Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

What's a "foundational semiconductor"?

This seems to be a political term, not one the electronics industry uses.[1] "Foundational chips (also called “legacy,” “lagging edge,” and “mature node” semiconductors) are often defined as chips made with a 22nm manufacturing process or above."

Is there actually a lack of 22nm and larger fab capacity in the US? Or is it just that they're not being used much.

[1] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...

View on HN

FD-SOI fabs are lacking. It's a planar transistor technology used frequently in very low power/thermal devices with small packages and with a high SEU tolerance. Lattice semiconductor use them in their FPGAs, which are the lowest power draw FPGAs on the market at the moment, with a really flat power curve all the way up to 125C. They're used everywhere in A&D and industrial, as root-of-trust devices on servers, and are the largest FPGA manufacturer by volume.

Currently it's fabbed in France (STMicro), Germany (GF), and South Korea (Samsung). No plans to onshore that in the US.

22FDX of GF is also produced in Malta, NY.

> What's a "foundational semiconductor"?

What PA and Fairchild did. We haven’t had a new-entrant opening for fundamental semiconductor design for decades, a fact laid bare in their top engineers’ comp. (No clue if this is what they are actually doing.)

Does ON Semi have fabs in the US?

Yes, but no idea how important the US fabs are. They have more fabs in China, India, Japan, Europe...[1]

ON Semi is the successor of Motorola's semiconductor business.

[1] https://www.onsemi.com/company/about-onsemi/locations

PA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi ?

What is it that Fairchild and "PA" did that makes them foundational?

Also known as a PR semiconductor.

Yes, there is a lack of that tech. Power devices and any mid-complexity mixed signal devices use higher nodes like 22, 55, or even larger geometries. Not a lot of that capacity in the states and it seems to be mostly held by players that own their own fabs. Fabless semiconductor companies don’t have many options besides overseas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com