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Commentary / Analysis

• Qualcomm for ARM? Intel for MediaTek? Pondering Chip M&A (Thursday Jun. 19, 2014)
  A couple of folks on the Street today were banging the drum for mergers and acquisitions in semiconductors, arguing that both tax reasons and the search for earnings growth should propel further deals.
  
  
• Is the DRAM Average Selling Price Surge Over? (Wednesday Jun. 11, 2014)
  IC Insights’ Mid-Year Update to The 2014 McClean Report will provide a detailed look at the DRAM market trends and forecasts through 2018. Initial research for the Mid-Year Update shows that the 2Q14 DRAM ASP is expected to be just slightly less than in 1Q14.
  
  
• SEMI Reports First Quarter 2014 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Figures; Billings US$10.15 Billion (Tuesday Jun. 10, 2014)
  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$ 10.15 billion in the first quarter of 2014.
  
  
• PCIe Preps for Internet of Things (Thursday Jun. 05, 2014)
  The PCI Special Interest Group is exploring ways it can expand use of its interconnect in the Internet of Things and SoCs. Meanwhile, the PCI-SIG is moving ahead with its 16 GTransfer/s PCI Express Gen 4 and other specifications driving the link's current use primarily in servers.
  
  
• Turning Intel Inside Out-Big Changes Reshape MPU Giant (Thursday Jun. 05, 2014)
  After missing major market opportunities in fast-growing smartphones and tablet computers, Intel continues to shake itself up in ways that would have been unthinkable several years ago,
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase in April; Sustained Growth Projected for 2014 and 2015 (Thursday Jun. 05, 2014)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $26.34 billion for the month of April 2014, an increase of 11.5 percent from the April 2013 total of $23.62 billion and a slight uptick of 0.7 percent compared to last month’s total of $26.15 billion.
  
  
• How chip makers can regain control of their value chain (Monday Jun. 02, 2014)
  IDC reports that the average selling price of a smartphone decreased to £205 in 2013, down from £236 in 2012, and it is expected to drop to about £157 by 2017. They may not want to pay for enhancements but consumers expect more powerful devices every year.
  
  
• Executive Insight: Grant Pierce (Monday Jun. 02, 2014)
  Sonics’ president and CEO sounds off about startup exit strategies, the Internet of Things, competing for highly trained systems engineers, and future opportunities.
  
  
• Executive Insight: Hossein Yassaie (Monday Jun. 02, 2014)
  Imagination Technologies’ CEO talks about why his company bought MIPS, the difference between ARM and Imagination, and how the fabless industry will need to refocus.
  
  
• Executive Insight: Charles Janac (Monday Jun. 02, 2014)
  Arteris’ CEO digs into connected cars, smarter interconnects, platform strategies, and why it’s so hard to be a CEO in the semiconductor market these days.
  
  
• Deeper Dive - Is IP reuse good or bad? (Monday Jun. 02, 2014)
  To buy or to reuse, that is the question. Caroline Hayes, Senior Editor asked four industry experts, Carsten Elgert (EC), Product Marketing Director, IPG (IP Group), Cadence, Tom Feist (TF), Senior Marketing Director, Design Methodology, Xilinx, Dave Tokic (DT), Senior Director, Partner Ecosystems and Alliances, Xilinx, and Warren Savage (WS), President and CEO, IPextreme about the pros and cons of IP reuse versus third party IP.
  
  
• Apple's IoT 'Good Housekeeping' Label: MFi (Friday May. 30, 2014)
  Expect Apple to beat Google to the punch by unveiling its Internet of Things (IoT) strategy on its home front at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference next week in San Francisco.
  
  
• Why Intel-Rockchip Tie-Up Matters (Thursday May. 29, 2014)
  Since 2011, essentially two brands have dominated the global tablet market. One is Apple, and the other is the so-called white box. (Of course, Samsung joined the fray last year.)
  
  
• Will Expediency Make Intel an ARM Mali Licensee? (Thursday May. 29, 2014)
  The news that Intel wants to drop its Atom processor core into a Rockchip SoC to give it a boost in the low-end Chinese tablet computer market is an interesting development, not least in that it mixes up business models and alliances in the chip business.
  
  
• New Business Model: Flexible Silos (Thursday May. 22, 2014)
  Operational silos within organizations have a long history of streamlining processes and maximize efficiency. In fact, that approach has made enterprise resource planning applications a must-have for most companies, and cemented the fortunes of giants such as SAP and Oracle, as well as the giant consulting companies that recommend them.
  
  
• Increase in First Quarter 2014 Silicon Wafer Shipments (Tuesday May. 20, 2014)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased during the first quarter 2014 when compared to fourth quarter 2013 area shipments according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.
  
  
• Intel gains, Nvidia flat, and AMD loses graphics market share in Q1 (Monday May. 19, 2014)
  Jon Peddie Research (JPR) announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers’ market share for 2014 1Q. For the previous three quarters, the PC graphics market has gone up. This was the first quarter to show a decrease in shipments since last. Shipments were down 11.6% quarter-to-quarter, and down 4% compared to the same quarter last year.
  
  
• FDSOI: Is Cadence, Not Samsung, the Tipping Point? (Friday May. 16, 2014)
  The announcement that Samsung will license the FDSOI chip manufacturing process as an option at the 28nm node both for foundry customers and for its own chips is, of course, excellent news for FDSOI pioneer STMicroelectronics. It is also good news for fans of technology, and for advocates of choice. It is also excellent news for Soitec, which could use the revenue from volume purchasing of its “smartcut” silicon-on-insulator wafers.
  
  
• Startup Faces SoC, Gender Challenges (Friday May. 16, 2014)
  Sundari Mitra wants to change the way SoCs are designed with her new interconnect startup, NetSpeed Systems. Unlike her company, which is just emerging from stealth mode, in some ways female executives in the semiconductor industry are always under a spotlight.
  
  
• MediaTek, SK Hynix, AMD, and Micron Sales Surge in 1Q14! (Thursday May. 15, 2014)
  The top 20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q14 includes nine suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Taiwan, three in Europe, two in South Korea, two in Japan, and one in Singapore, a relatively broad representation of geographic regions.
  
  
• Is 450mm Dead In The Water? (Thursday May. 15, 2014)
  At one time, Intel, TSMC and Samsung were aggressively beating the 450mm drum. Chipmakers wanted, if not demanded, 450mm pilot line fabs by 2016, with high-volume manufacturing 450mm plants slated by 2018.
  
  
• Intel's Foundry Goal: Next-Gen Systems? (Thursday May. 15, 2014)
  The PC market declined 8% last year, according to IHS. In its first-quarter earnings report, released in April, Intel reported an 8% drop in revenue from the fourth quarter of last year. Net income dropped 26%.
  
  
• IP Integration: Not a Simple Operation (Tuesday May. 13, 2014)
  Although the IP industry is about 25 years old, it still presents problems typical of immature industries. Yet, the use of IP in systems design is now so popular one is hard press to find even one system design that does not use IP. My first reaction to the use of IP is “back to the future”.
  
  
• IP To Meet 2.5D Requirements (Monday May. 12, 2014)
  The semiconductor industry is still in the early stages of evolution in the realm of 2.5D, but when these devices do come out, the IP used on them will have to be brand new, according to Javier DeLaCruz, senior director of engineering at eSilicon.
  
  
• Do Auto MCUs Need Proprietary Flash? (Monday May. 12, 2014)
  Globalfoundries this week rolled out a 55-nm semiconductor manufacturing platform, specifically designed to meet the stringent needs of the automotive industry. The foundry's new automotive platform supports the implementation of non-volatile memory (NVM) in MCUs and SoC designs. Globalfoundries is also making available, on the same 55-nm platform, SST's embedded flash technology -- based on the SST-Microchip SuperFlash split-gate design.
  
  
• Can ARM succeed in the entry-level server space? (Thursday May. 08, 2014)
  The backbone of ARM's appeal in the entry-level server space stems from the introduction of the ARMv8-A Architecture, announced in October 2011 and now implemented in high-end processors such as the Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53. ARMv8-A's standout feature is 64-bit support, known as AArch64, though supporting hardware can also process 32-bit instructions. Want to play in server? You absolutely need 64-bit hardware and software support.
  
  
• Wearable SoC: Let DSP Do 'Always Listening' Chores (Thursday May. 08, 2014)
  Wearable devices are suffering from a fatal flaw: batteries that die too fast. Developers blame the problem on the dearth of tailor-made wearable SoCs that could meet their requirements. With that in mind, if they were to develop their own wearable SoCs, what should be their priority?
  
  
• Taiwanese and Chinese Companies Represented Five of the Eight Fastest Growing Top-25 Fabless IC Suppliers in 2013 (Wednesday May. 07, 2014)
  The top-25 worldwide fabless IC sales leaders for 2013 included 14 suppliers headquartered in the U.S., five in Taiwan, two in China, two in Europe, one in Japan, and one in Singapore.
  
  
• ARM: Days of China copying Western tech are ending (Wednesday May. 07, 2014)
  China has been infamous for producing bad knock-offs of Western tech in recent years - from poor smartphone imitations to fake Apple stores and everything in-between. However, Cambridge-based chip designer ARM reckons the tide is turning, with many China-based tech companies looking to differentiate from Western products by focusing on innovation and meeting the needs of the region's vast consumer base.
  
  
• Intel Should Exit Mobile, Analyst Says (Wednesday May. 07, 2014)
  Analysts at JP Morgan are calling for Intel to shut down its mobile and communications group to improve corporate profitability in the wake of poor earnings per share in the first quarter of 2014. But the x86 giant and at least one other analyst said the company should stay the course in the hotly competitive smartphone and tablet market.