP combining the fabrication of microdevices and assembly of complex structures to generate functional devices with repeatability and signal isolation at these frequencies. ThinkMEMS solutions are already shipping in automotive radar test fixtures and other RF test applications of leading global test equipment OEMs.
2. Why Is Taiwan So Good At Chip Manufacturing?
24 years ago I went to Taiwan to try and find out why its foundry industry – then only 11 years old – had taken off so well. The year before my trip, in 1997, TSMC was rated No.190 in the FT 500 list of the world’s largest companies – higher than Volkswagen, Toshiba, Guinness and GEC – with a stock market worth of $20 billion. That success sparked off a Taiwanese revolution. Two tears before, in 1996, on a previous visit to Taiwan, the founder and CEO of UMC, Bob Tsao, had taken me aback by saying that the company – Taiwan’s oldest chip company – was switching from making proprietary products to becoming a pure-play foundry.
1. TSMC plans 1nm fab
TSMC is planning its 1nm fab which will be in the Longtan Science Park near Taoyuan City which is operated by the Hsinchu Science Park, reports the Commercial Times. TSMC’s delayed 3nm chips are due to start volume production in Q4. An upgraded process, 3NE, starts in H2 2023. This will be TSMC’s last finfet node before moving to Gate All Around transistors.
