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Commentary / Analysis

• Can We Believe The Hype About China's Domestic IC Production Plans? (Monday Jun. 17, 2019)
  Tariffs and trade issues are forcing China to scale its domestic IC production plans, but do its claims line up with reality? IC Insights believes they do not.
  
  
• Global Fab Equipment Spending to Rebound in 2020 with 20 Percent Growth (Wednesday Jun. 12, 2019)
  Global fab equipment spending will rebound in 2020, growing 20 percent to US$58.4 billion after dropping 19 percent to US$48.4 billion in 2019, according to the Q2 2019 World Fab Forecast update published by SEMI
  
  
• ARM gets a rival as AMD licenses graphics IP to Samsung (Thursday Jun. 06, 2019)
  Samsung Electronics is going to make use of the Radeon graphics architecture from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in future SoCs for mobile applications.
  
  
• Communications IC Market to Again Surpass Computer IC Market (Thursday Jun. 06, 2019)
  Auto IC segment to show fastest future growth but still hold less than a 10% share in 2023.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Decrease 14.6 Percent Year-to-Year in April; 12 Percent Decrease in Annual Sales Projected for 2019 (Wednesday Jun. 05, 2019)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors were $32.1 billion in April 2019, a decrease of 14.6 percent from the April 2018 total of $37.6 billion and 0.4 percent less than the March 2019 total of $32.3 billion.
  
  
• First Quarter 2019 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Billings Drop 19 Percent Year-Over-Year (Tuesday Jun. 04, 2019)
  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings for the first quarter of 2019 dropped 8 percent from the previous quarter and 19 percent from the same quarter in 2018 to US$13.8 billion.
  
  
• Fab Joint Venture Seen for 200 mm (Monday Jun. 03, 2019)
  
  
  
• Intel Says EUV Ready, Challenging (Monday Jun. 03, 2019)
  Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is “ready for introduction…and running in volume for technology development,” said the head of Intel’s EUV program. But engineers still face several challenges harnessing the complex and costly systems to make leading-edge chips in high volume, she said.
  
  
• TSMC to Keep Supplying Chips to Huawei (Monday May. 27, 2019)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plans to continue making chips for Huawei even as other companies in the global semiconductor ecosystem are complying with a U.S. ban on supplies to the Chinese electronics company.
  
  
• Arm Deals Massive Blow to Huawei (Wednesday May. 22, 2019)
  A reported leaked internal memo at Arm has instructed all employees, including in its China subsidiary, to stop working with and supporting Huawei. It would be one of the biggest blows to date in the US-China trade war.
  
  
• US Grants 90-Day Reprieve for Huawei Suppliers (Wednesday May. 22, 2019)
  The U.S. Commerce Dept. has given suppliers of chips and components to Huawei Technologies a 90-day reprieve in the form of a temporary license that will enable them to keep selling parts to Huawei through Aug. 20.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts April 2019 Billings (Wednesday May. 22, 2019)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.91 billion in billings worldwide in April 2019 (three-month average basis). The billings figure is 4.7 percent higher than the final March 2019 level of $1.82 billion, and is 29.0 percent lower than the April 2018 billings level of $2.69 billion.
  
  
• After 2Q19 Bottom, Expectations Increase for a 3Q19 IC Market Rebound (Wednesday May. 22, 2019)
  Over its 60-year history, the IC industry is well known for its cyclical behavior. Looking back to the mid-1970s, IC Insights cannot identify a period where the IC market declined for more than three quarters in a row. Assuming the 2Q19 IC market registers a slight decline of 1% as compared to 1Q19, the 4Q18-2Q19 timeperiod would mark the sixth three-quarter IC market drop on record
  
  
• Intel Recaptures Number One Quarterly Semi Supplier Ranking from Samsung (Friday May. 17, 2019)
  Intel replaced Samsung as the number one quarterly semiconductor supplier in 4Q18 after losing the lead spot to Samsung in 2Q17. While Samsung held the full-year number one ranking in 2017 and 2018, Intel is forecast to easily recapture the number one ranking for the full-year of 2019, a position it previously held from 1993 through 2016.
  
  
• EDA Vendors Spread Wings as Market Softens (Tuesday May. 14, 2019)
  A long, slow march by EDA's three largest vendors to diversify their businesses is coming into sharper focus, even as the EDA market softens after nearly three years of growth.
  
  
• Does a SCM Controller Need a Translation Table? (Monday May. 13, 2019)
  A startup has an idea for a persistent memory controller it believes will help get the most of performance from a storage class memory (SCM) by doing away with translation tables.
  
  
• Intel Targets 2021 for 7 nm (Friday May. 10, 2019)
  After a long delay, Intel will start shipping its first 10-nm processors in June, consistent with the schedule the company has been communicating since last year, executives said. Intel also plans to begin shipping 7-nm processors in 2021, executives told analysts at the company’s annual investor day. The 7-nm process technology will mark Intel’s first use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.
  
  
• Texas Instruments Widens Its Lead As World's Top Analog IC Supplier (Friday May. 10, 2019)
  TI’s 2018 analog sales rise to $10.8 billion; Infineon moves into third position, ST posts strongest annual increase as top-10 suppliers collectively account for 60% of total analog market.
  
  
• ON Semi Acquiring GF Fab Deemed a Win-Win (Monday May. 06, 2019)
  Earlier this week, ON Semiconductor (ON Semi) announced it was buying the GlobalFoundries ex-IBM fab in a $430 million deal that will transition the fab to new ownership over the next three years.
  
  
• Qualcomm Booking $4.5B in Apple Deal (Thursday May. 02, 2019)
  Qualcomm will book a whopping $4.5-$4.7 billion in third quarter revenues as part of the litigation settlement it struck with Apple in mid-April. The funds include both past due patent royalties Apple will pay and Qualcomm’s release from obligations to the iPhone designer and its contract manufacturers.
  
  
• 1Q19 Registers the 4th Largest Sequential IC Market Decline on Record (Thursday May. 02, 2019)
  The 1Q19/4Q18 IC market decline of 17.6% was the fourth largest since 1984 and the third largest first quarter decline over that same timeperiod.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Down 15.5 Percent in First Quarter of 2019 (Tuesday Apr. 30, 2019)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $96.8 billion during the first quarter of 2019, a decrease of 15.5 percent over the previous quarter and 13 percent less than the first quarter of 2018.
  
  
• Survey: China's Fabless IC Firms Optimistic on Sales Growth (Tuesday Apr. 30, 2019)
  One-third of Chinese fabless chip companies who responded to a recent survey by EE Times China believe that their companies will increase sales by more than 20% this year, exceeding the growth rate of 18% for the Chinese chip industry as a whole, as forecasted by the China Semiconductor Association.
  
  
• Silicon Wafer Shipments Drop to Lowest Level Since Fourth Quarter of 2017 (Monday Apr. 29, 2019)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments dropped 5.6 percent during the first quarter 2019 when compared to the fourth quarter 2018 and are now at their lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2017 after silicon wafer shipments for the most recent quarter declined 1 percent quarter-over-quarter.
  
  
• Intel Cuts 2019 Sales Forecast (Monday Apr. 29, 2019)
  Intel's first quarter sales and second quarter forecast fell short of Wall Street's expectations, while company executives reiterated plans to launch its first 10-nm products late this year.
  
  
• ARM, MIPS, Imagination lose IP market share (Monday Apr. 29, 2019)
  In 2018, leading intellectual property licensor ARM Ltd. lost market share along with its peers Imagination Technologies and Wave Computing, the owner of MIPS.
  
  
• TSMC Steps Through 7, 6, 5, Moore (Thursday Apr. 25, 2019)
  TSMC added an N5P process and more details on advanced packages to its roadmap for squeezing advances from silicon at an annual event here.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2019 Billings (Wednesday Apr. 24, 2019)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.83 billion in billings worldwide in March 2019 (three-month average basis), according to the March Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report
  
  
• Machine Learning on DSPs: Enabling Audio AI at the Edge (Monday Apr. 22, 2019)
  Once confined to cloud servers with practically infinite resources, machine learning is moving into edge devices for various reasons including lower latency, reduced cost, energy efficiency, and enhanced privacy.
  
  
• Graphcore CEO Touts 'Most Complex Processor' Ever (Monday Apr. 22, 2019)
  EETimes spoke to Nigel Toon, Graphcore CEO, about the company and its vision, the market for AI accelerators, and the future of AI.