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Cognitive Dissonance
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ghporter
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Dec 30, 2016, 08:59 PM
 
So near my home (and within sight of SeaWorld San Antonio) is a chip fabricator called TowerJazz. They specialize in specialty chip manufacturing, and call themselves "The Global Specialty Foundry Leader." Hmmmm.

I grew up in Southeastern Michigan. Everywhere was something to do with auto manufacturing, particularly something related to steel. There were steel mills all over the place. My paternal grandfather worked at one for decades. Steel mills and steel foundries are something I have a fairly good understanding of.

So how can a facility that uses gas phase dopant diffusion and microscopic photolithography in ultra-clean room environments call itself a "foundry"? No billows of sparks and steam from pouring enormous ingots of steel, no "overheated metal" smell in the air, none of that. How is a chip fabrication plant a "foundry"? My head hurts from trying to make the name and the concepts work...

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Chongo
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Dec 31, 2016, 03:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
So near my home (and within sight of SeaWorld San Antonio) is a chip fabricator called TowerJazz. They specialize in specialty chip manufacturing, and call themselves "The Global Specialty Foundry Leader." Hmmmm.

I grew up in Southeastern Michigan. Everywhere was something to do with auto manufacturing, particularly something related to steel. There were steel mills all over the place. My paternal grandfather worked at one for decades. Steel mills and steel foundries are something I have a fairly good understanding of.

So how can a facility that uses gas phase dopant diffusion and microscopic photolithography in ultra-clean room environments call itself a "foundry"? No billows of sparks and steam from pouring enormous ingots of steel, no "overheated metal" smell in the air, none of that. How is a chip fabrication plant a "foundry"? My head hurts from trying to make the name and the concepts work...
Contract manufacturer would be a more accurate description. They build chips other companies design. Some companies use them for extra capacity. TSMC is another "semiconductor foundry"

I work for NXP, soon to be Qualcomm (was Motorola SPS, then Freescale, then merged with NXP). When the deal is done, Qualcomm should leapfrog to the #1 spot ahead of Intel.
45/47
     
subego
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Dec 31, 2016, 11:03 AM
 
Same thing but from the other direction, the foundry I used to drive by had a giant banner which read "Forging a Fresher America".

Yeah, umm... "fresh" is not what I associate with a foundry.
     
P
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Dec 31, 2016, 03:29 PM
 
Yes, a semiconductor foundry is a company that manufactures integrated circuits designed by someone else. TSMC is the biggest. When Apple has designed a new chip, they let a foundry such as TSMC manufacture it. This is the opposite of Intel's x86 chips, which are designed and manufactured by the same company. At the moment, most companies in the sector are moving to a foundry model - e.g AMD, which used to own its own plants, has spun them off into a separate company called GlobalFoundries and is free to manufacture its chips there or at another foundry such as TSMC or Samsung.

Some googling shows that the term comes from the time when all semiconductor firms made their own chips. At times, one firm would sell production capacity to another, in the same way that one steel company might contract another to make finished steel when their own plants were full. The name "foundry" came to describe that business model, and then stuck when the first company (again, TSMC) was founded completely focused around producing chips designed by someone else.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Chongo
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Dec 31, 2016, 05:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Yes, a semiconductor foundry is a company that manufactures integrated circuits designed by someone else. TSMC is the biggest. When Apple has designed a new chip, they let a foundry such as TSMC manufacture it. This is the opposite of Intel's x86 chips, which are designed and manufactured by the same company. At the moment, most companies in the sector are moving to a foundry model - e.g AMD, which used to own its own plants, has spun them off into a separate company called GlobalFoundries and is free to manufacture its chips there or at another foundry such as TSMC or Samsung.

Some googling shows that the term comes from the time when all semiconductor firms made their own chips. At times, one firm would sell production capacity to another, in the same way that one steel company might contract another to make finished steel when their own plants were full. The name "foundry" came to describe that business model, and then stuck when the first company (again, TSMC) was founded completely focused around producing chips designed by someone else.
Qualcomm is in the process of acquiring NXP. NXP is still in the process of integrating Freescale. (was Motorola's chip division, I work in the Chandler AZ fab). Both have numerous fabs. Qualcomm has no fabs. We wait and see what the future holds.
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P
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Jan 1, 2017, 08:29 AM
 
If Qualcomm buys NXP and the old NXP business keeps accepting business from the Apples of the world, it still counts as a foundry just as Samsung is (just not a pure-play foundry like TSMC). Predicting the future is hard, as we don't know where future shrinks are coming from. Even Intel is stalling out, it seems. If it turns out that future shrinks are dependent on designing for a specific process, then an integrated model like Intel's might be the future for high-performing chips after all, but there is little to indicate that. Intel is flirting with the idea of picking up foundry business as well, and I don't think they would if their future QWFETs or whatever required special design rules.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ghporter  (op)
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Jan 1, 2017, 10:06 AM
 
Wow. I though I'd get replies about how weird my cognitive dissonance was, and instead I get actual information!

So the chip fab is more like a "typeface foundry" than a place that forges raw metal parts... I can almost handle that, except that I don't think of a graphic design setup as a "foundry" either. ;D

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
zro
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Jan 12, 2017, 11:11 AM
 
Type foundries were real foundries that used molten metal to create fonts. A font of course being a set of type characters of a single face, size, and style. At any rate, they kept calling themselves foundries because a lot of the companies (or their names) are still around.

Not sure I buy that the business model is what makes a semiconductor manufacturer a "foundry." Working at a commercial printer, we do work for our customers and other shops, as well as send work out. We are not a foundry. Although none of it is contract work.
     
andi*pandi
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Jan 12, 2017, 02:36 PM
 
^got there and explained it before I could!
     
ghporter  (op)
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Jan 15, 2017, 09:27 PM
 
I'm familiar with Linotype systems, but I hadn't thought about the generations before that. It makes tons of sense, zro, thanks.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
   
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