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Commentary / Analysis

• Mobile PCs and Smartphones Will Be Top Revenue Opportunities for IC Suppliers in Emerging High-Speed Wireless Device Market (Monday Jan. 27, 2014)
  Mobile PCs and smartphones will represent the top revenue opportunities for high-speed wireless integrated circuit (IC) suppliers by 2018, as these devices are projected to be the highest-volume applications in this market over the next five years, according to a new report from IHS Technology (NYSE: IHS).
  
  
• Is Nokia's 2007 Decline a Lesson for Samsung Today? (Monday Jan. 27, 2014)
  In the results posted Friday for the fourth quarter of 2013, Samsung Electronics reported an operating profit of 8.31 trillion won ($7.7 billion), which missed analyst expectations by a whopping 20%.
  
  
• Foxconn plans to take over IC design house Socle (Friday Jan. 24, 2014)
  An investment arm of Foxconn Electronics reportedly plans to acquire IC design house Socle Technology, in which Globalfoundries has a portion of shares, according to industry sources.
  
  
• Rival Chipset Makers Likely to Enter LTE Modem Space Now Controlled by Qualcomm (Friday Jan. 24, 2014)
  With the latest smartphones all vying to support the 4G wireless technology known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), smartphone chipset suppliers will be fighting to become part of the LTE handset modem landscape currently dominated by industry giant Qualcomm, according to a new LTE Modem Insights brief from IHS Inc.
  
  
• Apple and Samsung Lord Over Field Once Again as Top OEMs in Semiconductor Spending for 2013 (Friday Jan. 24, 2014)
  Apple and Samsung remained the world’s largest buyers of semiconductor chips in 2013, but the intensifying battle between the two for the hearts and minds of consumers in their product offerings could presage another mighty showdown this year for the top ranking, according to a new report from IHS Technology.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts December 2013 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.02 (Friday Jan. 24, 2014)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.38 billion in orders worldwide in December 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.02, according to the December EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Samsung Retains Position as the Top Global Semiconductor Customer in 2013, According to Gartner (Thursday Jan. 23, 2014)
  Samsung Electronics and Apple remained the top semiconductor buyers in 2013, increasing their combined semiconductor demand by 17 per cent, according to Gartner, Inc. Samsung Electronics and Apple together consumed $53.7 billion of semiconductors in 2013, an increase of $7.7 billion from 2012.
  
  
• IC Foundry Business Continues Impressive Growth (Thursday Jan. 23, 2014)
  Total IC foundry revenue grew to $42.8 billion in 2013, a 14% increase from $37.6 billion in 2012 and eight points more than the 6% increase displayed by the total IC market, according to data released in the new 2014 edition of IC Insights’ McClean Report.
  
  
• Intel vs. TSMC: An Update (Wednesday Jan. 22, 2014)
  
  
  
• Samsung's 28nm HKMG Inside Apple's A7 (Tuesday Jan. 21, 2014)
  The A7 is fabricated with Samsung’s 28nm low-power, gate-first, high-k metal gate (HKMG) process technology. The process features nine layers of copper metallization with low-k dielectrics, plus an additional top aluminum metal layer. This blog will focus on the front end of line (FEOL) transistor structure used in the A7, with comparison to advanced technologies used by both Apple and other vendors. The A7 gate-first transistor structure is based on the Common Platform Technology, which is an alliance of IBM, Samsung, and GlobalFoundries.
  
  
• TSMC Tweaks 16nm FinFET to Match Intel (Tuesday Jan. 21, 2014)
  Leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has said that it is developing a second transistor structure for its 16nm FinFET node, which will provide a 15 percent improvement in performance or power consumption.
  
  
• Intel used ARM chips in wearables demos at CES (Monday Jan. 20, 2014)
  Intel's wearables demo at the Consumers Electronics Show generated a lot of buzz, but it turns out that not all devices had "Intel Inside". The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant used ARM-based chips for some of the demos, the company confirmed, though it declined to specify which wearables used such chips. PCMag first reported the news.
  
  
• Intel does ARM: Citi 'identifies' another possible customer (Friday Jan. 17, 2014)
  Marvell is cited as a likely chip customer for Intel. If the analysis pans out, it would be Intel's third ARM customer.
  
  
• Why ARM has the upper hand over Intel: analysts (Friday Jan. 17, 2014)
  Intel’s upbeat update in its earnings report Thursday looks like it failed to convince skeptics, with Wall Street likely still fixed on the question: Is the chipmaker ready for a post-PC world? Good question — but one best asked with one eye on ARM Holdings, a British company making headway in the markets Intel wants for the future.
  
  
• Which IP Is Better? (Thursday Jan. 16, 2014)
  Just because the specs look better doesn’t mean one piece of IP will actually work better than another. Several strategies have emerged for picking the right IP - hopefully.
  
  
• Apple's Custom Graphics Chip Coming Soon? (Thursday Jan. 16, 2014)
  There is no question that Apple was one of the first mobile device vendors to really focus on graphics performance in its iOS devices. Further, Apple is well-known for pushing its Mac silicon supplier, Intel, pretty heavily on the development of high-performance integrated graphics.
  
  
• IFI Announces Top Recipients of U.S. Patents in 2013 (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  IFI CLAIMS® Patent Services today released its annual tally of the top recipients of U.S. patents in 2013. IBM on Top Again; Qualcomm Breaks into Top 10 and Google Bests Apple as Both Jump into Top 20 for First Time.
  
  
• TSMC preps Apple's next finger-print sensor, says report (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  Foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) is preparing to make fingerprint sensors for a next-generation Apple iPhone, according to a Digitimes report that references unnamed industry sources.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports Revenue Increase for Q3 2013 (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 6.8 percent for Q3 2013 to $1,729.3 million, compared to $1619.9 million in Q3 2012.
  
  
• Microprocessor Sales Growth Will Strengthen Slightly in 2014 (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  A modest recovery in personal computers this year is expected to slightly strengthen overall sales growth in microprocessors, which is forecast to rise 9% in 2014 to a record-high $66.7 billion compared to $61.0 billion in 2013, when revenues grew 8%.
  
  
• Is Apple Building Its Own Wireless Chips? (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  There's one piece of IP that Apple doesn't appear to have today is a cellular modem/baseband. This is a curious omission for a company for whom 52% of sales comes from the sale of cell phones, and an even more curious omission given the strength of the rest of its silicon teams.
  
  
• Server Market Faces Disruption in 2014 (Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014)
  Public clouds and virtualization will cause a major shift in the server market in 2014 that’s already underway, according to one server analyst.
  
  
• CES Mobile Wrap: DSP, GPU, CPU Redefined (Monday Jan. 13, 2014)
  
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments Declined 6.9 Percent in Fourth Quarter of 2013 (Friday Jan. 10, 2014)
  Worldwide PC shipments totaled 82.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2013, a 6.9 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2012, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. This is the seventh consecutive quarter of shipment decline.
  
  
• SEMI Reports Shift in Semiconductor Capacity and Equipment Spending Trends (Friday Jan. 10, 2014)
  ased on SEMI World Fab Forecast data, SEMI suggests that spending trends for the semiconductor industry have changed. Before 2009, capacity expansion corresponded closely to fab equipment spending. Now more money is spent on upgrading existing facilities, while new capacity additions are occurring at a lower pace, to levels previously seen only during an economic or industry-wide slowdown.
  
  
• MediaTek's Global Ambition Opens Door to CEVA (Friday Jan. 10, 2014)
  MediaTek came to International CES this year with a singular focus: going global. Taiwan's chip behemoth, which dominates the Chinese market, is now intent on establishing a foothold in the United States in addition to Europe and Japan. For that, the company has new ammo: a multimode-LTE modem chipset, currently going through operators' arduous certification process; and an advanced "worldphone" SoC that will incorporate CDMA2000.
  
  
• Chips Are Down for VCs, Wall Street (Thursday Jan. 09, 2014)
  Venture capital funding, public offerings, and acquisitions fell in the chip industry in 2013, according to a new report, and a market watcher said the situation will likely worsen.
  
  
• Samsung, TSMC, and Micron Top List of IC Industry Capacity Leaders (Thursday Jan. 09, 2014)
  As of December 2013, Samsung had the most installed wafer capacity with nearly 1.9 million 200mm-equivalent wafers per month! That represented 12.6% of the world’s total capacity and most of it used for the fabrication of DRAM and flash memory devices. Next in line was the largest pure-play foundry in the world TSMC with about 1.5 million wafers per month capacity, or 10.0% of total worldwide capacity. Following TSMC were memory IC suppliers Micron, Toshiba/SanDisk, and SK Hynix.
  
  
• HP's WebOS: a second chance in LG's Smart TV? (Wednesday Jan. 08, 2014)
  LG Electronics has breathed new life into webOS -- a mobile operating system originally developed by Palm. The OS was acquired by Hewlett Packard at whopping $1.2 billion in the spring of 2010, but the project -- HP’s smartphones and tablets based on webOS -- was discontinued only a year later in the midst of turmoil among HP’s management.
  
  
• Micron Drops Phase-Change Memory - for Now (Wednesday Jan. 08, 2014)
  Micron Technology Inc. (Boise, Idaho) has stopped actively selling phase-change memory (PCM) chip but says it still plans to re-enter the market at some point in the future.