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Commentary / Analysis

• Wearables Need Tailored SoCs (Monday May. 05, 2014)
  Wearables won't go mainstream until they get tailor-made silicon, according to a panel at the Linley Tech Mobile Conference here. The nascent market needs clearly defined use cases and SoCs geared for lower battery life, they said.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Industry Posts Highest-Ever First Quarter Sales (Monday May. 05, 2014)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $78.47 billion during the first quarter of 2014, marking the industry’s highest-ever first quarter sales.
  
  
• Robust Marketshare Gains for Makers of Tablet and Cellphone Processors (Wednesday Apr. 30, 2014)
  IC Insights’ April Update to The 2014 McClean Report shows a ranking of the 2013 top-10 microprocessor suppliers (as well as the leading foundry, DRAM, flash, DSP, MCU, standard cell, analog, and PLD suppliers). The $58.6 billion microprocessor market was the largest single semiconductor product category in 2013, accounting for 22% of total IC sales.
  
  
• Is It Secure to Use Bluetooth Low Energy in Cars? (Tuesday Apr. 29, 2014)
  How secure is Bluetooth Smart inside cars? The Bluetooth SIG is working behind the scenes to plug some security holes in Bluetooth Smart, and it's not quite finished.
  
  
• What Are EDA's Big Three Thinking? (Monday Apr. 28, 2014)
  Messages delivered by all three CEOs to their respective users point to trouble spots, opportunities and what’s ahead for EDA
  
  
• Strong 2014 for semiconductor equipment & CapEx (Monday Apr. 28, 2014)
  Spending on semiconductor manufacturing equipment is headed for healthy growth in 2014. The latest data from SEMI and the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) shows March 2014 three-month-average billings for semiconductor manufacturing equipment were up 16% from February 2014 and up 31% from a year ago.
  
  
• ARM: Smartphone Sales Drop, but Recovery Is Coming (Thursday Apr. 24, 2014)
  Smartphone chip giant ARM Holdings, PLC reported slightly disappointing financial results for the first quarter of 2014 due to what it called an "inventory correction" following a global dip in smartphone sales during the final months of 2013.
  
  
• Executive Insight: Charlie Cheng (Wednesday Apr. 23, 2014)
  The CEO of Kilopass, a developer of memory IP, talks about the problems of having a sales force for only one product.
  
  
• Cadence breaks into top four in semi IP core ranking (Wednesday Apr. 23, 2014)
  Cadence Design Systems Inc. moved into the top four of semiconductor IP core suppliers in 2013 spurred by its renewed IP strategy and acquisitions of Tensilica and Cosmic Circuits, according to market analysis company Gartner Inc.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2014 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.06 (Tuesday Apr. 22, 2014)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.28 billion in orders worldwide in March 2014 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.06, according to the March EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Real Countries Have Fabs (Monday Apr. 21, 2014)
  Analysis: Rumblings about IBM selling off its semiconductor business have created some interesting possibilities, and lots of speculation.
  
  
• TSMC Gets Ready to Enjoy Apple Booster (Thursday Apr. 17, 2014)
  Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has done nicely out of its foundry contracts to supply Apple-designed application processors for several years. The orders have kickstarted Samsung's foundry business but, as has been speculated for a couple of years, Apple wants to, at least, split its risk by putting manufacturing out to another foundry, or possibly more than one.
  
  
• China's Quest for "MIPS in Wearable" (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  Let's be blunt: Not many serious players in the electronics industry today are sanguine about the survival chances for MIPS processors in a global mobile market where in the last decade -- almost single-handedly -- ARM has built its formidable ecosystem.
  
  
• Key semiconductor IP players forecast to target China, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore markets over the next few years (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  Global semiconductor IP market is forecast to total revenues of US$5.63 billion by 2020 as the industry reports strong increased demand over the next few years. During the period 2014 to 2020, the semiconductor IP market is forecast to increase by 12.6% CAGR.
  
  
• Watching the Hardware Emulation Market Take Off (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  Hardware emulation today is a component of almost all verification flows for embedded system-on-chip (SoC) designs; it's used for the toughest verification challenges, including hardware/software integration.
  
  
• Tablet Apps Processor Revenue to Reach $7.2 Billion in 2018 (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  The global tablet applications processor market is set to register impressive growth of 14.6 percent CAGR in revenues from 2013 to 2018 to reach $7.2 billion in 2018
  
  
• How Much Will That Chip Cost? (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  From the leading edge of design to older process nodes, development costs are being contained much better than the initial reports would indicate. But not always for the obvious reasons.
  
  
• Smartphone Apps Processor Revenue to Reach $30 Billion in 2018 says Strategy Analytics (Thursday Apr. 10, 2014)
  
  
  
• SEMI Reports 2013 Global Semiconductor Materials Sales of $43.5 Billion (Tuesday Apr. 08, 2014)
  The global semiconductor materials market decreased 3 percent in 2013 compared to 2012 while worldwide semiconductor revenues increased 5 percent. Revenues of $43.5 mark the second consecutive year of contraction for the semiconductor materials market.
  
  
• February Semiconductor Sales Up 11.4 Percent Compared to Last Year (Monday Apr. 07, 2014)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.87 billion for the month of February 2014, an increase of 11.4 percent from February 2013 when sales were $23.23 billion.
  
  
• As Moore's Law slows, open hardware rises (Monday Apr. 07, 2014)
  We’re just at the point where open hardware might have an impact opportunity,” said EE Live! keynoter Bunnie Huang, speaking on the future of Moore’s Law and heirloom hardware.
  
  
• Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Grew 5 Percent in 2013, According to Final Results by Gartner (Thursday Apr. 03, 2014)
  Total worldwide semiconductor revenue reached $315 billion in 2013, up 5 percent from 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. The combined revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors increased by 6.9 percent during 2013. This was a significantly better performance than the rest of the market, whose revenue growth was 0.9 percent, and was due, in part, to the concentration of memory vendors in the top ranking. The memory market increased 23.5 percent in 2013.
  
  
• IC Insights Shows Big Changes to 2013 Top 20 Semi Supplier Ranking (Wednesday Apr. 02, 2014)
  IC Insights’ April Update to The 2014 McClean Report will show a ranking of the 2013 top 50 semiconductor suppliers. The top 20 worldwide semiconductor sales leaders for 2013 included nine suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, and two in South Korea, a relatively broad representation of geographic regions.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports Revenue Increase for Q4 2013 (Tuesday Apr. 01, 2014)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 5.7 percent for Q4 2013 to $1880.5 million, compared to $1779.1 million in Q4 2012.
  
  
• Bluetooth Smart's Rise From Obscurity to Mainstream (Monday Mar. 31, 2014)
  Teardown.com decided to take a quick look at the Bluetooth Smart adoption rate in the consumer electronic devices we have analyzed.
  
  
• FinFETs Not the Best Silicon Road (Friday Mar. 28, 2014)
  The semiconductor industry's growth has historically depended on a reduction in cost per transistor with each migration to smaller dimensions, but next-generation chips will not deliver this cost reduction. The impact of this situation is one of the most serious challenges the industry has faced within the last 20-30 years.
  
  
• Will SMIC Narrow Tech Gap? (Friday Mar. 28, 2014)
  Nobody questions that Tzu-Yin Chiu, CEO of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), who took the company’s helm in 2011, has brought much needed stability, confidence and focus to China’s largest foundry, its employees, shareholders and the global semiconductor market.
  
  
• EDA Shapes Its Future (Thursday Mar. 27, 2014)
  Battle lines are being drawn as the EDA industry attempts to grow outside of its traditional markets, but some say not so fast.
  
  
• Mobile Building Blocks 2014: Mobile Cores (Thursday Mar. 27, 2014)
  I'd like to start by talking about the basic building blocks that go into the creation of application processors. Unlike in the PC world, in general, makers of such processors tend to use at least some intellectual property (IP), either architectural licenses or full cores, in creating their products.
  
  
• Analysis: Synopsys-Coverity Deal Final (Thursday Mar. 27, 2014)
  Analysis: Acquisition closes after just five weeks, setting No. 1 EDA company on a different but potentially lucrative path.