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Commentary / Analysis

• Report: ARM aims to take 20% of notebook PC market (Friday May. 18, 2012)
  Warren East, CEO of processor IP licensor ARM Holdings plc, has said he expects companies making processors based on the ARM cores will take between 10 and 20 percent of the notebook PC market in 2014 or 2015, according to a Dow Jones report.
  
  
• ESilicon set to reap rewards of Asian gamble (Friday May. 18, 2012)
  Design services provider eSilicon Inc. has helped several fabless chip companies and OEMs enter the market by managing their ASIC and SoC flows. It services include everything from IP selection and chip design to foundry and packaging.
  
  
• Report: UMC benefits from TSMC 28-nm supply shortage (Friday May. 18, 2012)
  Chip foundry United Microelectronics Corp. has been the leading beneficiary of 28-nm chip supply shortages at the leading foundry and rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., according to a Taiwan Economic News report.
  
  
• GSA Reports an Increase in April Semiconductor Funding Activity (Wednesday May. 16, 2012)
  In April 2012, venture investment dollars received by semiconductor companies (i.e., fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and semiconductor suppliers) was $194.2 million; a 901.0% increase month-over-month (MoM) and a 461.3% increase year-over-year (YoY).
  
  
• Handicapping the field of possible MIPS suitors (Tuesday May. 15, 2012)
  Correct us if we’re wrong, but many readers may be writing off MIPS Technologies way too soon.
  
  
• Qualcomm, Micron, and GlobalFoundries Gain in 1Q12 Top 20 Ranking (Tuesday May. 15, 2012)
  A ranking of the 1Q12 top semiconductor suppliers is included as part of IC Insights' soon-to-be-released May Update to The McClean Report. Qualcomm moved into fifth place. GlobalFoundries moved into, and Elpida fell out of, the top 20.
  
  
• Four reasons why MIPS new cores may make it relevant again (Monday May. 14, 2012)
  MIPS Technologies rolled out this week a new generation of microprocessor cores called Aptiv. With the new cores’ smaller die size and reduced energy consumption compared to ARM’s midrange core like A15, MIPS is hoping that the new family of cores can put the company back on track.
  
  
• MIPS challenges ARM's Cortex with Aptiv launch (Friday May. 11, 2012)
  In a move reminiscent of ARM's three-tiered Cortex product launch a few years back, struggling processor IP licensor MIPS Technologies Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has introduced three families of Aptiv processor cores addressing the mid, high and low ends of the licensible processor core market.
  
  
• Silicon Ventures tips plan to stem fabless VC drought (Friday May. 11, 2012)
  Ken Lawler, founding partner with Silicon Ventures Inc., laid out his firm's innovative approach to backing chip companies with a $200 million fund, at a European executive conference organized by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), held here this week.
  
  
• Bozotti has a dream: to turn round ST's digital problem (Thursday May. 10, 2012)
  Carlo Bozotti, CEO of European chip company STMicroelectronics NV, has a dream. It is to have both sides of his company be successful and that means fixing mobile chip joint venture ST-Ericsson.
  
  
• Counterfeit-Part Risk Expected to Rise as Semiconductor Market Shifts into Higher Gear (Thursday May. 10, 2012)
  With the semiconductor industry entering a phase of accelerating growth, the number of counterfeit-part incidents also is expected to rise to new record highs, according to an analysis of trends conducted by information and analytics provider IHS
  
  
• ARM dominates 10B unit CPU core market (Thursday May. 10, 2012)
  Driven by the growth of mobile devices, merchant CPU cores shipped in more than 10 billion chips last year, up 25 percent over 2010, according to a new report. ARM Ltd. commanded 78 percent of that market while Ceva and Imagination Technologies took even larger chunks of the smaller markets for DSP and graphics cores.
  
  
• Report: Abu Dhabi's chip unit still in the red (Thursday May. 10, 2012)
  Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC), the semiconductor unit of the Abu Dhabi government's Mubadala investment fund, lost money in each of the last two years and has accumulated a deficit that stood at about $1.12 billion at the end of 2011, according to a report by the Reuters news service that cited a regulatory filing.
  
  
• Activist investor Icahn chastises Mentor again (Thursday May. 03, 2012)
  Billionaire financier Carl Ichan is still agitating EDA vendor Mentor Graphics Corp.. Icahn, who controls about 15 percent of Mentor and last year saw three of his nominees to the company's board elected by shareholders after a proxy fight, issued a new open letter to Mentor Tuesday (May 1) describing his disappointment that two of the three directors were not re-nominated to serve on the company's board for another year.
  
  
• GlobalFoundries, Infineon, IBM, ST linked to Indian fab plan (Wednesday May. 02, 2012)
  More companies are being linked to the Indian government's plan to get one or more semiconductor wafer fabs constructed on the sub-continent. At least five chip companies have expressed an interest in supporting the project, according to a Hindu Business Line report.
  
  
• Six hurdles Intel must clear to be a major foundry (Wednesday May. 02, 2012)
  How far and fast Intel moves to enter the foundry business remains unknown, especially since is secretive about its long-term strategy. But that's not to say that the company is undecided about the potential opportunity in the foundry business.
  
  
• Script for the Intel foundry story is unwritten (Wednesday May. 02, 2012)
  In recent days, there has been much analysis and detective work devoted to figuring out what Intel's dabbling in the foundry business means as far as Intel's long-term future as a foundry player. But trying to read those tea leaves is a fool's errand. We do not yet know how involved Intel will eventually become in the foundry market. And neither does Intel.
  
  
• Intel is a technology explorer, not a foundry (Wednesday May. 02, 2012)
  Intel will not become the next big foundry. As advertised, it will remain a technology explorer content to disrupt the fabless/foundry ecosystem that supports such competitors as Qualcomm, Broadcom and others.
  
  
• Intel as foundry: Don't hold your breath (Wednesday May. 02, 2012)
  Foundry will never be more than a fun and modestly useful sideline for Intel. Intel believes it needs to own the product to win the market. It wants to define the system (aka platform) and sell several high value chips into it.
  
  
• NXP today: 'Practically a Chinese company' (Monday Apr. 30, 2012)
  For anyone who has known NXP Semiconductors since it was the Dutch giant Royal Philips’ subsidiary, NXP today feels much transformed. Instead of pledging changes every quarter, NXP has grown into a company with its own distinct personality and disciplines.
  
  
• Worldwide Semiconductor Market Grew 3.7% in 2011 to $301 Billion -- IDC Expects 6-7% Revenue Growth in 2012 (Monday Apr. 30, 2012)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenues increased more than 3.7% year over year to $301 billion in 2011. A number of mergers and acquisitions came to fruition in 2011, most notably Qualcomm--Atheros, Texas Instruments--National Semiconductor, SMSC--Conexant, Broadcom--NetLogic, CSR--Zoran, and Microsemi--Zarlink. This trend is expected to continue in 2012.
  
  
• Achronix chairman: Intel foundry gambit poised for payoff (Monday Apr. 30, 2012)
  Achronix Semiconductor Corp., eight years into its startup phase, is hanging its hat on Intel’s 22-nm FinFET process technology for its survival and envisioned victory as it prepares to go public in 2014.
  
  
• TSMC raises capex to record $8.5 billion, pulls in 20-nm (Monday Apr. 30, 2012)
  
  
  
• Chip execs see 20 nm variants, 3-D ICs ahead (Monday Apr. 30, 2012)
  Next-generation 20 nm processes can support optimized versions for low power and high performance, according to an IBM expert. GlobalFoundries will decide in August whether or not it will offer such variations.
  
  
• Three Chinese Cellphone Suppliers Join the Top 10 According to Forward Concepts (Thursday Apr. 26, 2012)
  Among the top 10 cellphone vendors, Nokia, Samsung and Apple topped 2011 unit shipments. Chinese suppliers Huawei, ZTE and TCL moved into the top ten. In revenue, however, Apple led over Samsung and Nokia. We expect Samsung to pass Nokia in smartphone shipments in 2012, taking the 2nd position behind Apple.
  
  
• 3-D FPGAs enable silicon convergence (Wednesday Apr. 25, 2012)
  The three-dimensional (3-D) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is enabling the era of silicon convergence, according to Altera Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), which is incorporating application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), application-specific standard products (ASSPs), digital signal processors (DSPs) and micro-processor units (MPUs).
  
  
• Intel exec says fabless model "collapsing" (Wednesday Apr. 25, 2012)
  It’s the beginning of the end for the fabless model according to Mark Bohr, the man I think of as Mr. Process Technology at Intel.
  
  
• China mulls national CPU architecture spec (Tuesday Apr. 24, 2012)
  China government officials kicked off a program last month that aims to define a national processor architecture. If the initiative is successful, the processor could become a requirement for use in any projects seeking government funding such as purchases of computers or smartphones
  
  
• Time for a return to the customer-backed joint venture foundry? (Monday Apr. 23, 2012)
  Qualcomm and some other companies are leaving money on the table because they can't get enough 28-nm chips to meet demand out of foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. Horror of horrors some customers are looking for ways to switch other companies' chips into slots previously designed around those vendors' ICs.
  
  
• Broadcom, Qualcomm, CSR, and Texas Instruments are Benefiting from $8 Billion Wireless Connectivity IC Market Bonanza (Friday Apr. 20, 2012)
  Wireless connectivity ICs totaled more than $8 billion in 2011 and will produce revenues close to $40 billion for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS, and combo ICs through 2016.