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Commentary / Analysis

• RapidIO Nudges ARM Into Servers (Thursday Jul. 18, 2013)
  RapidIO is poised to leap from wireless base stations to datacenters as an enabler of everything from greener supercomputers to ARM-based microservers. The effort could fuel the move into datacenter systems for ARM-based SoCs, many of which use or plan to adopt RapidIO.
  
  
• The ARM Diaries, Part 2: Understanding the Cortex A12 (Thursday Jul. 18, 2013)
  Before we get into discussions of specific cores, it’s important to talk about ARM’s portfolio as a whole. In the PC space we’re used to focusing on Intel’s latest and greatest microarchitectures, which are then scaled in various ways to hit lower price targets.
  
  
• Big Gains Forecast in Quarterly DRAM ASP (Wednesday Jul. 17, 2013)
  DRAM average selling prices (ASPs) have increased every month throughout 2013 and are now at levels last seen in October 2010, according to data in IC Insights’ Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report.
  
  
• Apple, Samsung Reportedly Ink 14-nm Foundry Deal (Tuesday Jul. 16, 2013)
  South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will build 14-nm processors for future Apple Inc. iPhones and iPads under the terms of a deal signed over the weekend, according to a report by the Korea Economic Daily.
  
  
• M-PCIe - Goin' mobile! (Tuesday Jul. 16, 2013)
  Like everything else in Silicon Valley, PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express) is goin’ mobile (cue up The Who). The big news at the June PCIe Special Interest Group Developers Conference was “mobile express,” M-PCIe.
  
  
• Why GlobalFoundries Should Appeal to Apple (Monday Jul. 15, 2013)
  There is speculation that negotiations around the supply of processors to Apple now include GlobalFoundries Inc.
  
  
• Industry View: Doug Wong of Toshiba on the Future of Memory (Monday Jul. 15, 2013)
  The memory industry is in a time of historic change. The shift from PCs to mobile/tablet computing platforms is driving a shift toward NAND flash, and next-generation technologies loom on the horizon. We took the opportunity to talk with Douglas Wong, senior member of the technical staff for Toshiba America Electronic Components, to get his take on key challenges in the memory space and how Toshiba plans to address them.
  
  
• Has Intel Really Beaten ARM? (Wednesday Jul. 10, 2013)
  There has been a considerable amount of press around recent AnTuTu benchmark results and a recent ABI Research report claiming, "Intel apps processor [the Atom Z2580] outperforms Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Samsung."
  
  
• Memory and Foundry Account For More Than Half of Worldwide IC Capacity (Wednesday Jul. 10, 2013)
  At the end of 2012, memory products and foundries accounted for a combined 54% of the IC industry’s installed monthly capacity of 14,497K wafers (200mm-equivalent wafers)
  
  
• SEMI Sees 21% Increase in Chip Equipment Spending for 2014 (Tuesday Jul. 09, 2013)
  SEMI forecasts semiconductor equipment sales will reach $43.98 billion in 2014, a 21 percent increase over estimated 2013 equipment spending.
  
  
• ARM's Lead Engineer Discusses Inexact Processing (Monday Jul. 08, 2013)
  Richard Grisenthwaite, lead processor architect with ARM, has said the company has thought about creating an inexact processor -- a processor that curtails precision to save power. The technique has echoes of fuzzy logic and probabilistic processing and uses reduced accuracy of multiplication and addition but manages the probability of errors building up.
  
  
• Will Your UHDTV Chip Decode Every HEVC Bit Stream? (Wednesday Jul. 03, 2013)
  Is the semiconductor industry prepared to profit from the emerging 4K UHDTV market? If so, how ready is anyone?
  
  
• India Fab Infected by Delay Bug (Wednesday Jul. 03, 2013)
  A fab amidst chaos... that's what India is planning, and delaying as usual. The deadline given by the Empowered Committee to give an answer was June 30, but a deafening silence continues to come from the red-carpeted corridors of power.
  
  
• Installed Capacity for 300mm Wafer Processing Forecast to Rise to 70% of Total Capacity by 2017 (Wednesday Jul. 03, 2013)
  Since 2008, the majority of integrated circuit production has taken place on 300mm wafers. In terms of surface area shipped (i.e., on a normalized 200mm-equivalent wafer basis), 300mm wafers represented 56% of worldwide installed capacity in December 2012
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Jump by Largest Margin in Over Three Years (Monday Jul. 01, 2013)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.70 billion for the month of May 2013, an increase of 4.6 percent from the previous month when sales were $23.62 billion.
  
  
• ARM vs. Imagination Goes to Video (Monday Jul. 01, 2013)
  We are used to processor IP companies ARM and Imagination battling to gain design wins for their CPU and GPU cores, but now the contest has moved into the realm of video rendering.
  
  
• Intel and ARM Entering a Price War? (Monday Jul. 01, 2013)
  One of the largest investing stories over the last several years is the decline of the PC and the rise of mobile computing. One of the companies with the most to lose is Intel
  
  
• The #ARM Diaries, Part 1: How ARM's Business Model Works (Friday Jun. 28, 2013)
  What will follow over the next few posts are a bunch of disclosures, some related some not, attempting to bring everyone up to speed on where ARM is today and where ARM will be in the near future. The best place to start is with ARM’s business model.
  
  
• PCIe takes on mobile, Thunderbolt, more (Friday Jun. 28, 2013)
  PCI Express Gen 3 will ride the MIPI M-PHY in tablets and smartphones thanks to one of several new specs from the PCI SIG.
  
  
• ARM, Imagination team up on UK electronics plan (Friday Jun. 28, 2013)
  The CEOs the world's leading processor IP licensors, ARM Holdings plc and Imagination Technologies Group plc, have set aside their commercial rivalry to work together on a blueprint to boost electronics business in the UK.
  
  
• The rise of the ARM clone (Wednesday Jun. 26, 2013)
  One wonders if it will different this time around. Or will ARM litigate into extinction any free, open-source, or commercial implementations of the ARM instruction set architecture, just as the company did a decade ago?
  
  
• Can China Alone Drive Semiconductor Growth? (Wednesday Jun. 26, 2013)
  Production of electronic equipment (including computers, communications, consumer, etc.) has been sluggish over the last year in all key regions of the world except China.
  
  
• TSMC signs up Apple for three-year FinFET deal (Monday Jun. 24, 2013)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. is set to supply Apple with processors using its FinFET process at the 16- and 10-nm nodes, after beginning with 20-nm planar CMOS, according to a report from Digitimes that referenced unnamed sources.
  
  
• Does Huawei have its eye on Nokia? (Friday Jun. 21, 2013)
  Nokia's stock surged after reports speculating that the struggling Finnish handset maker would be an acquisition target of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Huawei has since refuted the reports.
  
  
• Semiconductor Inventory Falls in Q1 as Outlook for Electronics Demand Rises (Friday Jun. 21, 2013)
  Total inventory held by semiconductor suppliers declined significantly in the first quarter as excess stockpiles created during the global economic malaise of 2012 were cleared away, done in anticipation of a resurgence in consumer demand for electronic products expected by the second half of 2013.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts May 2013 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.08 (Friday Jun. 21, 2013)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.32 billion in orders worldwide in May 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Spending to Decline 5.5 Percent in 2013 (Thursday Jun. 20, 2013)
  Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending is projected to total $35.8 billion in 2013, a 5.5 percent decline from 2012 spending of $37.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Project looks to re-RISC the ARM (Wednesday Jun. 19, 2013)
  "Why can't my robot sing and dance at the same time?" asked Professor David May as he proposed a processor that implements a simplified ARM instruction set architecture
  
  
• SoC Silicon and Software Design Cost Analysis: Costs for Higher Complexity Continue to Rise (Wednesday Jun. 19, 2013)
  Today, everywhere we turn we hear speakers give presentations at conferences and industry events despairing how the rise in silicon design costs is hampering the semiconductor industries growth path.
  
  
• Nvidia to license graphics IP to other chip vendors (Wednesday Jun. 19, 2013)
  Marking a dramatic shift in business strategy, Nvidia announced today that it will begin licensing current and future GPU and modem technology to other silicon vendors.