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Commentary / Analysis

• Reports: Wafer discounts, rush orders from MediaTek, Nvidia (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  The supply of chips from foundries in Taiwan is being complicated by discounting and rush orders as companies try to benefit from more-available 40-nm silicon to win against chips design in less available 28-nm, according to reports.
  
  
• Trust in the Semico IPI: 2012 Forecasts Up 7.7% (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  The Semico IPI is right again. As the IPI chart shows, starting in August 2011, the IPI began to dip, signaling a change in semiconductor revenue growth. At the beginning of 2012 Semico was more optimistic than the IPI indicated due to the belief that there was pent-up demand for PCs from the floods in Thailand and new smartphone, TV and Ultrabook models would increase electronic purchases. Semico has revised our 2012 forecast from 8 - 10% to 6 - 8%.
  
  
• Mobile DRAM Market Expands as Usage Increases in Smartphones and Tablets (Wednesday Aug. 08, 2012)
  With its relatively robust market growth and increasing usage in hot products like smartphones and media tablets, mobile DRAM is playing a more prominent role in the memory business—including acting as a key factor in Micron Technology Inc.’s recent acquisition of Elpida Memory Inc.
  
  
• Samsung plans ARM-based CPU for servers, says report (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  
  
  
• Does Samsung deal leave CSR out in the cold? (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  The recently announced CSR-Samsung deal, under which Samsung Electronics will acquire CSR’s handset connectivity/location development operations and its technology, was an easy sell to the financial community. Everyone loved it.
  
  
• Microchip closes SMSC deal, discusses integration plans (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  Microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP vendor Microchip Technology Inc. completed the $939 million acquisition of fabless ASSP provider Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMSC), giving it a presence in two key vertical markets: wireless audio and computing.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Remain Steady in June (Monday Aug. 06, 2012)
  The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.38 billion for the month of June 2012, a slight decrease of 0.1 percent from the prior month when sales were $24.40 billion.
  
  
• Is Synopsys helping chip making return to its roots? (Friday Aug. 03, 2012)
  The news that Synopsys wants to bring together the R&D teams and EDA software products from its recent and proposed acquisitions of Magma, Ciranova and SpringSoft puts me in mind of an intriguing and market-changing perspective.
  
  
• Foundries Soar While Most Japanese Companies Crash in 2Q12 Ranking (Friday Aug. 03, 2012)
  A ranking of the 1H12 top semiconductor suppliers will be included as part of IC Insights' upcoming August Update to The McClean Report. GlobalFoundries jumps five spots and now ranks 16th in the first half 2012 ranking.
  
  
• Report: Lenovo not interested in buying Nokia (Thursday Aug. 02, 2012)
  The price of shares in mobile phone company Nokia Oy was volatile amid heavy trading on Wednesday amid rumors that the company might be bought by Chinese computer maker Lenovo.
  
  
• AMD recruits Apple processor guru as chief chip architect (Wednesday Aug. 01, 2012)
  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has announced the appointment of Jim Keller as corporate vice president and chief architect for microprocessor cores reporting to CTO Mark Papermaster.
  
  
• UMC set to beat TSMC to FinFET process (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  UMC which has been a struggling number two behind foundry leader TSMC could get one over on its long-time rival by being first in production with FinFET process technology.
  
  
• Samsung Regains Smartphone Leadership (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Six months after losing the top position in the smartphone market to Apple, Samsung in the second quarter regained leadership as its sales rose 5 percent to 36 million units, up from 34 million in the first quarter.
  
  
• Reports: Fujitsu is trying to sell its main fab (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. has attempted to open up talks about the sale of its main wafer fab to foundry chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., according to reports. The wafer fab in Mie prefecture makes image processing chips and processors for supercomputers.
  
  
• FinFETs-on-SOI can double battery life, says GSS (Friday Jul. 27, 2012)
  Fully depleted FinFET style transistors made on SOI wafers are likely to allow between half and one-third the leakage current of FinFETs made on bulk silicon according to TCAD simulations performed by Gold Standard Simulations Ltd..
  
  
• Cadence CEO sees design activity keeping pace (Thursday Jul. 26, 2012)
  Cadence Design Systems Inc. President and CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Wednesday (July 25) he expects to see design activity remain at a good pace in the second half of the year, despite macroeconomic challenges.
  
  
• ARM, TSMC lead Intel in SoC, says CEO East (Thursday Jul. 26, 2012)
  ARM CEO Warren East is not concerned that Intel Corp. is developing a lead in process technology of the foundries that ARM licensees usually deal with.
  
  
• ARM's Q2 continues climb in sales and profits (Wednesday Jul. 25, 2012)
  Processor IP licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) has posted yet another quarter with increased sales and profits.
  
  
• Broadcom not threatened by Samsung's CSR buy (Wednesday Jul. 25, 2012)
  Broadcom Corp. President and CEO Scott McGregor Tuesday (July 24) downplayed speculation that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s acquisition of CSR plc's mobile business posed a threat to the company's business following Broadcom's better-than-expected second quarter financial report.
  
  
• Driving ST's auto IC strategy: Manufacturing line can't stop (Tuesday Jul. 24, 2012)
  
  
  
• Intel vindicated by TSMC/ARM announcement (Tuesday Jul. 24, 2012)
  ARM and TSMC are teaming up to optimize next-generation 64-bit ARM cores for FinFET process technology. And that must be leaving Intel feeling rather smug.
  
  
• TSMC's Chang cuts forecast, sees stall coming (Friday Jul. 20, 2012)
  Morris Chang, chairman and CEO of leading foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., has warned that a slowdown is coming to the chip market and has cut his forecast for the total semiconductor market's annual growth, according to reports.
  
  
• TSMC profit soars despite 28-nm supply shortage (Thursday Jul. 19, 2012)
  A shortage of wafers for customers at the 28-nm process node has been no barrier to sharply increased profits at leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan). TSMC said it plans to double shipments of 28-nm in the next quarter. The company expects to expand sales revenue by about 7 percent sequentially in 3Q12.
  
  
• Qualcomm sees 28-nm capacity crunch through 2012 (Thursday Jul. 19, 2012)
  Qualcomm Inc. said Wednesday (July 18) it expects supply of 28-nm chips to remain constrained until the end of the calendar year, despite acknowledging that the firm is now engaged with four foundries at that node.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts June 2012 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.94 (Thursday Jul. 19, 2012)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.46 billion in orders worldwide in June 2012 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.94, according to the June Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Does RedMere + Fresco = Spectra7? (Wednesday Jul. 18, 2012)
  By marrying two startups – each solid but neither quite ready for its IPO – to form “a new superset company,” Tony Stelliga believes he can ensure that the two, RedMere and Fresco Microchip, will live happily ever after.
  
  
• Semiconductor Capital Spending Trend Update (Wednesday Jul. 18, 2012)
  IC Insights’ latest survey and ranking of the major semiconductor capital spenders shows that only six of the 35 major semiconductor suppliers—Intel, Samsung, Hynix, TSMC, UMC, and Rohm—with significant capital expenditure budgets are expected to spend more in 2012 than they did in 2011.
  
  
• Will GlobalFoundries buy IBM's chip business (Friday Jul. 13, 2012)
  Will GlobalFoundries Inc. or some other manifestation of the oil-rich state of Abu Dhabi, be buying the chip R&D and business interests of IBM any time soon? And what would be the price?
  
  
• Xilinx CTO: Focus on what matters to customers (Friday Jul. 13, 2012)
  The value of Moore's Law—the doubling of the number of transistors in a chip every 18 months—is not just in the cost reduction it offers but more importantly in the added value that chip makers can create for customers, according to Ivo Bolsens, senior vice president and chief technology officer at programmable logic vendor Xilinx Inc.
  
  
• Ecosystem emerges around new mobile chip tech (Thursday Jul. 12, 2012)
  A consortium touting fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) technology for mobile computing applications presented a united front this week in promoting the process technology as a viable alternative to Intel’s FinFET manufacturing approach.