SEMICON West wrap
SEMICON West is the annual migration of silicon-crowned fab birds to the west side of America. SEMICON is a three-ringed circus of the show floor, side conferences, and attractions in the venues orbiting SEMI’s show center. This year more than 35K attendees returned to the San Francisco show, with a floor packed with sellers chasing buyers. What makes SEMICON West special is its broader theme around finance and the industry-wide issues no single company can address alone. This includes geopolitics, forever chemicals, workforce, power, and water resources, to name a few. SEMI is the best at bringing the key stakeholders and influencers together to address them. There were plenty of this in the separate conference rooms. Then there was what was happening outside the show…
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October 28, 2026
Three Takeaways from imec ITF: Packaging, CMOS 2.0, and EUV
Imec’s ITF on Monday is always a great way to kick off the show. I found three really interesting takeaways: 1) “You can’t have a packaging roadmap, because packaging is a zoo of options…” 2) imec seems to be moving on from CFETs as the next big thing to what they call CMOS 2.0, which Huawei’s Dr. He introduced the same idea earlier this year as “Logic Folding.” Further back was Intel’s Back Side Power and more than 10 years ago, SK hynix’s HBM. The idea that binds them all together is … 3) Quantum chips need EUV because e-beam direct write is problematic.
SEMICON West Questions & Answers:
CXMT 4F-squared DRAM: Is it competitive?
Tuesday, Applied Material’s investor breakfast opened to a rocky stock market the day before and, as it would turn ou,t for the whole week. SMH, the semiconductor stock ETF would end the week down 11%, which built a wall of worry as the week went on. One of the big news items going into this conference was CXMT announcing it would have a 4F2 DRAM by the end of the year. What this means is the area each DRAM bit needs is 4 times the minimum feature size, squared. Historically, this has been 6F2, so a 4F2 cell increases density by 50%. The market was shocked. It should not have been. But then again, the market does not have the memory of an elephant. 4F2 has been a dream for many years… CXMT’s rapid rise came from buying Qimonda’s IP.
Elon Musk’s Terafab: Can they get the EUV tools that are booked out? The real question here is if ASML can expand capacity to meet their demand…
Elon Musk’s Terafab: Can they make Advanced Logic and Memory in the same fab? Yes! …
When’s the downturn? Not in 2027…
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Dan is Vice Chair of TechInsights Inc. He is a recognized authority on the semiconductor industry, winning SEMI’s Sales and Marketing Excellence Award in 2012 for “empowering executives with tremendous strategic and tactical marketing value" through his e-letter, The Chip Insider®; his book Maxims of Hi-Tech, and his many interviews of executives.
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