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Commentary / Analysis

• Global Semiconductor Sales Decrease in April; Annual Sales Projected to Dip Slightly in 2016, Rebound in 2017, 2018 (Wednesday Jun. 08, 2016)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.8 billion for the month of April 2016, a decrease of 1.0 percent from last month’s total of $26.1 billion and 6.2 percent lower than the April 2015 total of $27.6 billion.
  
  
• ARM-Based Server Processors Finally Hitting Stride (Monday Jun. 06, 2016)
  Vendors of ARM-based server-class microprocessors will begin to gain traction with their newest designs next year following years of ecosystem development, according to a new report by International Data Corp. (IDC).
  
  
• Long-term Strategy Pays Off As TI Maintains Analog Leadership (Wednesday Jun. 01, 2016)
  The 2015 analog market grew 2% to $47.0 billion. Combined sales of general-purpose analog products (amplifiers/comparators, interface, power management, an signal conversion devices) increased 2% to $19.1 billion and sales of application-specific analog devices also improved 2% to $27.9 billion. Among analog IC products the market for signal conversion devices showed the largest increase in 2015, growing 14% to $2.9 billion.
  
  
• ARM's Bifrost Steps Up Graphics, Bridges to Machine Learning (Wednesday Jun. 01, 2016)
  The Mali-G71 GPU core is ARM's first that follows a new architecture called Bifrost that has been launched providing support for the Vulkan API from the industry-run Khronos Group.
  
  
• Despite Economic Headwinds in China, Industrial Semiconductor Revenues Rose in 2015, IHS Says (Tuesday May. 31, 2016)
  Industrial semiconductor revenues rose slightly in 2015 despite weakness in the overall semiconductor industry and, in particular, economic headwinds in China, which is a major global consumer of industrial chips.
  
  
• FDSOI Driving ST's Automotive Biz (Monday May. 30, 2016)
  The fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) chip manufacturing process championed by STMicroelectronics has become almost the default choice for digital manufacturing within the automotive and discrete group (ADG) business unit at ST, according that group's senior executive.
  
  
• Communications and Computer Systems Drive IC Sales Across All Regions (Thursday May. 26, 2016)
  Communication and computer systems are forecast to be two of the three largest system applications for IC sales in every global region—Americas, Europe, Japan, and Asia-Pacific—this year, according to data presented in the upcoming Update to the 2016 edition of IC Insights’ IC Market Drivers
  
  
• Globalfoundries Working on Next-Gen FDSOI Process (Wednesday May. 25, 2016)
  The 22FDX fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) process developed by Globalfoundries Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is on track to debut later this year and the company is working on the follow-on process, according to chief technology officer Gary Patton.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts April 2016 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.10 (Wednesday May. 25, 2016)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.59 billion in orders worldwide in April 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.10, according to the April Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Foundries' Sales Show Hard Times Continuing (Tuesday May. 24, 2016)
  Taiwanese foundries TSMC and UMC, two partial bellwethers of the semiconductor sector, have both indicate with recent sales figures that a chip market slow down that lasted through the winter is not yet over.
  
  
• Accelerators Unite ARM, IBM, X86 (Monday May. 23, 2016)
  Seven chip makers will define a cache-coherent interconnect for server accelerators, providing an alternative to Intel and Nvidia in a red hot sector of cloud computing. The effort is the first hardware collaboration of its type to span ARM, x86 and Power processors.
  
  
• Semiconductor Merger Mania: A Change From Historical Norms? (Monday May. 23, 2016)
  In 2015, an amazing wave of consolidations struck the semiconductor industry. Proposed mergers approached $160B in market value and over $100B have already been consummated. That’s more than six times the largest annual merger amount in the history of the semiconductor industry.
  
  
• First Quarter 2016 Silicon Wafer Shipments Increase Quarter-Over-Quarter (Tuesday May. 17, 2016)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased during the first quarter 2016 when compared to fourth quarter 2015 area shipments according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.
  
  
• Five Months into the Year and Market Finally Reaching Bottom; IDC Forecasts Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Still to Fall 2.3% to $324 Billion (Monday May. 16, 2016)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue will fall for a second consecutive year to $324 billion, down 2.3% from the previous year according to the latest update of the Semiconductor Applications Forecaster (SAF) from International Data Corporation (IDC)
  
  
• Seven Top-20 1Q16 Semiconductor Suppliers Show Double-Digit Declines (Friday May. 13, 2016)
  Qualcomm, Micron, and SK Hynix registered ≥25% drops, with total top-20 sales off by 6%.
  
  
• Open-Silicon CEO: Creating a legacy through traditional values (Thursday May. 12, 2016)
  President and CEO of Open-Silicon, Taher Madraswala has a quarter of a century of experience in semiconductor engineering. Here, he outlines his vision of how the market will change over the next five years…
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Capital Spending to Decline 2 Percent in 2016 (Tuesday May. 10, 2016)
  Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to decline 2 percent in 2016, to $62.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.. This is up from the estimated 4.7 percent decline in Gartner's previous quarterly forecast.
  
  
• Automotive Electronics System Demand Fails to Boost Automotive IC Market in 2015 (Tuesday May. 10, 2016)
  h discussion increasingly focused on autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, demand is rising for electronic systems to support new, intelligent cars. Meanwhile, older, existing technology on high-end vehicles continues to migrate down to mid-range and low-end cars and technology-based aftermarket products are gaining momentum.
  
  
• Texas Instruments Leads Industrial Semiconductor Vendor Share Ranking in 2015; Market Rises to $40.7 billion (Wednesday May. 04, 2016)
  According to the latest analysis by Semicast Research, Texas Instruments was the leading vendor of semiconductors to the industrial sector in 2015, ahead of Infineon Technologies. Intel passed STMicroelectronics to become the third largest vendor following the acquisition of Altera, with Renesas Electronics completing the top five.
  
  
• CMOS Image Sensors Expected To Set Record-High Sales for Another Five Years (Wednesday May. 04, 2016)
  CMOS image sensors are in the middle of an unprecedented string of record-high annual sales thanks to the rapid spread of embedded digital-imaging technology into a wide range of end-use applications that go far beyond smartphones and stand-alone cameras.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase Slightly in March (Tuesday May. 03, 2016)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $26.1 billion for the month of March 2016, a slight increase of 0.3 percent compared to the previous month’s total of $26.0 billion.
  
  
• How Intel Missed the Smartphone Call (Monday May. 02, 2016)
  Its lack of expertise in SoCs, insistence on its x86 architecture and some bad luck kept Intel from enjoying the smartphone boom.
  
  
• Indian fabs, the free market and central planning (Monday May. 02, 2016)
  Over the next year will be an interesting test of two opposites in political thinking applied to the creation of wafer fabs. There are currently plans to construct three semiconductor wafer fabs in India.
  
  
• Intel to Exit Mobile SoC Business (Monday May. 02, 2016)
  As it proceeds with a massive restructuring plan announced earlier this month, Intel will exit the smartphone and tablet mobile SoC business by ending its struggling Atom chip product line. The discontinued products include those code-named SoFIA, Broxton and Cherry Trail.
  
  
• Xilinx Shares Decline After Light Forecast (Thursday Apr. 28, 2016)
  Shares of programmable logic vendor Xilinx Inc. traded lower in after hours trading Wednesday (April 27) after the company reported quarterly results that beat consensus analysts’ expectations but forecast roughly flat sales for the current quarter.
  
  
• UMC: Business to Bounce Back This Year (Wednesday Apr. 27, 2016)
  United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), the world’s third-largest foundry, said that by the second half of 2016, it expects business to recover from a slump that impacted demand for communications chips starting last year.
  
  
• Apple Drove Entire Foundry Sales Increase at TSMC in 2015 (Wednesday Apr. 27, 2016)
  IC Insights’ April Update to the 2016 McClean Report, to be released later this week, includes IC Insights’ final 2015 top 50 company rankings for total semiconductor and IC sales as well as rankings of the leading suppliers of DRAM, flash memory, MPUs, IC foundry services, etc.
  
  
• China's Chip Patent Growth May Be Short Lived (Monday Apr. 25, 2016)
  A big spurt in semiconductor patent grants in China may not be sustainable, according to an analysis of the data by a intellectual property expert.
  
  
• Samsung Details Foundry Roadmap (Monday Apr. 25, 2016)
  Officials from Samsung Semiconductor Inc. (SSI) detailed the company’s foundry roadmap, which includes expanding FD-SOI production and offering low-cost alternatives to existing FinFET technologies.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2016 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.15 (Monday Apr. 25, 2016)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.38 billion in orders worldwide in March 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.15, according to the March Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.