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Commentary / Analysis

• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Declined 1.9 Percent in 2015 (Thursday Jan. 07, 2016)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $333.7 billion in 2015, a 1.9 percent decrease from 2014 revenue of $340.3 billion, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Samsung, TSMC Remain Tops in Available Wafer Fab Capacity (Thursday Jan. 07, 2016)
  Among the world’s top 10 capacity leaders in 2015 were four companies headquartered in North America, two companies based in South Korea and in Taiwan, and one company each from Europe and Japan.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports EDA Industry Revenue Increase For Q3 2015 (Wednesday Jan. 06, 2016)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 7.1 percent for Q3 2015 to $1957.5 million, compared to $1828.1 million in Q3 2014.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Dip Slightly in November (Tuesday Jan. 05, 2016)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $28.9 billion for the month of November 2015, 0.3 percent lower than the previous month’s total of $29.0 billion and 3.0 percent down from the November 2014 total of $29.8 billion.
  
  
• Car as a Commodity: From Hummers to Ho-Hum (Monday Jan. 04, 2016)
  Is Google threatening to homogenize cars into oblivion as Microsoft/Intel did with PCs and Google itself did with its Android smartphones?
  
  
• 8 Predictions for 2016 (Monday Jan. 04, 2016)
  It's been a long, busy year and my crystal ball is flashing me warnings that its battery is almost spent, so take these few blurry visions for what they're worth.
  
  
• 2016: Expect Unexpected Innovation in IP Development (Thursday Dec. 31, 2015)
  We know what to expect from the global electronics innovation cycles—more of everything: density, chips, standards, IP blocks, on and on. But is that it? In 2016, we should expect the unexpected.
  
  
• Google, HP, Oracle Join RISC-V (Monday Dec. 28, 2015)
  RISC-V is on the march as an open source alternative to ARM and Mips. Fifteen sponsors, including a handful of high tech giants, are queuing up to be the first members of its new trade group which will host next week its third workshop for the processor core.
  
  
• Mergers in Memory Abundant in 2015 (Monday Dec. 28, 2015)
  Merger and acquisition activity was rampant for memory and flash makers in 2015, making it a busy year for consolidation in the industry.
  
  
• Samsung Running 28nm FDSOI Chip Process (Thursday Dec. 24, 2015)
  Samsung is running 28nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) wafers for STMicroelectronics, the developer of the technology, and has other customers lined up, according to an Advanced Substrate News report.
  
  
• Apple Finds Home At Former Q'comm Display Lab (Tuesday Dec. 22, 2015)
  Apple has started work in a small-scale production facility in Longtan near Taipei, Taiwan on display technologies, according to a Bloomberg report.
  
  
• Startup Preps Big Data Processor (Monday Dec. 21, 2015)
  Nervana Systems is on the cusp of rolling out a microprocessor designed for big data analytics. The startup’s work is one of a handful of efforts aiming to accelerate deep neural networks in hardware for a variety of recognition tasks.
  
  
• Leti Strains to Improve FDSOI (Monday Dec. 21, 2015)
  French research institute CEA-Leti has reported on two techniques to put local strain in the silicon channel of a fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) manufacturing process.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts November 2015 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.96 (Monday Dec. 21, 2015)
  
  
  
• ARM has re-invented itself as a systems company (Thursday Dec. 17, 2015)
  Low-powered processor developer, ARM has been steadily building a broader range of silicon IP and the software that runs on it.
  
  
• Internet of Things Market to Nearly Double by 2019 (Thursday Dec. 17, 2015)
  Between 2015 and 2019, worldwide systems revenues for applications connecting to the Internet of Things will nearly double, reaching $124.5 billion in the final year of this decade, according to IC Insights’ new 2016 edition of its IC Market Drivers report.
  
  
• TSMC Work on 5nm Process Leaves EUV Undecided (Tuesday Dec. 15, 2015)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest foundry, said it has started work on a 5nm process to push ahead its most advanced technology, yet the company remains undecided on the adoption of extreme ultraviolet lithography at that node.
  
  
• Semiconductor Equipment Sales Forecast: $37 Billion in 2015 and $38 Billion in 2016 (Tuesday Dec. 15, 2015)
  SEMI projects that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will decrease 0.6 percent to $37.3 billion in 2015, according to the SEMI Year-end Forecast, released today at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition. In 2016, nominal positive growth is expected, resulting in a global market increase of 1.4 percent.
  
  
• SEMI Reports Third Quarter 2015 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Figures; Billings $9.6 Billion (Thursday Dec. 10, 2015)
  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$9.6 billion in the third quarter of 2015.
  
  
• Why TSMC Wants to Build a 12-inch Wafer Fab in China (Thursday Dec. 10, 2015)
  
  
  
• Fab Equipment Spending: Look for Upward Swing into 2016 (Wednesday Dec. 09, 2015)
  Worldwide semiconductor fab equipment capital expenditure growth (new and used) for 2015 is expected to be 0.5 percent (total capex of US$35.8 billion), increasing another 2.6 percent (to a total of $36.7 billion) in 2016.
  
  
• ARM has plan to make $1 Cortex-M processors secure (Tuesday Dec. 08, 2015)
  ARM will add deeply embedded in-the-chip security to its volume Cortex-M series microcontrollers next year
  
  
• Scope, Not Scale, Drives Freescale/NXP Nuptials (Tuesday Dec. 08, 2015)
  As NXP Semiconductors and Freescale Semiconductor officially completed a blockbuster merger Monday (Dec. 7), NXP CEO Rick Clemmer declined to answer an EE Times question about the number of layoffs likely to ensue. The CEO said he won’t yet know absolute numbers for a few months.
  
  
• ARM Sizes Up Moore's Law (Tuesday Dec. 08, 2015)
  It’s getting harder and more costly to make chips smaller and faster, but there is still hope for advancing Moore’s Law, according to a keynote at the annual International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in Washington D.C. this week.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase in October; Slight Growth Projected for Next Three Years (Monday Dec. 07, 2015)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $29.0 billion for the month of October 2015, 1.9 percent higher than the previous month’s total of $28.4 billion and 2.5 percent lower than the October 2014 total of $29.7 billion.
  
  
• What Freescale-NXP Merger Can Teach Us (Monday Dec. 07, 2015)
  As a new NXP, conceived in a merger with Freescale Semiconductor, approaches its day of birth — Monday, Dec. 7 — the crucial issue posed by a combined entity worth as much as $10 billion in revenue is its impact on the competitive landscape in the semiconductor market.
  
  
• IDMs Could Top Fabless Semiconductor Company Growth for Only the Second Time in History (Thursday Dec. 03, 2015)
  Unlike the relatively close annual market growth relationship between fabless semiconductor suppliers and foundries, fabless semiconductor company sales growth versus IDM (integrated device manufacturers) semiconductor supplier growth has typically been very different.
  
  
• IC Merger Mania Hits Fever Pitch (Thursday Dec. 03, 2015)
  With the announcement that Microsemi outbid Skyworks for PMC-Sierra, the total value of semiconductor industry acquisitions announced in 2015 eclipsed the $100 billion mark.
  
  
• Report: Abu Dhabi holding talks over GlobalFoundries sale (Thursday Nov. 26, 2015)
  Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Development Co. has held talks with potential buyers for all or part of Globalfoundries Inc. according to a Bloomberg report that cited unnamed sources.
  
  
• Securing medical in the IoT (Wednesday Nov. 25, 2015)
  Hacker Jay Radcliffe shares his thoughts on the Internet of Things and medical devices, how security needs to be engineered into medical devices, FDA oversight, and more.