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Commentary / Analysis

• 2014 Semiconductor Growth could be Double 2013 Rate (Friday Feb. 21, 2014)
  The fourth quarter 2013 semiconductor market declined 0.8% from the third quarter, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). Full year 2013 growth was 4.8%. Our most recent 2013 forecast at Semiconductor Intelligence was 6% in November 2013, based on expectations of positive growth in 4Q 2013.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts January 2014 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.04 (Friday Feb. 21, 2014)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.28 billion in orders worldwide in January 2014 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.04, according to the January EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Why Would IBM Sell Its Semi Group? (Thursday Feb. 20, 2014)
  Rumors are flying, but what’s behind all the hubbub, and more importantly, why now?
  
  
• GPU market up - Intel and Nvidia graphics winners in Q4, AMD down (Wednesday Feb. 19, 2014)
  JPR announced estimated graphics chip shipments and suppliers’ market share for 2013 4Q. The quarter was the second quarter in a row to show a gain in shipments, up 1.6% quarter-to-quarter, and up 2% compared to the same quarter last year.
  
  
• Semiconductor Unit Shipments To Exceed One Trillion Devices in 2016 (Tuesday Feb. 18, 2014)
  Total semiconductor unit shipments (integrated circuits and opto-sensor-discrete, or O-S-D, devices) are forecast to grow annually through the current cyclical upturn and top one trillion units for the first time in 2016 according to forecast data presented in the new 2014 edition of The McClean Report.
  
  
• Big blues at IBM India (Tuesday Feb. 18, 2014)
  In one of the largest-ever lay-off drive among global technology companies, IBM is said to have started cutting jobs globally on Wednesday, with first casualties in India.
  
  
• Are Processors Running Out Of Steam? (Monday Feb. 17, 2014)
  Clock speeds can’t go higher, and most software still can’t take advantage of multiple cores. A look at what’s next.
  
  
• 28nm Powers TSMC Forward (Monday Feb. 17, 2014)
  TSMC’s financial results for the 4th Quarter of 2013 and for the full year were announced just a few weeks ago, with TSMC stating it had again achieved record sales and profits. TSMC continues to own the 28nm foundry market.
  
  
• IBM invests in new $5bn chip fab in India, so is chip sale off? (Monday Feb. 17, 2014)
  India is to get a $10bn semiconductor wafer fab investment and one of the investors is IBM, recently rumoured to be considering an exit from all chip-making
  
  
• End of Startup Era: Chips Face Innovation Gap (Monday Feb. 17, 2014)
  The Silicon Valley venture capitalists who once nurtured the semiconductor industry have almost all moved on to greener pastures in web startups, so it's not entirely clear what will be the source of tomorrow's chip innovations.
  
  
• How Small Will Apple Inc. Go? (Monday Feb. 17, 2014)
  Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM ) has been rather vocal about the fact that it is now in "high volume manufacturing" of its 20-nanometer SoC process. The 20-nanometer process, according to TSMC, offers a 1.9x improvement in gate-density, 15% performance improvement at the same power or 30% lower power at the same performance compared to the company's 28-nanometer HPM process, and is expected to really begin to ramp in volume during the second half of 2014 and into 2015.
  
  
• Google Ramps Up Chip Design (Thursday Feb. 13, 2014)
  Google appears to be ramping up a broad and deep effort in developing its own chips. Just what it is designing is still unclear.
  
  
• Intel to Cut A Deal with Apple for Fab 42? (Wednesday Feb. 12, 2014)
  Intel has come under attack and is backed into a corner. With shipments of desktop and notebook computers in the doldrums since 2010, Intel’s PC processor business has been in decline. Meanwhile, AMD and others are taking aim at the Intel-dominated server business with ARM-based MPUs. At the same time, Intel has struggled to gain access to the fast-growing market for application processors used in tablet PCs and smartphones.
  
  
• ISSCC Keynote: No Silicon, Software Silos (Wednesday Feb. 12, 2014)
  Closer cooperation between chip and app developers is needed to scale the rising wall in energy efficiency that's making it hard to fulfill expectations of smaller, cheaper, faster systems, said the opening keynoter at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).
  
  
• IBM Chip Unit Sale Would Send Tremor Through Industry (Tuesday Feb. 11, 2014)
  The news that IBM's CEO Ginni Rometty is looking to sell off IBM's chip unit raises issues around IBM's Power processor architecture and numerous other chip companies that have stood on the shoulders of this giant's semiconductor R&D. These include most of the industry's chipmakers with the exception of Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
  
  
• Silicon Wafer Revenues Decline in 2013 (Tuesday Feb. 11, 2014)
  Worldwide silicon wafer revenues declined by 13 percent in 2013 compared to 2012 according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its year-end analysis of the silicon wafer industry. Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased 0.4 percent in 2013 when compared to 2012 area shipments.
  
  
• ARM getting server traction (Thursday Feb. 06, 2014)
  Server revenues are trickling into ARM for the first time. “Our first partners are starting to get their first results,” Pete Hutton executive v-p and president of ARM’s product group told Electronics Weekly.
  
  
• 300mm Capacity Dominates, but Life Remains for 200mm Wafer Fabs (Thursday Feb. 06, 2014)
  Nearly all new fab upgrade and construction activity has to do with 300mm wafer processing, but there is still plenty of life remaining in 200mm fabs according to data in the 2014 edition of IC Insights’ Global Wafer Capacity report.
  
  
• As One ARM Pioneer Closes Another One Opens (Thursday Feb. 06, 2014)
  Almost as soon as ARM-based server company Calxeda Inc. (Austin, Texas) had said it could not continue its operations in December 2013 than another ARM-based server company, Rex Computing Inc. was wowing them in the aisles at the Open Compute Project summit in San Jose, Calif.
  
  
• Apple Increases Tablet Market Share to 34 percent in Q4 2013, as Global Tablet Market Grows 33 percent in 2013 (Tuesday Feb. 04, 2014)
  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, fourth quarter 2013 global Tablet shipments reached 76.8 million units. Android again exerted its dominance with a 62 percent market share, while iOS rebounded from two quarters of share loss to take 34 percent of the total market in the fourth quarter
  
  
• Bitcoin CPUs Coming, Says Investor (Tuesday Feb. 04, 2014)
  Bitcoin will spawn an emerging market for specialized parallel processors, according to a veteran high-tech investor, but one young startup engineer is skeptical.
  
  
• Five lessons from Lenovo’s Motorola deal (Monday Feb. 03, 2014)
  Lenovo’s $2.9bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google highlights some key lessons in the industry
  
  
• Semiconductor Industry Posts Record Sales in 2013 (Monday Feb. 03, 2014)
  SIA today announced that worldwide semiconductor sales for 2013 reached $305.6 billion, the industry’s highest-ever annual total and an increase of 4.8 percent from the 2012 total of $291.6 billion. Global sales for the month of December 2013 reached $26.6 billion, marking the strongest December on record, while December sales in the Americas increased 17.3 percent year-over-year.
  
  
• ARM Support Claimed for Non-Filamentary ReRAM (Monday Feb. 03, 2014)
  An innovative non-volatile memory technology that could scale further and perform better than flash memory and resistive RAM (ReRAM) technologies has attracted the interest of processor licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England), according to Carlos Paz de Araujo, a professor at the University of Colorado who is the leading advocate for development of the memory.
  
  
• Android Slips But Continues To Dominate the Tablet Market in Q4 2013 with 62 Percent Share of Global Tablet Shipments (Friday Jan. 31, 2014)
  According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global tablet shipments reached 76.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013. Android retained its leadership position with a 62 percent global market share, as Apple iOS increased to 34 percent. Windows declined to 4 percent of global Q4 2013 tablet shipments.
  
  
• The Uncertain Future Of Fabless Semis (Thursday Jan. 30, 2014)
  Some industry watchers believe there is a shift to system OEMs calling more of the shots while fabless semiconductor companies are taking a back seat to decision making. If true, what does this mean?
  
  
• Is Google-Samsung Licensing a Big Event? (Wednesday Jan. 29, 2014)
  Samsung Electronics pulled off two big patent-licensing agreements over the last 48 hours: one with Google on a broad agreement to cross-license each other's patents; another with Ericsson, putting an end to the ongoing battle with the Swedish telecom giant. Samsung, which had been accused of infringing Ericsson's broad range of patents including LTE, has now agreed to pay Ericsson $650 million in compensation and royalty payments thereafter.
  
  
• FDSOI Gains Design Wins Amid Fab Partner Mystery (Wednesday Jan. 29, 2014)
  European chip company STMicroelectronics NV is gaining design wins for its 28nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) manufacturing process but is being coy about who will be its initial partner for high volume manufacturing. The date for the start of second-source volume manufacturing of FDSOI chips also appears to have slipped.
  
  
• The Trojan Horse of MIPS (Tuesday Jan. 28, 2014)
  MIPS presents a game changing threat to the CPU side of the mobile SoC world, but nobody wants to address it.
  
  
• Top 13 Foundries Account for 91% of Total Foundry Sales in 2013 (Tuesday Jan. 28, 2014)
  The top 13 foundries in the figure represented 91% of total foundry sales in 2013. For comparison, the leading 13 foundries accounted for 84% of total foundry marketshare in 2009, the year before Samsung dramatically ramped up its IC foundry production for Apple.