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Commentary / Analysis

• Facebook Open Sources Time Appliance For Data Center Networks (Thursday Aug. 12, 2021)
  Facebook engineers have built a time appliance for network synchronization and open-sourced the entire specification, which should drive the price of the function down significantly.
  
  
• Data Movement Depends on PCIe (Thursday Aug. 12, 2021)
  The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) bus standard has a lot riding on it. Or perhaps more accurately, needs to accommodate a lot of data flowing through it.
  
  
• Automotive MCU Sales to Surge 23% in 2021 Despite Shortages (Thursday Aug. 12, 2021)
  32-bit designs are expected to generate almost 77% of automotive microcontroller revenues this year, followed by 18% from 16-bit and 6% from 8-bit, says Mid-Year Update report.
  
  
• Robust Growth Rates Expected For Nearly All IC Products in 2021 (Thursday Aug. 05, 2021)
  
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 29.2% Year-to-Year in June; Q2 Sales Up 8.3% Over Q1 (Tuesday Aug. 03, 2021)
  Sales during the second quarter of 2021 were $133.6 billion, an increase of 29.2% over the second quarter of 2020 and 8.3% more than the first quarter of 2021
  
  
• CEO interview: Globalfoundries' Tom Caulfield on the European project (Tuesday Aug. 03, 2021)
  We sat down with Tom Caulfield, CEO of Globalfoundries, and discussed Europe's plans to build up its semiconductor supply chain, something in which GF is set to play a major part.
  
  
• Silicon Wafer Shipments Reach New High in Second Quarter 2021, SEMI Reports (Thursday Jul. 29, 2021)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased 6% to 3,534 million square inches in the second quarter of 2021, surpassing the historical high set in the first quarter.
  
  
• IC Insights Forecasts a 21% Surge in IC Unit Shipments This Year (Thursday Jul. 29, 2021)
  After a 6% drop in IC unit shipments in 2019, and an 8% increase in 2020, IC Insights forecasts a huge 21% jump in IC unit shipments this year.
  
  
• Bankrupt Tsinghua Unigroup advertises for investors (Monday Jul. 26, 2021)
  Bankrupt Tsinghua Unigroup is looking for investors to bail it out. It has debts of $30.8 billion.
  
  
• TSMC considers German fab (Monday Jul. 26, 2021)
  TSMC is looking at building a fab in Germany.
  
  
• European Commission forms processor, semiconductor alliance (Thursday Jul. 22, 2021)
  The European Commission has announced an industrial alliance for processors and semiconductor technologies. It also announced an alliance on for industrial data, edge and cloud.
  
  
• Is TSMC-Sony A Sign Of Things To Come? (Thursday Jul. 22, 2021)
  One wonders if TSMC’s plan to build a 28nm 40k wpm fab in Japan to make image sensors for Sony is a sign of things to come.
  
  
• CXL Product Pipeline Gets Flowing (Monday Jul. 19, 2021)
  Micron Technology made the news when it abandoned further 3D XPoint development in favor of focusing on the rapidly emerging Compute Express Link (CXL) interconnect standard. But it’s not the first company out of the gate with CXL-related products.
  
  
• TSMC in "Due Diligence" on Possible Japan Fab (Monday Jul. 19, 2021)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is evaluating whether to build a chip facility in Japan as nations around the world are seeking the top foundry’s help to create secure electronics supply chains.
  
  
• Chip Shortages May Persist Until 2023, Analysts Say (Monday Jul. 19, 2021)
  When Mark Liu, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), suggested to CBS journalist Leslie Stahl that the global semiconductor shortage may extend through 2022, Liu’s comment raised questions about the current steep ramp of new capacity to meet demand, the potential for rising chip prices and eventual oversupply.
  
  
• Intel in talks to buy Globalfoundries (Monday Jul. 19, 2021)
  Intel's $30bn talks to buy Globalfoundries would create more upheaval for European wafer fab plans
  
  
• Electronic System Design Industry Logs Record First-Quarter Revenue Growth, ESD Alliance Reports (Thursday Jul. 15, 2021)
  Electronic System Design (ESD) industry revenue increased 17% to $3,1571.7 million in Q1 2021, the strongest first-quarter growth ever, the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community, announced today in the Q1 2021 Electronic Design Market Data (EDMD) report.
  
  
• Innatera Unveils Neuromorphic AI Chip to Accelerate Spiking Networks (Thursday Jul. 15, 2021)
  Innatera, the Dutch startup making neuromorphic AI accelerators for spiking neural networks, has produced its first chips, gauged their performance, and revealed details of their architecture.
  
  
• Taiwan Maintains Edge as Largest Base for IC Wafer Capacity (Thursday Jul. 15, 2021)
  As a percent of worldwide total, China achieves largest increase in fab capacity at expense of all other regions, but still trails Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in installed capacity.
  
  
• Is analog IC fab renaissance in the works? (Thursday Jul. 15, 2021)
  The Taiwan-based analog IC vendors are hitting new highs in the third quarter of 2021, and the growing availability of fab capacity seems to complement this boost in analog chip sales.
  
  
• Flexible fab could slash chip shortage (Monday Jul. 12, 2021)
  Richard Price, CTO at PragmatIC, talks to Nick Flaherty about a flexible fab approach that can slash the time taken to design and make a chip.
  
  
• "Insolvent" Tsinghua Unigroup Aims to Restructure (Monday Jul. 12, 2021)
  With debts exceeding its assets, Tsinghua Unigroup has acknowledged it is insolvent. The Chinese holding company, which owns chipmakers such as Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) and chip designer Unisoc (Shanghai) Technologies Co., said it will attempt a restructuring.
  
  
• Pim Tuyls: IoT Security, Technology Scaling, and Quantum Threats (Friday Jul. 09, 2021)
  We caught up with CEO and a founder of Intrinsic ID, Pim Tuyls, to understand more about the world of PUF security, the challenges for IoT security as technology scales, and how to deal with the potential impact of other threats including quantum computing.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales in May Up 26.2% Year-to-Year, 4.1% Month-to-Month (Tuesday Jul. 06, 2021)
  SIA) today announced global semiconductor industry sales were $43.6 billion in the month of May 2021, an increase of 26.2% over the May 2020 total of $34.6 billion and 4.1% more than the April 2021 total of $41.9 billion.
  
  
• Apple and Intel first to use TSMC 3nm (Monday Jul. 05, 2021)
  Apple and Intel will be the first customers for TSMC’s 3nm process, reports the Nikkei, with Intel securing the higher volume.
  
  
• Plans start for TSMC 2nm fab (Thursday Jul. 01, 2021)
  Taiwan's Ministry of Science and Technology has discussed environmental issues around a proposed expansion of TSMC's Hsinchu operations to house a 2nm wafer fab.
  
  
• NVMe Gets Refactored (Thursday Jul. 01, 2021)
  The non-volatile memory express (NVMe) specifications are getting restructured. While maintaining backward compatibility with previous generations, NVMe 2.0 allows for faster and simpler development in what has become an increasingly diverse device environment that has expanded to include hard disk drives (HDDs).
  
  
• Worldwide IC Market Forecast to Top $500 Billion in 2021 (Wednesday Jun. 30, 2021)
  Strong demand across the entire IC market this year is projected to lift sales for the total IC market 24% and break through the $500 billion plateau for the first time in history
  
  
• Intel Shuffles Networking Groups, Product Mix (Monday Jun. 28, 2021)
  An organizational shakeup at Intel Corp. and related technology announcements indicate its move to become a more significant player in the global market for networking components and systems.
  
  
• New Semiconductor Fabs to Spur Surge in Equipment Spending, SEMI Reports (Monday Jun. 28, 2021)
  China and Taiwan will lead the way in the new fab construction starts with eight each, followed by the Americas with six, Europe/Mideast with three, Japan and Korea with two each.