D&R Headline News | Most Popular | SoC News Alerts | |

Commentary / Analysis

• China Charts New Course in Targeting Worldwide IC Industry - Fabless! (Friday Jan. 09, 2015)
  China’s ambitious late-1990s plan to create numerous high-volume indigenous IC manufacturers in the pure-play foundry segment did not come to fruition, but the Chinese government is still very serious about keeping China and Chinese IC suppliers relevant in the future IC industry.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 7.9 Percent in 2014 (Tuesday Jan. 06, 2015)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $339.8 billion in 2014, a 7.9 percent increase from 2013 revenue of $315 billion, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The top 25 semiconductor vendors' combined revenue increased 11.7 percent, which was more than the overall industry's growth.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Through November Outpace 2013 Sales (Monday Jan. 05, 2015)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $29.7 billion for the month of November 2014, an increase of 9.1 percent from the November 2013 total of $27.2 billion and a slight decrease of 0.1 percent from the October 2014 total.
  
  
• French Telecom Firm Follows ARM Server Route (Monday Jan. 05, 2015)
  Iliad SA, a French provider of telecommunications services, is planning to launch a cloud software hosting service in January 2015 that will use ARM servers based on Marvell chips. The service will come from Iliad's Online.net subsidiary, which has been offering preview demonstrations of its C1 server at labs.online.net.
  
  
• Calxeda Rides Again Courtesy of Taiwan (Monday Jan. 05, 2015)
  ARM-based server processor technology developed by startup Calxeda Inc. – which closed its doors on Dec. 24, 2013 – is set to make it to market courtesy of a cloud service company called AtGames Holdings Ltd. (Taipei, Taiwan).
  
  
• Pitfalls in Internet of Things for 2015 & Beyond (Monday Jan. 05, 2015)
  Ever since Cisco started to issue whopping predictions -- like "50 billion IoT devices by 2020" -- the electronics industry has danced to the music. Companies have rushed to the market, developing and acquiring technologies that they think will help them call the IoT tune. In 2014 many IoT discussions broke out, industry consortia popped up, and new products rolled out, many of them actually getting connected to the Internet.
  
  
• Mobile Internet Strategy Fuels Xiaomi's IoT Ambitions (Monday Jan. 05, 2015)
  Xiaomi attracts the investment community because the hardware vendor -- masquerading as a "mobile Internet" company -- comes without baggage.
  
  
• European server project promotes ARM on FDSOI (Friday Jan. 02, 2015)
  A collaborative European microserver project has teamed processor IP licensor ARM and chipmaker STMicroelectronics up with a number of academic and commercial computer and software specialists to try and make technical progress in microservers.
  
  
• 10 Top Challenges Industrial IoT Must Overcome in 2015 (Monday Dec. 29, 2014)
  A lot of the excitement and press surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) centers on home automation, wearable electronics, and other consumer applications. But industrial applications of the IoT, such as predictive maintenance and integration of the supply chain are likely to be the more compelling use cases, at least in terms of ROI. For Industrial IoT (IIoT) to realize its potential, however, it must overcome some substantial challenges. Here's an industry perspective on what challenges IIoT must overcome in the coming year.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Market Set for Strongest Growth in Four Years in 2014 (Tuesday Dec. 23, 2014)
  Worldwide semiconductor market revenue is on track to achieve a 9.4 percent expansion this year, with broad-based growth across multiple chip segments driving the best industry performance since 2010.
  
  
• A CTO's View of Comms 2015 (Monday Dec. 22, 2014)
  Ethernet has a growing role in automotive and industrial networks as long as security is addressed, says the chief technology officer of Vitesse Semiconductor.
  
  
• Foxconn, ARM, and AtGames buy Calxeda assets (Monday Dec. 22, 2014)
  In news that will send shivers up the spine of many in the server world, a group that includes Foxconn just bought Calxeda’s assets. More interestingly this consortium that also includes ARM and AtGames Cloud Holdings will keep going with their products.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts November 2014 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.02 (Monday Dec. 22, 2014)
  
  
  
• Memory Design Trends in 2014 (Monday Dec. 22, 2014)
  If there is one enduring trend for memory design in 2014 that will carry through to next year, it’s the continued demand for higher performance.
  
  
• Semiconductor Capacity Utilization Rising (Friday Dec. 19, 2014)
  Semiconductor capacity utilization (the ratio of production to capacity) appears to be on the rise, based on available data. Reliable global industry capacity data has not been available since Semiconductor Industry Capacity Statistics (SICAS) disbanded in 2011.
  
  
• S. Korean and Taiwanese Companies Control 56% of Global 300mm Fab Capacity (Thursday Dec. 18, 2014)
  South Korean and Taiwanese chip companies are well known for manufacturing prowess when it comes to efficiently fabricating huge amounts of IC wafers. Most of the IC industry’s biggest fab facilities are located in these two countries.
  
  
• Emerging NVM Express Spec Has Busy Year (Monday Dec. 15, 2014)
  
  
  
• Sequans: The Startup That Started Over (Monday Dec. 15, 2014)
  Early one Paris morning in July 2011, Georges Karam, president and CEO of Sequans, got a call from HTC. Kara''s biggest customer asked him to stop shipping Sequans' WiMax radio chips. That called changed everything.
  
  
• 7 Questions With Broadcom's CTO (Monday Dec. 15, 2014)
  From time to time, often at the end of the year, we get an opportunity to talk about issues of the day with Henry Samueli, Broadcom's co-founder and chief technologist.
  
  
• Internet of Things Boosts Embedded Systems Growth (Friday Dec. 12, 2014)
  Since 2006, there have been more embedded systems, industrial equipment, sensor devices, instruments, meters, cameras, animals, and other objects connected to the Internet than humans using computers, smartphones, and other electronics for information technology.
  
  
• Foundry Sales Growing Faster Than Chip Market (Tuesday Dec. 09, 2014)
  Global foundry IC revenues will grow by 13 percent to $47.9 billion in 2014, following on from annual growth of 13 percent in 2013 and 18 percent in 2012, according to a report produced jointly by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and market researcher IC Insights.
  
  
• SEMI Reports Third Quarter 2014 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Figures; Billings US$8.8 Billion (Tuesday Dec. 09, 2014)
  SEMI, the global industry association for companies that supply manufacturing technology and materials to the world’s chip makers, today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$ 8.82 billion in the third quarter of 2014.
  
  
• Mobile Devices and the GPUs inside (Thursday Dec. 04, 2014)
  JPR has just released a new market study, Mobile Devices and the GPUs Inside, and found that Qualcomm has over 42% of the total market for personal mobile devices.
  
  
• Cellphones Continue to be the Largest Driver of IC Sales (Thursday Dec. 04, 2014)
  The total production value of electronic systems is projected to increase 5% in 2014 to $1.49 trillion and climb to about $1.82 trillion in 2018, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2% from $1.41 trillion in 2013, according to IC Insights’ new 2015 edition of IC Market Drivers
  
  
• What Fascinations Will 2015 Hold for FPGAs? (Thursday Dec. 04, 2014)
  2015 promises to see initial FPGA product releases and (no doubt) a deluge of marketing claims and counter-claims. One thing is certain: 2015 will not be boring.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase in October; Substantial Growth Projected for 2014 (Wednesday Dec. 03, 2014)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $29.7 billion for the month of October 2014, an increase of 9.6 percent from the October 2013 total of $27.1 billion and an uptick of 1.5 percent compared to last month’s total of $29.2 billion.
  
  
• Semiconductor Equipment Sales Forecast: $38 Billion in 2014 to Nearly $44 Billion in 2015 (Wednesday Dec. 03, 2014)
  SEMI projects that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will increase 19.3 percent to $38.0 billion in 2014, according to the SEMI Year-end Forecast, released today at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition.
  
  
• Where have all the drivers gone? (Tuesday Nov. 25, 2014)
  Tablets and smartphones have been key drivers of electronics and semiconductor growth for the last few years. However the growth rates for these devices are slowing as they have become more prevalent. Tablet shipments are expected to reach 229 million units in 2014, according to Gartner, equal to 73% of PC units. IDC projects smartphones will exceed 1.2 billion units in 2014, accounting for about two-thirds of total mobile phones.
  
  
• Qualcomm Set To Enter Server Market (Monday Nov. 24, 2014)
  Speaking at a Qualcomm financial analysts' day held in New York Wednesday (Nov. 19) CEO Steve Mollenkopf said that the company would be leveraging its leading position as a supplier of chips for the high-end smartphone market to move into adjacent markets including servers in the data center.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts October 2014 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.93 (Monday Nov. 24, 2014)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.10 billion in orders worldwide in October 2014 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.93, according to the October EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.