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A high-level Chinese official acknowledged at a forum on Nov. 28 that many of China’s investment projects in the semiconductor industry were short-sighted and ultimately failed. Wang Zhijun, one of the deputy ministers at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, made the comments while speaking at the China Development Forum hosted by the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, according to Chinese state-run media. What’s happening now in the semiconductor industry has happened to other Chinese sectors, such as steel, cement, and photovoltaics, leading to production overcapacity, said Wang. He said the semiconductor industry needed greater supervision and that companies...

FinFETs and SOI working in different environmentsSoitec's CEO and board chairman has raised an eyebrow or two when he said that the iPhone 6s has multiple RF chips built on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates and that Intel and IBM are using the tech for their silicon photonics push.According to EETimes  Paul Boudre, who claimed that SOI is already being used by Apple and Intel even though neither company is broadcasting it. SOI appears to be on track to major market penetration even while the rest of the industry is talking FinFETs.