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Commentary / Analysis

• Globalfoundries expected to pass UMC in foundry sales (Wednesday Aug. 22, 2012)
  Globalfoundries Inc. is expected to surpass United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) to become the No. 2 semiconductor foundry supplier in 2012.
  
  
• Asia-Pacific-Based OEMs Dominate Chip Spending Growth on Home Turf (Friday Aug. 17, 2012)
  On a worldwide basis Apple Inc. and other multinational OEMs may be the leading semiconductor purchasers in 2012, but within the all-important Asia-Pacific region it is the locally based companies that are No. 1 when it comes to chip spending growth.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts July 2012 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.87 (Friday Aug. 17, 2012)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.28 billion in orders worldwide in July 2012 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.87
  
  
• New IPC Study on North American PCB Industry Forecasts Production Growth to Resume (Thursday Aug. 16, 2012)
  North American printed circuit board (PCB) production declined considerably in 2011, but growth has resumed in 2012 and is forecast to continue through 2014. The North American PCB market also declined slightly in 2011.
  
  
• Toshiba cancels ARM-based computer (Thursday Aug. 16, 2012)
  Toshiba Corp. has cancelled plans to sell computers that run the Windows RT operating system from Microsoft Corp. and that are based on an ARM-based processor, due to delays in getting adequate supplies of components, according to reports.
  
  
• IC Insights Revises U.S. Economic Outlook (Thursday Aug. 16, 2012)
  Although the U.S. economy’s importance to worldwide GDP growth has lessened over the past 15 years, it is by far the largest individual country economy in the world and still represents almost one-quarter of global GDP. IC Insights estimates that 1H12 U.S. GDP growth was 1.7%, slightly lower than the 2.0% full-year U.S. GDP growth rate that IC Insights forecasts for 2012.
  
  
• Increase in Second Quarter 2012 Silicon Wafer Shipments (Tuesday Aug. 14, 2012)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased during the second quarter 2012 when compared to first quarter 2012 area shipments according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.
  
  
• Google cutting 20% of jobs at Motorola Mobility (Monday Aug. 13, 2012)
  Motorola Mobility, the mobile phone company acquired by Google in May 2012 for $12.5 billion, has reportedly notified staff that it plans to cut 20 percent of jobs and close one third of its 94 offices worldwide.
  
  
• Qualcomm Now Has Intel Inside (Monday Aug. 13, 2012)
  This week the semiconductor industry saw two high profile pieces of career news; Anand Chandrasekher (former senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group) was hired by Qualcomm as chief marketing officer, and John Byrne was promoted to chief sales officer at AMD.
  
  
• Tower shortlisted to run Indian fab (Monday Aug. 13, 2012)
  Specialist foundry TowerJazz has said it has been shortlisted by the Indian government to build and run a 300-mm wafer fab in the country.
  
  
• ARM continues Synopsys EDA support (Friday Aug. 10, 2012)
  
  
  
• Long-Term Semiconductor Growth Rates Forecast to Improve. (Friday Aug. 10, 2012)
  Following a lackluster period of average annual market growth in the semiconductor industry, a significant upturn is in store for the next five years, according to data released in IC Insights’ Mid-Year Update to the 2012 McClean Report.
  
  
• Smartphone Applications Processor Revenue Soared 55 Percent in Q1 2012 (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  global smartphone applications processor market showed a solid 55 percent year-over-year growth in Q1 2012 reaching $2.47 billion, according to the Strategy Analytics Handset Component Technologies service report
  
  
• Reports: Wafer discounts, rush orders from MediaTek, Nvidia (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  The supply of chips from foundries in Taiwan is being complicated by discounting and rush orders as companies try to benefit from more-available 40-nm silicon to win against chips design in less available 28-nm, according to reports.
  
  
• Trust in the Semico IPI: 2012 Forecasts Up 7.7% (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  The Semico IPI is right again. As the IPI chart shows, starting in August 2011, the IPI began to dip, signaling a change in semiconductor revenue growth. At the beginning of 2012 Semico was more optimistic than the IPI indicated due to the belief that there was pent-up demand for PCs from the floods in Thailand and new smartphone, TV and Ultrabook models would increase electronic purchases. Semico has revised our 2012 forecast from 8 - 10% to 6 - 8%.
  
  
• Mobile DRAM Market Expands as Usage Increases in Smartphones and Tablets (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  With its relatively robust market growth and increasing usage in hot products like smartphones and media tablets, mobile DRAM is playing a more prominent role in the memory business—including acting as a key factor in Micron Technology Inc.’s recent acquisition of Elpida Memory Inc.
  
  
• Samsung plans ARM-based CPU for servers, says report (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  
  
  
• Does Samsung deal leave CSR out in the cold? (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  The recently announced CSR-Samsung deal, under which Samsung Electronics will acquire CSR’s handset connectivity/location development operations and its technology, was an easy sell to the financial community. Everyone loved it.
  
  
• Microchip closes SMSC deal, discusses integration plans (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  Microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP vendor Microchip Technology Inc. completed the $939 million acquisition of fabless ASSP provider Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMSC), giving it a presence in two key vertical markets: wireless audio and computing.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Remain Steady in June (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.38 billion for the month of June 2012, a slight decrease of 0.1 percent from the prior month when sales were $24.40 billion.
  
  
• Is Synopsys helping chip making return to its roots? (Friday Aug. 03, 2012)
  The news that Synopsys wants to bring together the R&D teams and EDA software products from its recent and proposed acquisitions of Magma, Ciranova and SpringSoft puts me in mind of an intriguing and market-changing perspective.
  
  
• Foundries Soar While Most Japanese Companies Crash in 2Q12 Ranking (Friday Aug. 03, 2012)
  A ranking of the 1H12 top semiconductor suppliers will be included as part of IC Insights' upcoming August Update to The McClean Report. GlobalFoundries jumps five spots and now ranks 16th in the first half 2012 ranking.
  
  
• Report: Lenovo not interested in buying Nokia (Thursday Aug. 02, 2012)
  The price of shares in mobile phone company Nokia Oy was volatile amid heavy trading on Wednesday amid rumors that the company might be bought by Chinese computer maker Lenovo.
  
  
• AMD recruits Apple processor guru as chief chip architect (Wednesday Aug. 01, 2012)
  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has announced the appointment of Jim Keller as corporate vice president and chief architect for microprocessor cores reporting to CTO Mark Papermaster.
  
  
• UMC set to beat TSMC to FinFET process (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  UMC which has been a struggling number two behind foundry leader TSMC could get one over on its long-time rival by being first in production with FinFET process technology.
  
  
• Samsung Regains Smartphone Leadership (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Six months after losing the top position in the smartphone market to Apple, Samsung in the second quarter regained leadership as its sales rose 5 percent to 36 million units, up from 34 million in the first quarter.
  
  
• Reports: Fujitsu is trying to sell its main fab (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. has attempted to open up talks about the sale of its main wafer fab to foundry chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., according to reports. The wafer fab in Mie prefecture makes image processing chips and processors for supercomputers.
  
  
• FinFETs-on-SOI can double battery life, says GSS (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Fully depleted FinFET style transistors made on SOI wafers are likely to allow between half and one-third the leakage current of FinFETs made on bulk silicon according to TCAD simulations performed by Gold Standard Simulations Ltd..
  
  
• Cadence CEO sees design activity keeping pace (Thursday Jul. 26, 2012)
  Cadence Design Systems Inc. President and CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Wednesday (July 25) he expects to see design activity remain at a good pace in the second half of the year, despite macroeconomic challenges.
  
  
• ARM, TSMC lead Intel in SoC, says CEO East (Thursday Jul. 26, 2012)
  ARM CEO Warren East is not concerned that Intel Corp. is developing a lead in process technology of the foundries that ARM licensees usually deal with.