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Commentary / Analysis

• Gartner Says Current Semiconductor Inventory at "Worrisome Levels" (Wednesday Sep. 21, 2011)
  Semiconductor days of inventory (DOI) are forecast to plateau in the third quarter of 2011 at worrisome levels given current conditions and the likelihood that consumer and business spending will be weaker than expected, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• GSA Reports All Semiconductor Company Segments Garnered Funding in August 2011 (Wednesday Sep. 21, 2011)
  In August, six semiconductor companies raised $65.3 million, down 20.0% from the $81.6 million raised in July 2011. August’s funding total decreased year-over-year (YoY) at a rate of 17.3%.
  
  
• More advice on navigating patent-law shifts (Thursday Sep. 15, 2011)
  The America Invents Act implements significant changes to the U.S. patent system, so it's prudent to consider how those changes impact intellectual property strategies and practices that have developed over the past few decades.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Sales Slowing Rapidly; 2011 Revenue to Decline 0.1 Percent (Thursday Sep. 15, 2011)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue has slowed in 2011, and the market is on pace to have revenue total $299 billion, a decline of 0.1 percent from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Navigating the shifts in U.S. patent law (Wednesday Sep. 14, 2011)
  The America Invents Act (House Bill H.R. 1249) was passed by the United States Senate on September 8, 2011 and is expected to be signed by President Obama in short order. This is the most vigorous revision of US patent law since the 1950’s.
  
  
• Report: Intel acquires ESL firm CoFluent (Tuesday Sep. 13, 2011)
  Intel has done a deal to acquire CoFluent Design, the vendor of the CoFluent Studio EDA software that supports system-level design and time-behavioral modeling, according to a Japanese language report.
  
  
• ARM Forecast To Record Highest Growth In The 32/64-bit MCU/eMPU Market But x86 Set To Remain The Leading Challenger (Monday Sep. 12, 2011)
  According to findings from the 2011 edition of Semicast’s study of 32/64-bit Microcontrollers, Embedded Microprocessors & DSPs, ARM became the leading architecture for 32/64-bit MCUs/eMPUs in 2010, ahead of x64/x86 and Power Architecture.
  
  
• ABI Research Sees Fast Transition to 802.11ac, Crossing the 50% Threshold in 2014 (Monday Sep. 12, 2011)
  Following small shipment volumes in 2012 and a significant increase in shipments in 2013, IEEE 802.11ac will emerge as the dominant Wi-Fi protocol by 2014.
  
  
• TSMC says equipment vendors late for 14nm (Wednesday Sep. 07, 2011)
  Time is running out to make critical decisions for how to make 14nm chips expected to hit production in 2015, and capital equipment vendors are falling behind. That was the upshot of a talk by the top R&D executive at TSMC at Semicon Taiwan here.
  
  
• China's fabless turn to Taiwan, says survey (Tuesday Sep. 06, 2011)
  China's fabless chip companies are turning to Taiwan to a greater degree to help them get close to the leading-edge in geometry and compete globally, according to an IC design house and fabless chip company survey conducted by EE Times-China.
  
  
• Semico Forecasting February 2012 as the Bottom; Next Upswing Begins: 2Q12 (Thursday Sep. 01, 2011)
  The IPI has been showing a weak second half for over a year. Given June's poor performance, it stands to reason we're looking at a three quarter downturn: 3Q11, 4Q11, and 1Q12. OEMs will burn off inventory during the second half of 2011 while foundries cut back on capital expenditures.
  
  
• Electronics enters era of 'systemic risk' (Thursday Sep. 01, 2011)
  The electronics industry has entered an era of "systemic complexity" where growing ecosystems of companies need to collaborate closely, according to a panel of chief executives.
  
  
• 3D ICs without TSVs? (Thursday Sep. 01, 2011)
  A new approach to assembling 3D ICs may eliminate the need for TSVs.
  
  
• Economic news not all bad for semiconductors (Wednesday Aug. 31, 2011)
  According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reporting of World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) data, the semiconductor market declined 2% in 2Q 2011 from 1Q 2011. The semiconductor market in 2Q 2011 was down 0.5% from a year ago after 8.2% year-to-year growth in 1Q 2011.
  
  
• DRAM Pricing to Plunge in Q3 and Rest of Second Half (Monday Aug. 29, 2011)
  A dramatic oversupply and freefalling prices are in store during the third quarter for the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) space, resulting in a turbulent second half for besieged DRAM suppliers, according to a new IHS iSuppli DRAM Market Brief from information and analysis provider IHS
  
  
• IC Market to Top $300 Billion for First Time in 2013 (Thursday Aug. 25, 2011)
  Momentum that carried the IC industry to one of its strongest growth years in history in 2010 has dissipated and the feeling of optimism that was evident at the start of 2011 has been replaced with sentiments of caution, uncertainty, and hesitancy as economic headwinds have put a damper on forecast growth.
  
  
• ARM wrestles with silicon, battery hurdles (Friday Aug. 19, 2011)
  Big hurdles in silicon scaling and battery technology stand in the way of huge opportunities in mobile systems, said an ARM executive in a Hot Chips keynote.
  
  
• Complex SoC Silicon and Software Design Costs Are Skyrocketing (Thursday Aug. 18, 2011)
  Today, everywhere we turn, we hear speakers give presentations at conferences and industry events despairing how the rise in silicon design costs hampers the semiconductor industry's growth path. As part of this problem, we now recognize that software design costs have eclipsed silicon design efforts and have become the largest portion of the SoC creation effort.
  
  
• TI says OMAP not for sale (Thursday Aug. 18, 2011)
  Texas Instruments Inc. said Wednesday (Aug. 17) that its OMAP multimedia applications processor line is not for sale, contrary to widely circulated rumors.
  
  
• Viewpoint: Why Microsoft should buy Nokia (Wednesday Aug. 17, 2011)
  Monumental changes are taking place in the wireless handset and tablet PC market. Companies are crossing operating lines as it becomes more obvious that the dividing lines between software and hardware businesses were artificially created and are no longer justifiable or viable.
  
  
• Could Intel buy TI's OMAP division? (Wednesday Aug. 17, 2011)
  Try this one on for size: Intel Corp., whose x86 architecture is locked in a struggle for supremacy with the ARM architecture, could actually be a perspective buyer of Texas Instruments Inc.'s line of ARM-based applications processors, according to speculation by an analyst.
  
  
• Google to Buy Struggling Motorola Mobility (Tuesday Aug. 16, 2011)
  Google agreeing today to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion gives the search giant a more significant direct involvement in the design and production of mobile phone hardware and shores up a valuable intellectual property portfolio during a time when legal maneuvering through patent holdings is plaguing the Android market.
  
  
• What Google/Moto means for Android OEMs (Tuesday Aug. 16, 2011)
  Google's bid for Motorola raises new tensions among smartphone, tablet and TV makers as the Web giant figure out how to manage handset and set-top businesses.
  
  
• Google's Moto bid: It's all about the patents (Tuesday Aug. 16, 2011)
  Google's $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility is all about the patents in a superheated legal battle over the future of Android.
  
  
• Viewpoint: Don't believe the patent sale hype (Monday Aug. 15, 2011)
  The $4.5 billion Nortel patent sale, which has lead to a flurry of commentary about a bubble in patent valuation, was an outlier, not a trend. Here's why.
  
  
• TSMC's A6 processor to respin, says report (Friday Aug. 12, 2011)
  Foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) – said to have started trial manufacturing of the ARM-based A6 processor for Apple – will put the IC through another tape-out for the "production design" in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Taiwan Economic News.
  
  
• Android takes almost 50% share of worldwide smart phone market (Monday Aug. 08, 2011)
  Canalys today published its final worldwide country-level Q2 2011 smart phone market estimates, showing substantial market growth in all regions. Globally, the market grew 73% year-on-year, with in excess of 107.7 million units shipping in the second quarter of 2011.
  
  
• MIPS' fourth quarter disappoints (Friday Aug. 05, 2011)
  Processor intellectual property licensor MIPS Technologies Inc. turned in a disappointing set of financial results for the second quarter of 2011 which was its own fourth fiscal quarter. Both revenue and net income were down from the same quarter a year before.
  
  
• Mentor CEO Rhines fears foundry oversupply (Wednesday Aug. 03, 2011)
  While global semiconductor revenue is projected to expand by 7.2 percent in 2011, Walden Rhines, chairman and CEO of EDA vendor Mentor Graphics Corp., sounds a note of caution about maintaining this growth in 2012.
  
  
• IC Insights Lowers 2011 Worldwide Semiconductor Market Forecast to +5% (Thursday Jul. 28, 2011)
  As described in IC Insights' soon-to-be-released Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report, the worldwide semiconductor industry growth forecast for 2011 has been lowered from 10% to 5% and the 2011 IC market forecast from 10% to 4%. The primary cause for this downgrade is the weak performance of the worldwide economy in the first half of this year.