The industry everything else quietly runs on. I cover it from the fab up, process nodes and lithography and the foundry wars, plus the export controls now deciding who even gets to build what. This is the manufacturing and geopolitics side of silicon, kept deliberately apart from the chip-and-platform coverage.
Qualcomm spent its summit in Maui this week talking less about how fast the Snapdragon 845 is and more about what it can think…
TSMC's 10nm node shipped the Apple A11 in volume while Intel's 10nm stalled, the moment the leading edge you could actually buy moved to…
Xiaomi has joined Apple, Samsung, and Huawei by designing its own processor, the Surge S1, aimed at mid-range phones like the Mi 5C. This…
Samsung 10nm built every Snapdragon 835, the year Samsung spun out its foundry as a standalone division and tried to outrun the chipgate reputation.
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, the first 10nm mobile processor, coincides with its 5G modem announcement and partnership with Microsoft for Windows on Snapdragon laptops, signaling…
Give a workshop in Shenzhen, one of MediaTek’s complete phone kits, the chip already sitting on a reference board with the firmware and test…
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 aims to rectify issues from the overheating 810 with custom Kryo cores and a move to a 14nm FinFET process. Despite…
SMIC 28nm reached volume in 2015, four years late after a long yield struggle, just as the leading edge moved to FinFET and left…
TSMC's 16nm FinFET delivered the first 3D transistor the 20nm shrink withheld, drew level with Intel on structure, and split the Apple A9 with…
Samsung 14nm FinFET shipped before TSMC's 16nm, powering the Galaxy S6's Exynos 7420 and winning back Qualcomm and a share of Apple's A9.
Intel 14nm arrived late in Broadwell, the first schedule slip in a decade. The node was still the best in the world, but the…
Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 810 and 808 this week, and the most revealing thing in the spec sheet is what is missing. There is…
The Sony Xperia Z Ultra, powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800, outperformed competitors with impressive benchmarks. This chip's advancements offer substantial performance, including 4K video…
Samsung 28nm built the 64-bit Apple A7 and its Cyclone core, the chip that blindsided Qualcomm and the whole industry, just as Apple prepared…
The Snapdragon S4, launched in February, integrates a custom dual-core Krait CPU and LTE modem on a single chip, enhancing efficiency. Qualcomm's innovative design…