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Commentary / Analysis

• 2H17 DRAM, NAND ASP Growth to Cool, But Yearly Growth Strong (Wednesday Jul. 19, 2017)
  Sales of both memory types—DRAM and NAND—are expected to set record highs this year. In both cases, the strong annual upturn in sales is being driven almost entirely by fast-rising average selling prices. In the case of DRAM, unit shipments are actually forecast to show a decline this year.
  
  
• Does NVMe Have a Place in Industrial Embedded and IoT? (Monday Jul. 17, 2017)
  Is NVM Express (NVMe) overkill for embedded, industrial applications? Until recently, that's been the consensus, according to Scott Phillips, vice president of marketing at Virtium. But as big players such as Intel and Micron push the interface specification forward, Phillips said many industrial customers are approaching the company and asking about NVMe.
  
  
• TSMC Logs First 10nm Sales (Thursday Jul. 13, 2017)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has recognized its first revenue from 10nm products, trailing Samsung, its main rival in the foundry business, by nearly four months.
  
  
• Semi Content in Electronic Systems Forecast to Set New Record in 2017 (Thursday Jul. 13, 2017)
  In its upcoming Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report 2017 (to be released at the end of July), IC Insights forecasts that the 2017 global electronic systems market will grow by only 2% to $1,493 billion while the worldwide semiconductor market is expected to surge by 15% this year to $419.1 billion.
  
  
• Imec Aims 2-D FETs at Sub-5-nm Node (Thursday Jul. 13, 2017)
  Designers can extend Moore's Law scaling beyond the 5-nanometer node by choosing two-dimensional anisotropic (faster with the grain) materials such as monolayers of black phosphorus, according to Imec (Leuven, Belgium).
  
  
• Suppliers Beware: The Perils of Vertical Integration (Thursday Jul. 13, 2017)
  There are basically two types of organizations in the computer and mobile industry: device makers who are, to the extent they can be, vertically integrated, and component or IP suppliers that offer their product or technology across several vertical product types to the device makers.
  
  
• 200mm Fabs Thriving; SEMI's Updated 200mm Fab Report Now Available (Wednesday Jul. 12, 2017)
  Since 2009, installed 200mm fab capacity has increased, and by 2020, 200mm capacity is expected to reach almost 5.7 million wafers per month (wpm), and poised to surpass the 2007 peak.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue to Reach $400 Billion in 2017 (Tuesday Jul. 11, 2017)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to total $401.4 billion in 2017, an increase of 16.8 percent from 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. This will be the first time semiconductor revenue has surpassed $400 billion. The market reached the $300 billion milestone seven years ago, in 2010, and surpassed $200 billion in 2000.
  
  
• U.S. Paves Roads to Trusted Fabs (Tuesday Jul. 11, 2017)
  The U.S. Department of Defense is working with partners on multiple technologies that would make any foundry a trusted source to make classified ASICs for the military. If the government is successful it will be able to tap leading-edge process technologies from multiple fabs by 2019.
  
  
• Rambus Reportedly Exploring Sale Possibilities (Tuesday Jul. 11, 2017)
  Memory technology licensor and chip vendor Rambus Inc. is working with a financial advisor to study options for its sale, according to a report by the Bloomberg news service.
  
  
• Apple hits back at Imagination's 'misleading' statements, disputes timeline (Monday Jul. 10, 2017)
  The war of words between Apple and Imagination Technologies seems to be escalating. A few days after Imagination’s annual report accused Apple of making ‘unsubstantiated allegations,’ the Cupertino company has hit back.
  
  
• Graphcore's 'Colossus' chip due before end of year (Friday Jul. 07, 2017)
  Simon Knowles, CTO of startup Graphcore Ltd. (Bristol, England) has discussed his company's approach to machine intelligence including providing some details of the first chip codenamed Colossus.
  
  
• Imagination fades in 2016 semiconductor IP market (Thursday Jul. 06, 2017)
  ARM continued to dominate a semiconductor intellectual property (IP) market that grew strongly in 2016, but Imagination struggled as its restructuring during that year hurt sales, according to a report from IPnest. The strongest growth companies were Rambus and Ceva.
  
  
• ESD Alliance Reports EDA Industry Revenue Increase For Q1 2017 (Thursday Jul. 06, 2017)
  The Electronic System Design (ESD) Alliance Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 10.5 percent for Q1 2017 to $2167.5 million, compared to $1962 million in Q1 2016. The four-quarters moving average, which compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four quarters, increased by 10.6 percent.
  
  
• China Makes Two IoT Calls (Thursday Jul. 06, 2017)
  Two of China’s Web giants tapped domestic and U.S. chip partners for embedded voice software and services competing with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Their efforts mark a new front in the war over an emerging market for natural-language and machine-learning services targeting everything from cars to thermostats.
  
  
• Micron Fab Incident Disrupts DRAM Supply (Thursday Jul. 06, 2017)
  Suspension of production at a Taiwanese DRAM fab owned by Micron Technology will further disrupt an already tight global DRAM supply situation and lead to price increases, according to a market watcher.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 22.6 Percent Year-to-Year in May (Tuesday Jul. 04, 2017)
  SIA today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $31.9 billion for the month of May 2017, an increase of 22.6 percent compared to the May 2016 total of $26.0 billion and 1.9 percent more than the April 2017 total of $31.4 billion.
  
  
• Embedded MRAM Can Take the Heat (Thursday Jun. 29, 2017)
  On the heels of several foundries publicly announcing plans to put MRAM into production by the end of this year and into 2018, one of them has outlined how it can significantly improve data retention for embedded applications.
  
  
• Moore's Law's End Reboots Industry (Monday Jun. 26, 2017)
  The expected death of Moore’s Law will transform the semiconductor and computer industries, said a panel of experts at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Alan Turing award.
  
  
• Taiwan to Invest $131 Million in Semiconductor Industry (Monday Jun. 26, 2017)
  Taiwan will invest about $131 million over four years in the island nation's semiconductor industry, according to multiple news reports citing recent remarks by Taiwan's Minister of Science and Technology (MOST).
  
  
• Intel Banks on Artificial Intelligence (Monday Jun. 26, 2017)
  Last year, Intel Corp. acquired neural-network hardware maker Nervana and built Nervana’s chip, integrating it with Intel’s own on-processor deep-learning and artificial-intelligence (AI) capabilities. This month, Intel Capital invested in AI startups CognitiveScale, Aeye Inc., and Element AI. At the ISC High Performance conferencethis week. Intel fellow Pradeep Dubey outlined the big picture for Intel’s growing AI portfolio.
  
  
• Much Ado About China's Big IC Surge (Thursday Jun. 22, 2017)
  It’s been two years since China announced a huge capital investment intended to kick-start an indigenous semiconductor industry. China’s ambitious “National IC Industry Development Outline” spells out a mission to build up a semiconductor industry that will eventually become self-sufficient. So, how’s that working out for China?
  
  
• Alibaba Fuels China's CPU Gambit (Wednesday Jun. 21, 2017)
  C-Sky Microelectronics Co., designer of China’s home-grown 32-bit embedded CPU processing cores, is quite possibly China’s best kept secret.
  
  
• Siemens Lays Out Vision for Mentor (Wednesday Jun. 21, 2017)
  When Siemens AG agreed last November to buy Mentor Graphics Corp. for $4.5 billion, it wasn't the first time that the German conglomerate had entertained the idea of swallowing the Portland, Ore.-based EDA software vendor.
  
  
• Cellphone IC Sales Will Top Total Personal Computing in 2017 (Wednesday Jun. 21, 2017)
  The ongoing slump in shipments of standard personal computers along with the drop-off in tablets are setting the stage for cellphone IC sales to finally surpass integrated circuit revenues in total personal computing systems this year, based on new forecasts in the recently released update of IC Insights’ 2017 IC Market Drivers Report.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts May 2017 Billings (Monday Jun. 19, 2017)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.27 billion in billings worldwide in May 2017 (three-month average basis), according to the May Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• MediaTek Chooses TSMC for 7nm (Friday Jun. 16, 2017)
  MediaTek, the second-largest designer of mobile phone chips after Qualcomm, says it has chosen Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to make 7nm products.
  
  
• 7 of the Top 10 Smartphone Suppliers Headquartered in China (Thursday Jun. 15, 2017)
  Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market from 2014 through 2016. In total, these two companies shipped 555 million smartphones and held a combined 39% share of the total smartphone market in 2015. Although these two companies still shipped over one-half billion smartphones (526 million) in 2016, their combined smartphone unit marketshare dropped four percentage points to 35%.
  
  
• Google Ramps Mobile SoC Team (Thursday Jun. 15, 2017)
  Google is ramping up a team to build mobile SoCs for tablets and smartphones. The Web giant posted nearly 200 job openings in its hardware group including at least half a dozen specifically for mobile SoC designers.
  
  
• Qualcomm Reportedly Taps TSMC's 7nm (Wednesday Jun. 14, 2017)
  Qualcomm will switch back to TSMC to make its 7nm Snapdragon parts after giving its 10nm business to Samsung, according to a report in ET News, a South Korean publication.