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Commentary / Analysis

• Covid-19 and The Success Story of Taiwan (Monday Mar. 16, 2020)
  Taiwan is a region only a few kilometers off the coast of mainland China and was expected to have the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in 2019 (Covid-19) due to its proximity and the number of flights between China.
  
  
• "Black Swan" Event Triggers Revision to 2020 IC Market Forecast (Wednesday Mar. 11, 2020)
  “Black Swan” is a commonly used phrase in the world of finance to describe an event that is unexpected and unknowable. The recent surge of the spread of the coronavirus (Covid-19) and its anticipated negative impact on the global economy and IC market definitely fits the definition of a Black Swan event.
  
  
• U.S. Considers Blocking Infineon's Purchase of Cypress (Monday Mar. 09, 2020)
  Reports that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) may yet recommend the Infineon Technologies acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor be blocked on the grounds of national security risks have triggered falls in the shares of both companies. But is this just market rumor?
  
  
• Global Fab Equipment Spending Poised for 2021 Record High (Monday Mar. 09, 2020)
  Global fab equipment spending promises to rebound from its 2019 downturn and see a modest recovery this year before a sharp uptick drives record investments in 2021, SEMI reported today in the latest update of its World Fab Forecast report.
  
  
• Transistor Count Trends Continue to Track with Moore's Law (Monday Mar. 09, 2020)
  Though growth rates in some product categories have slowed, doubling of transistors per chip every two years remains a guideline that the industry continues to follow.
  
  
• HBM Flourishes, But HMC Lives (Thursday Mar. 05, 2020)
  At first glance, the rivalry between hybrid memory cube (HMC) and high bandwidth memory (HBM) mirrors the battle between Beta and VHS. But there’s one clear difference: HMC isn’t dead.
  
  
• Semiconductor Units To Rebound, Exceed 1 Trillion Devices Again in 2020 (Thursday Feb. 27, 2020)
  Annual semiconductor unit shipments, including integrated circuits and optoelectronics, sensors, and discrete (O-S-D) devices are forecast to rise 7% in 2020 and surpass one trillion units for the second time in history.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts January 2020 Billings (Monday Feb. 24, 2020)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.34 billion in billings worldwide in January 2020 (three-month average basis), according to the January Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI .
  
  
• Revenue per Wafer Rising As Demand Grows for sub-7nm IC Processes (Thursday Feb. 20, 2020)
  Despite high development costs, using smaller nodes yield larger revenue per wafer
  
  
• Covid-19 Is Crimping the Electronics Industry (Tuesday Feb. 18, 2020)
  The coronavirus epidemic is likely to have a negative impact on general markets, especially consumer markets. Global GDP is going to take at least a minor hit.
  
  
• Five Semiconductor Companies Hold 53% of Global Wafer Capacity (Thursday Feb. 13, 2020)
  Combined capacity of the top five companies represented 53% of total global wafer capacity at the end of 2019. In contrast, the top five capacity leaders in 2009 held 36% of worldwide capacity.
  
  
• Acquisition Rebound Lifts 2019 to Third-Largest M&A Year (Thursday Feb. 06, 2020)
  More than 30 semiconductor acquisition agreements in 2019 had a combined value of $31.7 billion, which was a 22% increase from $25.9 billion in 2018
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Spending Declined in 2019 Due to Slowing Macroeconomy and Falling Memory Prices (Wednesday Feb. 05, 2020)
  Apple reclaimed the No. 1 position among global semiconductor chip buyers in 2019, representing 8.6% of the total worldwide market, according to Gartner, Inc. Samsung dropped to the second spot with 8% market share.
  
  
• 2019 Global Silicon Shipments Dip From 2018 Record High But Revenue Remained Stable Above $11 Billion, SEMI Reports (Wednesday Feb. 05, 2020)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments in 2019 declined 7 percent from the 2018 record high while revenue remained above the $11 billion mark despite a global silicon revenue slip of 2 percent over the same period
  
  
• China Maintains Chip Output in Wake of Virus Outbreak (Tuesday Feb. 04, 2020)
  It’s hard to square the “all is well” stance in China’s chip sector with reports from other markets. The outbreak will create a significant near-term reduction in LCD production in China, says IHS Markit.
  
  
• Worldwide Semiconductor Sales Decrease 12 Percent to $412 Billion in 2019 (Tuesday Feb. 04, 2020)
  Global sales for the month of December 2019 reached $36.1 billion, a decline of 5.5 percent compared to the December 2018 total and 1.7 percent less than the total from November 2019.
  
  
• Supply Chain Poised for Coronavirus Disruption (Monday Feb. 03, 2020)
  Crucial to the electronics industry in this crisis is the trifecta of a US/China trade war, Brexit in Europe and supply-chain uncertainties triggered by the coronavirus.
  
  
• Semiconductor R&D To Nudge Higher Through 2024 (Monday Feb. 03, 2020)
  Technical challenges including the move to EUV lithography, sub-3nm process technology, 3D die-stacking technologies, and advanced packaging are expected to lift R&D growth rates.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts December 2019 Billings (Friday Jan. 24, 2020)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.49 billion in billings worldwide in December 2019
  
  
• 26 of 33 IC Products Forecast to Demonstrate Positive Growth in 2020 (Thursday Jan. 23, 2020)
  Sales growth in eight categories is expected to increase by 8% or more, which is IC Insights’ forecast growth rate for the total IC market in 2020. Two product categories—Automotive-Special Purpose Logic and Embedded MPUs—appear on the top-growth list all three years.
  
  
• Apple, Huawei Use TSMC, But Their 7nm SoCs Are Different (Thursday Jan. 23, 2020)
  Most SoCs in 2019 use 7nm process technologies. But at a closer look, everyone’s 7nm – used in smartphone SoCs or even PC CPUs – seems somewhat different.
  
  
• Global GDP Growth An Increasingly Important Driver of IC Market Growth (Monday Jan. 20, 2020)
  Over the 2010-2019 timeframe, the correlation coefficient between worldwide GDP growth and IC market growth was 0.85 (0.96 excluding the memory market in 2017 and 2018), a strong figure given that a perfect positive correlation is 1.0.
  
  
• Apple Reportedly Acquires Xnor (Friday Jan. 17, 2020)
  Reports are circulating that the Seattle-based AI at the edge company Xnor has been quietly acquired by Apple. An investigation by GeekWire suggests the deal was worth in the region of $200 million. This development could mean Xnor’s low-power algorithms for object detection in photos end up on the iPhone.
  
  
• Is ReRAM Ready to Leave the R&D Phase? (Thursday Jan. 16, 2020)
  Resistive RAM is the epitome of an “emerging” memory in that, for the most part, it’s still in the research and development phase.
  
  
• AI Chips: What Will 2020 Bring? (Thursday Jan. 16, 2020)
  2020 is set to be the most important year yet when it comes to the evolution of the nascent AI accelerator chip industry. Here are a few ideas about what we might see happening this year, in no particular order…
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Declined 11.9% in 2019 (Tuesday Jan. 14, 2020)
  Intel regained the No. 1 position in the market as the downturn in the memory market negatively impacted many of the top vendors, including Samsung Electronics, the No. 1 vendor by revenue in 2018 and 2017.
  
  
• China Only Region to Register Pure-Play Foundry Market Growth in 2019 (Thursday Jan. 09, 2020)
  With the rise of the fabless IC companies in China (e.g., HiSilicon) over the past 10 years, the demand for foundry services has also risen in that country. China market was the only major region that showed an increase in pure-play foundry sales last year.
  
  
• ESD Alliance Reports EDA Industry Revenue Increase for Q3 2019 (Tuesday Jan. 07, 2020)
  The Electronic System Design (ESD) Alliance Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 8.9 percent for Q3 2019 to $2567.7 million, compared to $2358.3 million in Q3 2018.
  
  
• HiSilicon No Longer Huawei's Captive Chipmaker (Thursday Jan. 02, 2020)
  HiSilicon launched 4G communication chips on an open market, making it official that Huawei’s internal IC division is now externally supplying a host of chips to the industry.
  
  
• Record Amount of IC Capacity Forecast to be Added in 2021 (Monday Dec. 23, 2019)
  Faced with sharp declines in the ASPs of DRAM and NAND flash chips in 2019 many memory manufacturers delayed a portion of their near-term capacity expansion plans. With the plans only delayed and not canceled, there is still a significant amount of IC capacity that is expected to be brought online in 2020 and 2021.