By Mark LaPedus
pldesignline.com (March 02, 2010)
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- 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.
Bradley Howe, vice president of IC engineering at Altera, said soaring R&D, IC design and process-technology costs are only some of the challenges. Perhaps the new and growing issue is less obvious: IC integration. Chip integration has reduced the cost in systems, but it is also creating a new and competitive environment. "We are seeing a platform collision," Howe said.