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Commentary / Analysis

• Lessons for IP reuse (Mar. 18, 2010)
  In the ten years or so that it has taken for design reuse, or design with IP, to go from a niche interest to mainstream chip implementation, teams have developed an understanding of what it can do for them, and how to budget accordingly. However, there are still surprises to be negotiated, as some aspects of design reuse are counter-intuitive, especially when it comes to reusing some piece of IP developed in-house in another chip. Designers
  
  
• Who is largest buyer of chips? (Mar. 18, 2010)
  Who is the largest buyer of chips?
  
  
• Analyst: Tabula won't have immediate market impact (Mar. 18, 2010)
  Programmable logic startup Tabula turned some heads with the announcement earlier this month of its novel architecture and introduction of its first products this week. But the company poses no immediate threat to the dominance of market leaders Xilinx and Altera, according to a Wall Street analyst.
  
  
• Semiconductor Industry at Most Profitable Level in a Decade (Mar. 15, 2010)
  The global semiconductor business now is more profitable than it has been at any time in the last decade, reflecting the industry’s increasingly aggressive management of costs, capacity and competitive positioning, according to iSuppli Corp.
  
  
• IC Insights Raises Worldwide 2010 IC Market Growth Forecast to +27% (Mar. 11, 2010)
  Worldwide IC market is now expected to jump 27% in 2010 to $253 billion and another 15% in 2011 to $290 billion. At $253 billion, the 2010 IC market would exceed by 8% the previous high of $234 billion reached in 2007.
  
  
• Altera: Industry faces 'platform collision' (Mar. 04, 2010)
  During a presentation at the Semico Outlook Conference here, an executive for programmable logic vendor Altera Inc. outlined the current and future challenges for the semiconductor industry
  
  
• Mentor CEO: IC design costs to hit $100M (Mar. 03, 2010)
  Chip design costs are expected to soar, but software--not hardware--is playing a much greater role in the problematic equation, according to the top executive of Mentor Graphics Corp.
  
  
• Six reasons why no one wants an Atom-based SoC (Feb. 26, 2010)
  There are plenty of reasons why no one has stepped up yet to use an Intel Atom core in their SoC, but if Intel really wants to be in this business it should take off eventually.
  
  
• Intel-TSMC Atom partnership reportedly on hold (Feb. 25, 2010)
  A groundbreaking partnership between Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) has been placed on hiatus due to lack of customer demand, according to a New York Times report.
  
  
• TSMC's R&D boss addresses 40-nm yields, high-k, litho (Feb. 25, 2010)
  At the TSMC Japan Executive Forum in Yokohama this week, Shang-Yi Chiang, senior vice president of R&D at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), addressed several issues about the silicon foundry giant. Chiang discussed TSMC's 40-nm capacity, yield issues, high-k and lithography.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue to Grow 20 Percent in 2010 (Feb. 25, 2010)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue in 2010 is forecast to reach $276 billion in 2010, a 19.9 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $231 billion, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Comment: ARM must beware of the 'tied-selling' trap (Feb. 24, 2010)
  The success of ARM Holdings plc with its series of low-power processing cores, and its relatively small-scale success - so far - with its Mali graphics processing cores puts ARM in a potentially dangerous position.
  
  
• EDA chiefs hazard no guesses on 2010 market (Feb. 22, 2010)
  At the annual EDAC CEO panel, the leaders of EDA's biggest firms discussed trends impacting EDA growth, but left forecasts for the year to the panel's moderator, analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer.
  
  
• A dissenting opinion on the 'programmable imperative' (Feb. 18, 2010)
  Jack Harding, CEO of ASIC design and services provider eSilicon, has a simple question for those who say FPGAs are displacing ASICs: Where is the money?
  
  
• Imagination unfazed by Samsung's Mali move (Feb. 16, 2010)
  Graphics core licensor Imagination Technologies Group plc (Kings Langley, England) has stated that it expects to have continued success with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., despite the latter's uptake of graphics from archrival ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England).
  
  
• Micron-Numonyx deal: What analysts are saying (Feb. 11, 2010)
  As expected, Micron Technology Inc. has agreed to acquire Numonyx Holdings B.V. in a stock transaction valued at $1.27 billion. There have been rumors circulating about this deal since late last year. The deal propels Micron (Boise, Ida.) into the NOR and phase-change memory (PCM) sectors. Micron also expands its thrust into NAND flash.
  
  
• ARM to detail power-efficient design technique (Feb. 10, 2010)
  Researchers from ARM and the University of Michigan have demonstrated a 52 percent reduction in power on a 65-nm ARM processor running at more than 1 GHz, using a hybrid technique for dynamic detection and correction of timing errors, according to a paper scheduled to be presented at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.
  
  
• Comment: Inside Apple's A4 processor (Feb. 10, 2010)
  Apple Inc. has not said very much about its A4 processor. But it could represent a battleground for Imagination's PowerVR graphics versus the Mali graphics from local rival ARM.
  
  
• New CEO Sandeep Vij forms 'Team MIPS' (Feb. 08, 2010)
  Signing Sandeep Vij as its new CEO may turn out to be just what MIPS Technologies needed, as the world's number two processor IP company struggles to steal the spotlight back from ARM -- both in media attention and the industry's mindshare.
  
  
• GlobalFoundries wants 30% of foundry market, says report (Feb. 04, 2010)
  GlobalFoundries Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) the foundry chip maker backed by Abu Dhabi, has said it wants to take 30 percent of the foundry market within three years, according to a Bloomberg report that cited the CEO of its lead investor as its source.
  
  
• Panel: Outsourcing is 'cruel' but necessary (Feb. 04, 2010)
  During a panel discussion at the DesignCon 2010 conference here, the topic revolved around the evolution of the IC outsourcing model--and its implications.
  
  
• Design team execs left Apple to form startup (Feb. 04, 2010)
  Amid the excitement over the A4 microprocessor designed in-house at Apple Inc. and used to power the iPad, it has emerged that a number of the internal design team have already left to form a startup.
  
  
• ARM lays out roadmap with three more cores (Feb. 02, 2010)
  ARM Holdings plans to launch three processor cores during 2010. The cores, codenamed Eagle, Heron and Merlin, all have lead licensing customers and deliveries of intellectual property will start either in 2010 or early in 2011 depending on the core, said ARM CEO Warren East.
  
  
• EDA pundits confront market projections for 2010 (Feb. 01, 2010)
  2010 has just started, and there is no better time to generate estimates and predictions for this year's EDA market. Three EDA industry experts have agreed to share their projections with EE Times.
  
  
• Analyst rails against the fab-lite (Jan. 28, 2010)
  The fabless chip vendors and pursuers of fab-lite manufacturing strategies are about to get a shock, according to Malcolm Penn, principal analyst with Future Horizons (Sevenoaks, England). Some companies could under-perform, others could be driven out of business in a market that should be booming for them; and all because they have lost control of manufacturing.
  
  
• ARM-based Processors Will Overtake x86 in Ultra-mobile Devices in 2013 (Jan. 22, 2010)
  While an estimated 90% of Ultra-mobile Devices (UMDs) shipped in 2009 were based on an x86 processor architecture, the introduction of ARM-based systems introduces greater choice and differentiation for system vendors.
  
  
• Analysis: Don't bet on Intel buying major FPGA vendor (Jan. 15, 2010)
  Intel Corp. is highly unlikely to purchase either of the two major FPGA vendors despite the desire to enter embedded space due to valuation concerns and other roadblocks, including the likelihood such a move would damage current operations at the world's biggest semiconductor company.
  
  
• Xilinx to go with TSMC at 28-nm, says analyst (Jan. 15, 2010)
  Market-leading programmable logic vendor Xilinx is set to use TSMC for foundry services at the 28-nm node, according to one analyst.
  
  
• ARM raises royalty rate with Cortex (Jan. 14, 2010)
  Processor intellectual property licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) is extracting a higher royalty rate for cores from its Cortex processor range than for older ARM processor cores, according to Tim Score, chief financial officer.
  
  
• Analyst: Intel may acquire FPGA vendor (Jan. 13, 2010)
  Intel Corp. may look to acquire an FPGA supplier such as Xilinx Inc. or Altera Corp. in 2010 in an effort to expand its presence in the embedded market as well as SoCs, according to a Wall Street analyst.