Processor Manufacturers & FABs
Assignment

Part I Manufactures

  1. What does a processor do?

  2. What does CPU stand for?

  3. Find at least five processor manufacturing companies.
    For each of these give:
      1. The name of the company
      2. Location of head office
      3. Company web URL
      4. What do they make the processors for
        eg. Desktop Computer, tablets, graphic cards, routers, microwaves, phones, ....
      5. How long have they been in business (when was it founded)?
      6. Revenue
      7. Number of employees
      8. Other interesting tidbits?


  4. Which companies make the main CPU’s for desktop PCs ? For desktop Macs?

 

Part II Semiconductor Fabrication Plant

1. What is a Semiconductor Fabrication Plant?

2. A Semiconductor Fabrication Plant is often called a FAB or what else is it called?

3. What is the estimated cost to build a new Fab?

4. Look at the wikipedia List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants  
 (Note: you can sort by each column by clicking on the column heading)

a. Name at least five countries that have Fabs

b. Who is building the most recent Fab? Where is it being built?

c. Who has the most expensive Fab? Where is it?

d. How many Fabs does Intel have, what countries?

 

5. Explain the difference between a "Pure-play semiconductor foundry" and an "Integrated device manufacturer (IDM) semiconductor foundry".

 

6. TSMC is the ranked as the #1 Pure-play Fab.

  1. Location of head office
  2. Company web URL
  3. How long have they been in business (when was it founded)?
  4. Revenue
  5. Number of employees
  6. Location of Fabs.
  7. Other interesting tidbits?

 

 

Some of CPU manufacturers are:

Intel, AMD, VIA, Sun Microsystems, Freescale, IBM, HP, IDT, Intersil, LSI, Fijitsu, TI, Qualcomm, Microchip, Mediatek

National Semiconductor, NEC, OKI, Philips, Sharp, Rockchip, Rockwell, SiLabs, Motorola, Zilog, Toshiba, NVIDIA

Useful sites:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_x86_manufacturers

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_hardware_manufacturers#Central_processing_units

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants