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Commentary / Analysis

• Semi IP licensing growth slows, vendor ranking stabilizes (Wednesday May. 06, 2015)
  The pace of growth for the market for semiconductor intellectual property (IP) slowed in 2014 after four years of double-digit percentage annual increases, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.
  
  
• TSMC Aims for 7nm in 2017 (Tuesday May. 05, 2015)
  Foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) is aiming for "risk production" of integrated circuits on a 7nm manufacturing process in 2017.
  
  
• First Quarter Semiconductor Sales Up 6 Percent Compared to Last Year (Monday May. 04, 2015)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $83.1 billion during the first quarter of 2015, an increase of 6.0 percent compared to the first quarter of 2014.
  
  
• NXP CEO on China, Apple Pay, IoT & V2V (Monday May. 04, 2015)
  NXP Semiconductors posted in the first quarter of 2015 total revenue of $1.47 billion, an increase of 17.7 percent over the same period a year ago.
  
  
• Lattice Deal: Harbinger of FPGA & ASSP Union (Monday May. 04, 2015)
  Darin Billerbeck, president and CEO at Lattice Semiconductor, after its acquisition of Silicon Image in March, believes the marriage of FPGA company to an ASSP firm is a match made in heaven.
  
  
• China Advantage Wanes for OEMs (Monday May. 04, 2015)
  Once the go-to low cost manufacturing location for the electronics industry, China's reign may be waning as the top pick. In fact, some OEMs are heading back to the U.S. hoping to get supply chain advantages and better total cost.
  
  
• PayPal Deploys ARM Servers in Data Centers (Thursday Apr. 30, 2015)
  PayPal has deployed servers based on 64-bit ARM processors as part of its data center infrastructure. ARM servers were cheaper but offered performance levels equivalent to regular servers that power the company’s popular online-payment applications, Paramesh Gopi, president and CEO of ARM chip maker Applied Micro, said.
  
  
• High Costs Hint IoT SoC Design Shakeout? (Thursday Apr. 30, 2015)
  Semico hopes to identify features and technologies that are "exclusive to IoT applications."
  
  
• China's Underdog Chipmakers Make IP Grab to Compete in SoC Market (Thursday Apr. 30, 2015)
  The semiconductor industry in China is at a crossroads, and the fact that companies such as HiSilicon Technologies Co. Ltd and Spreadtrum Communications are launching cutting-edge chips in competition with silicon behemoths like MediaTek Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. just shows how far China's system-on-chip (SoC) underdogs have come.
  
  
• Intel Loses Mobile Vet in Reorg (Thursday Apr. 30, 2015)
  In its latest reorg, Intel said goodbye to veteran Mooly Eden who helped pioneer the x86 giant's move into low power processors.
  
  
• UMC to Skip 20nm, Gun for 14nm FinFET (Thursday Apr. 30, 2015)
  UMC said Wednesday (April 29) that it will skip the 20 nm technology node as it aims to have 14nm FinFET tapeouts available for customers by the fourth-quarter of this year
  
  
• ARM Gives Peek at Road Map (Monday Apr. 27, 2015)
  In the course of providing new details about its latest Cortex-A72 core, ARM provided a peek at its next-generation high-end core yet to be announced. The company also reiterated its support for its big.little multiprocessing technology although it has not yet been widely adopted.
  
  
• Freescale Reveals NXP Mega Merger Details (Friday Apr. 24, 2015)
  In announcing yet another quarter of solid growth in product revenues and market shares in a Thursday (April 23) earnings call, Freescale Semiconductor CEO Gregg Lowe spoke confidently about the company’s upcoming merger with NXP Semiconductors.
  
  
• 2015 Semiconductor Capex led by Memory & Foundry (Friday Apr. 24, 2015)
  Semiconductor industry capital expenditures (capex) in 2015 are expected to be $69 billion in 2015, up 6% from $65 billion in 2014 according to IC Insights. We at Semiconductor Intelligence have compiled 2015 capex outlook by company. The major memory companies account for 38% of 2015 capex and the major foundries account for 27%.
  
  
• ARM Overtakes Imagination in GPU Shipments (Friday Apr. 24, 2015)
  ARM Holdings plc, the leading licensor of processor intellectual property, overtook rival IP provider Imagination Technologies Group plc in graphics processor IP shipments in 2014, according to numbers from the two companies.
  
  
• 8 Views of Security from RSA (Thursday Apr. 23, 2015)
  The Internet of Things, along with everything else, is insecure. The U.S. government wants to help with that and other security problems — if you still trust them.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Sales Expected to Reach $354 Billion in 2015, a 4 Percent Increase from 2014 (Wednesday Apr. 22, 2015)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $354 billion in 2015, a 4 percent increase from 2014, but down from the previous quarter's forecast of 5.4 percent growth, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Intel's 10nm Secrets Predicted (Wednesday Apr. 22, 2015)
  A semiconductor analyst is making a bold and detailed prediction about the process technology Intel Corp. will use for its next two generations.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2015 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.10 (Wednesday Apr. 22, 2015)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.37 billion in orders worldwide in March 2015 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.10, according to the March EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Samsung Busts TSMC's 'Monopoly,' Analysts Say (Wednesday Apr. 22, 2015)
  Samsung has broken the monopoly in leading-edge foundry services recently held by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), according to analysts who cover the chipmakers.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Market Achieves Strong, Broad-based Growth in 2014, According to IHS (Monday Apr. 20, 2015)
  IHS Technology’s final market share results for 2014 reveal that worldwide semiconductor revenues grew by 9.2 percent in 2014 coming in just slightly below the growth projection of 9.4 percent based on preliminary market share data IHS published in December 2014.
  
  
• 'Connected Home' Key to Intel's Lantiq Deal (Monday Apr. 20, 2015)
  Intel Corp., the world’s largest CPU vendor, has formed a freshly minted “Connected Home Division.”
  
  
• TSMC Cuts Capex by $1 Billion (Monday Apr. 20, 2015)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest chip foundry, cut its planned capital expenditure for this year by $1 billion, citing improvements in capital efficiency and a faster-than-expected migration to its leading-edge 16nm process technology.
  
  
• 2015 Semiconductor Sales Leaders Forecast to Include NXP/Freescale; One Japanese Company (Friday Apr. 17, 2015)
  In 2014, there were only two Japanese companies—Toshiba and Renesas—that were among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers. Assuming the NXP/Freescale merger is completed later this year, IC Insights forecasts that Toshiba will be the lone Japanese company left in the top 10 ranking.
  
  
• Samsung Describes Road to 14nm (Thursday Apr. 16, 2015)
  Just days after it was confirmed the Samsung Galaxy S6 uses an Exynos processor made in Samsung's 14nm FinFET process, a Samsung executive talked about the company's road to 14nm.
  
  
• Qualcomm Leads 32/64-bit Core Silicon Vendor Share Ranking in 2014, Ahead of Apple & MediaTek, says Semicast (Wednesday Apr. 15, 2015)
  According to preliminary findings from the 2015 edition of Semicast’s Embedded Processing Service, Qualcomm was the leading supplier of 32/64-bit core silicon in 2014, ahead of Apple and MediaTek. The findings show the top three suppliers collectively held an estimated market share of 44%, with the top ten together accounting for more than three-quarters of the total.
  
  
• Why China Is Shopping for Silicon Valley Chip Companies (Tuesday Apr. 14, 2015)
  A consortium of investors led by Chinese venture capital company Summitview Capital recently entered into an agreement to acquire Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. (ISSI), a fabless vendor of specialized memory, for $640 million.
  
  
• Imagination Tunes in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Monday Apr. 13, 2015)
  Imagination Technologies launched versions of its MIPS cores powering Wi-Fi/Bluetooth links, competing with ARM and Ceva in intellectual property for consumer wireless chips. The IP blocks target Internet of Things designs where some competitors are still fielding low power mobile SoCs.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports Record Revenue for Q4 2014 and for the Year (Monday Apr. 13, 2015)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 11.9 percent for Q4 2014 to a record $2104 million, compared to $1880.5 million in Q4 2013.
  
  
• Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 7.9 Percent in 2014, According to Final Results by Gartner (Monday Apr. 13, 2015)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $340.3 billion in 2014, a 7.9 percent increase from 2013 revenue of $315.4 billion, according to final results by Gartner, Inc.