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Commentary / Analysis

• Intel stung for $2bn in Waco judgment (Monday Mar. 08, 2021)
  VLSI Technology, which was bought by Philips Semiconductors (now NXP) in 1999 for $1 billion, has successfully sued Intel for patent infringement in a court in Waco, Texas and been awarded $2.18 billion damages.
  
  
• Progress in Importation of US Equipment Dispels Doubts on SMIC's Capacity Expansion for Mature Nodes for Now, Says TrendForce (Monday Mar. 08, 2021)
  The major suppliers of WFE (wafer fab equipment) in the US are progressing smoothly in the application for license from the US government for the exportation of equipment systems, equipment parts, and customer services for 14nm and above processes to Chinese foundry SMIC.
  
  
• Automakers Will Go Fabless (Monday Mar. 08, 2021)
  Today, no one would question a semiconductor company that designs but doesn’t make its own chips. How is that different from an automaker that designs but doesn’t make its own cars? It isn’t. Automakers will go fabless.
  
  
• Revenue per Wafer Climbs As Demand Surges for 5nm/7nm IC Processes (Thursday Mar. 04, 2021)
  Many fabless IC companies are clamoring to have their leading-edge devices, including high-performance microprocessors, low-power application processors, and other advanced logic devices, fabricated using 7nm and 5nm process nodes.
  
  
• GPU shipments soar once more in Q4 (Thursday Mar. 04, 2021)
  Overall, the installed base of GPUs will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.7 percent during 2020–2025 to reach a total of 419 million units at the end of the forecast period. Over the next five years, the penetration of discrete GPUs (dGPU) in the PC will grow to reach a level of 21 percent.
  
  
• Wave Goodbye, Hello MIPS as Chapter 11 Resolved (Tuesday Mar. 02, 2021)
  Wave Computing said it has emerged from Chapter 11 and will continue business going forward as MIPS.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 13.2% year-to-year in January (Tuesday Mar. 02, 2021)
  SIA today announced global semiconductor industry sales were $40.0 billion for the month of January 2021, an increase of 13.2% over the January 2020 total of $35.3 billion and 1.0% more than the December 2020 total of $39.6 billion.
  
  
• AMD, TSMC & Imec Show Their Chiplet Playbooks at ISSCC (Monday Mar. 01, 2021)
  A lot has been said about the shift from a system-on-chip integration of functionality to a technology integrating each IP block as a physically distinct chiplet. Perhaps the emergence of this new paradigm is most aptly represented by the devotion of a full forum session to chiplets at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. The virtual conference just wrapped up.
  
  
• TSMC Ranks in Top-10 For Capacity in Three Wafer Size Categories (Thursday Feb. 25, 2021)
  As of December 2020, only TSMC—the world’s largest foundry—was listed among the wafer capacity leaders in each of the three wafer size categories. It had the most 200mm wafer capacity last year and ranked second, trailing only Samsung, in 300mm wafer capacity.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts January 2021 Billings, Topping $3 Billion for First Time (Wednesday Feb. 24, 2021)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $3.04 billion in billings worldwide in January 2021 (three-month average basis), the first time monthly billings have reached $3 billion.
  
  
• Sales of Logic ICs Account for Largest Share of China's IC Market in 2020 (Friday Feb. 19, 2021)
  IC Insights recently released its 2021 edition of The McClean Report. The new analysis and forecast of the IC industry includes an analysis of regional marketshares, including a split of the China IC market by product type.
  
  
• Proposed Arm Buyout: Huang on So Many Levels (Thursday Feb. 18, 2021)
  Here’s why so many tech companies believe Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s proposed acquisition of Arm, a critical ingredient in everything from smartphones and cars to industrial robotics and the cloud, is bad for business.
  
  
• Objections grow to Nvidia-ARM deal (Tuesday Feb. 16, 2021)
  Qualcomm, Google and Microsoft have all raised objections in the US to the acquisition of ARM by Nvidia
  
  
• ISSCC Plenary: A Bright Foundry Future (Tuesday Feb. 16, 2021)
  Each successive step in semiconductor integration has taken an increasing amount of effort to achieve, but the next node — 3nm — should still arrive right on schedule, according to TSMC chairman Mark Liu. Liu made his remarks during his keynote which kicked off the (virtual) 2021 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).
  
  
• TSMC to Raise $9 Billion for Expansion Amid Shortages (Thursday Feb. 11, 2021)
  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) said that it plans two sales of bonds that would raise about $9 billion to expand production, possibly helping to ease a critical shortage of silicon.
  
  
• Top Five Wafer Capacity Leaders Raise Share of Global Capacity to 54% (Wednesday Feb. 10, 2021)
  The combined capacity of the top five companies represented 54% of total global wafer capacity in December 2020, up one point from 53% in 2019. For comparison, in the year 2009, the top 10 wafer capacity leaders held 54% of total global capacity and the top five leaders accounted for 36% of capacity.
  
  
• Gartner Says Apple and Samsung Extended Their Lead as Top Semiconductor Customers in 2020 (Tuesday Feb. 09, 2021)
  Apple remained the No. 1 semiconductor chip buyer in 2020, representing 11.9% of the total worldwide market, according to preliminary results from Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• RISC-V Processor Designs Emerge (Thursday Feb. 04, 2021)
  Open source hardware based on RISC-V processor designs has a bit of drift compared to its software counterpart: The framework freezes instruction set architecture (ISA) as a durable long-term component.
  
  
• Can Open Source Hardware Emulate Linux? (Thursday Feb. 04, 2021)
  Can an instruction set architecture (ISA) like RISC-V create the basis for the proliferation of open source hardware in the same way that the Linux kernel served as the foundation for open source software?
  
  
• Open Source: It's Not Just for Software Anymore (Thursday Feb. 04, 2021)
  “Open Source” has multiple meanings in the context of hardware designs: an open specification, open/free design files/RTL, designs with expired patent/copyright protection, designs that were dumped when the sponsor decided to discontinue support—otherwise known as abandonware.
  
  
• Crypto Quantique Opens IoT Security Platform to Multiple RoTs (Thursday Feb. 04, 2021)
  Quantum security startup Crypto Quantique (London) has opened up its internet of things (IoT) security management platform, QuarkLink, to work with roots of trust (RoT) from multiple vendors as well as its own quantum-derived intellectual property RoT.
  
  
• Total MPU Sales Surprise With Strong Gains in 2020, More Upside in 2021 (Thursday Feb. 04, 2021)
  Sales growth in the total microprocessor market climbed 12% in 2020 to reach a record-high $87.7 billion. In 2021, total MPU market growth is forecast to ease back slightly and register an above-average 9% increase to about $95.5 billion.
  
  
• 2020 Global Silicon Revenue Remains Stable as Wafer Area Shipments Edge Up Despite COVID-19 Disruption (Tuesday Feb. 02, 2021)
  Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments in 2020 increased while revenue remained unchanged from 2019 at $11,170 million, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) reported in its year-end analysis of the silicon wafer industry.
  
  
• This is How Intel Gets Out of Manufacturing (Tuesday Feb. 02, 2021)
  On the heels of activist hedge fund Third Point calling on Intel’s board to explore “strategic alternatives,” like spinning off its fabs and/or divesting itself of unsuccessful acquisitions, Intel’s board reacted with a rapid change of CEOs, tapping Pat Gelsinger to succeed Bob Swan.
  
  
• Reports: NXP, Infineon top Samsung's shopping list (Monday Feb. 01, 2021)
  South Korean electronics giant Samsung may try to acquire one of NXP, Infineon, Texas Instruments or Renesas to bolster its position in the automotive sector, according to local reports. Alternatively or additionally it may try to buy Globalfoundries, one report said.
  
  
• Top-10 IC Growth Categories Target Emerging Applications in 2021 (Monday Feb. 01, 2021)
  Each of the top-10 growing IC product categories is expected to see a double-digit increase in sales, but only the top-five segments are forecast to grow faster than the total IC market, which IC Insights projects will rise 12% this year.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 6.5% to $439 billion in 2020 (Monday Feb. 01, 2021)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced the global semiconductor industry sales were $439.0 billion in 2020, an increase of 6.5% compared to the 2019 total of $412.3 billion.
  
  
• RV64X: A Free, Open Source GPU for RISC-V (Thursday Jan. 28, 2021)
  A group of enthusiasts are proposing a new set of graphics instructions designed for 3D graphics and media processing. These new instructions are built on the RISC-V base vector instruction set.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts December 2020 Billings (Wednesday Jan. 27, 2021)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.68 billion in billings worldwide in December 2020 (three-month average basis), according to the December Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• CXL gathers speed with 2.0 spec (Tuesday Jan. 26, 2021)
  The Compute Express Link (CXL) specification is forging ahead at a steady pace. Version 2.0 of the open industry-standard interconnect is now available less than two years after its initial inception, while consortium member vendors already releasing products using the latest iteration.