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Commentary / Analysis

• What is ST's plan B? (Friday Jun. 14, 2013)
  A month or so back ST announced that ST would be divided into two product-oriented business segments that would each be financially sustainable. The first block comprises analog, power, sensors and automotive. The second is the remaining digital activities including embedded processing, microcontrollers and processors for digital consumer applications.
  
  
• How will TSMC cope after Chang? (Wednesday Jun. 12, 2013)
  TSMC could be set to annouce Morris Chang's successor as CEO sometime toward the end of 2013. But whoever gets the job will be trying to fill the largest pair of shoes working in semiconductors.
  
  
• Communications IC Market Forecast to Exceed the Computer IC Market for the First Time in History in 2013 (Tuesday Jun. 11, 2013)
  
  
  
• SEMI Reports First Quarter 2013 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Figures; Billings US$ 7.31 Billion (Tuesday Jun. 11, 2013)
  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$ 7.31 billion in the first quarter of 2013. The billings figure is 8 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2012 and 32 percent lower than the same quarter a year ago.
  
  
• Slight Uptick for Global Semiconductor Sales in April; Moderate Growth Projected for 2013 and 2014 (Friday Jun. 07, 2013)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $23.62 billion for the month of April 2013, a 0.6 percent increase from the previous month when sales were $23.48 billion, but down slightly from the April 2012 total of 24.06 billion.
  
  
• Intel's Haswell gets mixed reviews from analysts (Thursday Jun. 06, 2013)
  Intel's new microprocessor, Haswell, won’t revive a sagging PC market or give Intel a huge leg up in tablets from what I hear.
  
  
• Intel Holds Qualcomm at Bay to Lead 2012 Embedded Processor Vendor Share Ranking, But for How Much Longer? (Wednesday Jun. 05, 2013)
  According to preliminary findings from the 2013 edition of Semicast's Embedded Processing Service, Intel was the largest supplier of embedded processors in 2012, just ahead of Qualcomm. Broadcom maintained its position as third largest supplier, while Samsung traded places with Texas Instruments for fourth and fifth respectively.
  
  
• Fab Equipment Spending: Strong Second Half Pulls 2013 Up; over 23% Growth for 2014 (Wednesday Jun. 05, 2013)
  Fab equipment spending will grow two percent year-over-year (US$ 32.5 billion) for 2013 and about 23 to 27 percent in 2014 ($41 billion) according to the May edition of the SEMI World Fab Forecast.
  
  
• Intel, ARM on even footing in Net of Things, says IDC (Friday May. 31, 2013)
  More than 25 billion intelligent systems valued at $4 trillion could ship in 2020, said an IDC analyst helping create a new trade group for the sector.
  
  
• 2013 Semiconductor Forecast Lowered to 6% (Friday May. 31, 2013)
  The global semiconductor market was weaker than expected in 1Q 2013, down 4.5% from 4Q 2012 according to WSTS. Much of the softness was attributable to a major falloff in the PC market.
  
  
• Slow Global GDP Growth Weighs On IC Market (Thursday May. 30, 2013)
  Many of the preliminary 1Q13 GDP figures by country or region have now been reported. Based on the first quarter data, IC Insights has slightly lowered its worldwide GDP forecast from the 3.1% shown in the March Update to 3.0%.
  
  
• Intel is buyer of ST-Ericsson GPS unit (Wednesday May. 29, 2013)
  Intel has been revealed as the purchaser of the connectivity and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) business unit of ST-Ericsson NV (Geneva, Switzerland), a failed joint venture in mobile phone chips.
  
  
• Penetration of Verification IP (Friday May. 24, 2013)
  This blog is the third in the series of industry opinions about various aspects of the IP industry. Today, we turn our focus to verification IP and I asked how much adoption is there for verification IP? How does the market size for this compare to design IP?
  
  
• Industry needs to up its research game, says Intel (Thursday May. 23, 2013)
  Mike Mayberry, director of component research at Intel Corp. has looked down the highway of conventional silicon development and reckons things become foggy beyond about the 7-nm node.
  
  
• Broadcom: Time to prepare for the end of Moore's Law (Thursday May. 23, 2013)
  CTO Henry Samueli says Broadcom is starting to prepare customers for the end of CMOS scaling in the next 15 years, and it is working out plans for 3-D chip stacks.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts April 2013 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 1.08 (Wednesday May. 22, 2013)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.17 billion in orders worldwide in April 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08, according to the April EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI. A book-to-bill of 1.08 means that $108 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
  
  
• Intel's new CEO shakes things up (Tuesday May. 21, 2013)
  Brian Krzanich outlines re-org in internal memo two days after taking the helm of the world's biggest chip maker.
  
  
• ST to deny rivals FDSOI access (Tuesday May. 21, 2013)
  STMicroelectronics is considering plans to offer its fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI) process to second-tier foundries United Microelectronics Corp. and SMIC.
  
  
• Qualcomm and Samsung Pass AMD in MPU Ranking (Tuesday May. 21, 2013)
  A slowdown in notebook and desktop personal computer purchases coupled with strong growth in smartphones and tablet PCs knocked Advanced Micro Devices down to fourth place in microprocessor sales in 2012 from second, where AMD had been perched behind Intel since the 1990s, according to a new ranking of MPU suppliers by IC Insights.
  
  
• ST's strategy is a tale of two segments (Friday May. 17, 2013)
  ST tells analysts it is going to report financial results for its both digital and analog business segments for "transparency" but remains committed to exploiting manufacturing technologies it has Crolles, including its FDSOI process.
  
  
• TSMC plots system super chips (Tuesday May. 14, 2013)
  TSMC recently detailed its plans to dominate the "system super-chip" market in an exclusive EE Times interview with its chief technology officer and vice president of R&D, Jack Sun.
  
  
• What will the IP landscape look like in the future (Monday May. 13, 2013)
  Today the question is: When the 3rd party IP market/business was first conceived, it was a bunch of small startups plus a few more established players. Significant consolidation has happened and a lot of IP is now supplied by the EDA companies. What do you think the IP landscape will look like in the future? Who owns it?
  
  
• Eleven Companies Move Up in 1Q13 Top 20 Semi Supplier Ranking (Monday May. 13, 2013)
  The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies.
  
  
• Segars won't rock the ARM boat (Monday May. 13, 2013)
  The incoming CEO of ARM obviously believes in one timeless adage: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  
  
• Smartphone Apps Processor Revenue Soared 60 Percent in 2012 (Friday May. 10, 2013)
  Global smartphone applications processor market showed a robust 60 percent year-on-year growth in 2012 to reach $12.9 billion, according to the Strategy Analytics.
  
  
• Synopsys, Imagination make gains in semi IP ranking (Monday May. 06, 2013)
  Synopsys and Imagination made gains on leader ARM in the semiconductor IP market in 2012, according to market research firm Gartner.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Outpace Last Year through First Quarter of 2013 (Friday May. 03, 2013)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $23.48 billion for the month of March 2013, an increase of 1.1 percent from the previous month when sales were $23.23 billion.
  
  
• Analog IC Market Struggles to Gain Footing in 2012 (Thursday May. 02, 2013)
  Worldwide economic uncertainty has given the analog IC market plenty of ups and downs over the last several years; however 2012 was one of the worst years for this segment. Analog was down 7 percent from 2011 with revenues just shy of $40 billion, although this was the unfortunate reality for the entire semiconductor market, which had an average decline of 3 percent in 2012.
  
  
• Fabless Suppliers Play Increasing Role in IC Market (Thursday May. 02, 2013)
  Unlike the relatively close annual market growth relationship between fabless IC suppliers and foundries, fabless IC company sales growth versus IDM (integrated device manufacturer) IC supplier growth has typically been very different.
  
  
• Audio Semiconductor Market Achieves Loud and Clear Gains in Cellphones (Tuesday Apr. 30, 2013)
  Driven by their capability to improve sound quality and boost language-recognition user interfaces such as Apple’s Siri, audio integrated circuits (IC) are set for expansive growth in cellphones, with chips for noise reduction and natural speech expected to be the biggest uses during the next five years