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Commentary / Analysis

• Imagination the Leader in GPU IP, ARM and Vivante Growing Rapidly (Wednesday Sep. 25, 2013)
  Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated personal mobile devices graphics chip shipments for the first half of 2013. Personal mobile devices include smartphones, tablets and handheld game consoles.
  
  
• Inside the iPhone 5s (Monday Sep. 23, 2013)
  Amidst long midnight lineups and rumors of supply shortages, we here at Chipworks have managed to get our hands on Apple’s latest entry to the smartphone market: the iPhone 5s. Phone in-hand, we did what any self-respecting technology company would do – destroy it (carefully). Follow us along today as we dive into what’s new and exciting this time around, including the A7 64-bit ARM CPU and the mysterious M7 motion co-processor.
  
  
• Mobile DRAM posts improved revenue in Q2 from dismal first quarter (Monday Sep. 23, 2013)
  The market for mobile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) grew in the second quarter in light of anticipated demand for the upcoming hot selling season, but mobile DRAM’s share of the overall DRAM space remained well below what it was in the last six months of 2012, according to a new DRAM brief from IHS.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts August 2013 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.98 (Friday Sep. 20, 2013)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.06 billion in orders worldwide in August 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.98, according to the August EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Spending to Decline 8.5 Percent in 2013 (Thursday Sep. 19, 2013)
  Gartner said that capital spending will decrease 6.8 percent in 2013, due to diminishing 28-nanometer (nm) investment from a softening in the mobile phone market.
  
  
• Leading-Edge Technology to be Responsible for Entire 2013 Increase in Pure-Play Foundry Sales (Wednesday Sep. 18, 2013)
  For 2013, 51% of TSMC’s revenue is expected to be from ≤45nm processing. As expected, with GlobalFoundries’ fabs having a large portion of their capacity dedicated to producing AMD’s MPUs over the past few years, its processing technology is skewed toward leading-edge feature sizes. In 2013, 50% of GlobalFoundries’ sales are forecast to be from ≤45nm production.
  
  
• Worldwide Total Semiconductor Market to Grow 3% in 2013 to Reach $298 Billion; Consolidation Still Rife (Tuesday Sep. 17, 2013)
  The worldwide semiconductor market is expected to grow 3% from 2012 to 2013. There has been sequential market growth from 1Q13 to 2Q13 and the vast majority of the top 20 vendors are expecting 3Q13 to grow revenues again.
  
  
• Apple Begs the 64-Bit Question (Tuesday Sep. 17, 2013)
  With its iPhone 5S, Apple begs the question of what a mobile handset can do with 64-bit addressability. I suspect the answer is, "Not much."
  
  
• What happens if you shrink a P54C Pentium to 32nm and call it Quark? (Friday Sep. 13, 2013)
  In the first IDF keynote of 2013, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich introduced a new sub-Atom CPU called Quark. While the keynote was woefully short on details and tech, SemiAccurate managed to dig some of that up anyway.
  
  
• Asia-Pac Soars, Japan Drops in Regional Semiconductor Capex Spending (Thursday Sep. 12, 2013)
  In its Research Bulletin dated August 27, 2013, IC Insights traced the sales of the top 10 semiconductor companies dating back to 1985.
  
  
• Apple's New A7 Chip Is Apple's First 64-Bit SoC (Wednesday Sep. 11, 2013)
  During today's iPhone keynote, Apple announced the new A7 chip, which powers the sick features of Apple's latest flagship handset. Let's take a look under the glass at the speedy monster that makes the magic possible- and will open the door to all sorts of new apps in the future.
  
  
• Qualcomm Not Big on Big.little (Monday Sep. 09, 2013)
  Don't expect Qualcomm to use ARM's big.little or off-the-shelf cores, it aims to lead at the risk of tripping on not-invented-here syndrome.
  
  
• Intel Beats ARM Servers (Thursday Sep. 05, 2013)
  Intel announced an impressive second-generation Atom-based server SoC and benchmarks showing it beats ARM-based chips from Applied Micro, Calxeda, and Marvell.
  
  
• Fab Equipment Spending Up 25% in 2014 (Wednesday Sep. 04, 2013)
  The SEMI World Fab Forecast indicates that capital expenditure for semiconductor fab equipment spending will increase to US$ 39.8 billion in 2014, the highest on record.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Industry Posts Highest Sales Total of 2013 in July (Wednesday Sep. 04, 2013)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.53 billion for the month of July 2013, the highest total of 2013 and an increase of 5.1 percent over July 2012.
  
  
• Microsoft Is Not the New Apple (Tuesday Sep. 03, 2013)
  With its $7 billion bid for Nokia's cellphone business, Microsoft has completed its transformation into Janus, a two-faced hardware/software giant that should scare away any potential partner.
  
  
• Is Nokia Headed for Troll Country? (Tuesday Sep. 03, 2013)
  The sale of its handset business to Microsoft provides Nokia with money for yet another reinvention of itself, but it presents the Finnish company with a fundamental choice. Will it retreat into the minority activity of licensing, or can it revitalize itself (and Europe) with a manufacturing-led business? Or is value-in-information now the name of the game?
  
  
• Look out ARM, Intel, here comes MIPS - again (Monday Sep. 02, 2013)
  Imagination Technologies, best known for its PowerVR graphics-core designs used by a host of system-on-chip (SoC) purveyors from Apple to Intel, wants world+dog to know that it is dedicated to grabbing a hefty chunk of the compute-core market with its MIPS-based designs resulting from its acquisition of that venerable company, completed this February.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Server Shipments Grew 4 Percent While Revenue Decreased 3.8 Percent in the Second Quarter of 2013 (Friday Aug. 30, 2013)
  the second quarter 2013, worldwide server shipments grew 4 percent year-on-year, while revenue declined 3.8 percent from the second quarter of 2012, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Semiconductor market back to healthy growth (Friday Aug. 30, 2013)
  The worldwide semiconductor market is back to a healthy level of growth. WSTS data shows the 2Q 2013 global semiconductor market was up 6.0% from 1Q 2013 - the strongest quarter-to-quarter growth since 6.6% growth in 2Q 2011. Recent forecasts for 2013 market growth range from a conservative 2.1% from WSTS to an optimistic "up to 10%" from Objective Analysis.
  
  
• IBM's Last Stand in CPUs? (Thursday Aug. 29, 2013)
  The Open Power Consortium could become IBM's last stand in microprocessors with huge implications for the future of Big Blue.
  
  
• Foundry Model Challenges Intel (Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013)
  Intel has always prided itself on its huge capital expenditures. Investments in fabs have helped the company become the world's largest chip manufacturer, as well as the proprietor of the most advanced semiconductor processes.
  
  
• Moore's Law Dead by 2022, Expert Says (Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013)
  Moore's Law will come to an end as soon as 2020 at the 7nm node, said a keynoter at the Hot Chips conference here.
  
  
• Qualcomm Opens DSP Core (Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013)
  The mobile chip vendor will invite third-party programmers to write apps for its Hexagon core and may license the part to other chip vendors
  
  
• Lone Japanese Semiconductor Supplier Ranked Among Top 10 in 1H13 (Tuesday Aug. 27, 2013)
  Competitive pressures, collapse of vertically integrated business model, increasing asset-lite strategies lead to Japan mergers, spinoffs; fewer suppliers among top 10.
  
  
• Group Describes Specs for x86, ARM SoCs (Monday Aug. 26, 2013)
  The Heterogeneous Systems Architecture group gave a first look at work on parallel programming specs backed by AMD, ARM, and ARM SoC vendors.
  
  
• GlobalFoundries Rumored to Get a Bite of Apple Chip Business (Wednesday Aug. 21, 2013)
  Rumors are swirling about a deal with Apple for GlobalFoundaries. The already successful foundry may be poised for even bigger success.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts July 2013 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.00 (Wednesday Aug. 21, 2013)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.27 billion in orders worldwide in July 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.00, according to the July EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Using "Final Market Value", TSMC Became the Largest Semiconductor Supplier in the World in 2Q13 (Tuesday Aug. 20, 2013)
  The total “final market value” sales figure for the IC foundries is expected to represent just over 36% of the worldwide $271 billion IC market forecast for 2013, and just over 45% of the $359 billion worldwide IC market forecast for 2017.
  
  
• Construction of 450mm Fab 'Well Underway' (Thursday Aug. 15, 2013)
  The construction of Intel's first wafer fab for processing 450mm diameter wafers is "well underway," having started in January 2013, an Intel spokesperson tells EE Times.