High-voltage hype charges up foundries

Mark LaPedus EE Times
(11/17/2008 12:01 AM EST)

Industry pundits proclaimed 2008 the year of analog. With the growth of the analog chip market far outpacing that of digital, a slew of foundry vendors jumped into the arena.

Still, the odds for analog foundries' survival aren't looking good, especially at a time when the analog foundry vendors face an IC market downturn, the breakout of a price war and mounting fears about intellectual property theft in China.

Most troubling of all is that--all of a sudden--there are just too many analog foundries.