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Commentary / Analysis

• Whatever happened to evolvable hardware? (Wednesday Jul. 11, 2012)
  The free market and many other natural systems are supposedly about the survival of the fittest. The survival of the best companies, the success of the best products, the best processors and ICs, and so on.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports Revenue Increase for Q1 2012 (Wednesday Jul. 11, 2012)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry revenue increased 6.3 percent for Q1 2012 to $1536.9 million, compared to $1446.4 million in Q1 2011. Sequential EDA revenue for Q1 2012 decreased 9.6 percent compared to Q4 2011, while the four-quarters moving average, which compares the most recent four quarters to the prior four quarters, increased by 13.4 percent.
  
  
• ARM won the processor wars? Hardly! (Thursday Jul. 05, 2012)
  What with AMD, Apple, Dell, Dialog, Freescale, Fujitsu, HP, LSI, Microsoft, Motorola, MStar, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments all licensing ARM cores for everything from smartphones to tablets to basestations to servers, one might be led to believe the boast of ARM CEO Warren East that designers are choosing ARM because it is a no brainer
  
  
• Report: TSMC's Chang says no to buying Renesas fab (Wednesday Jul. 04, 2012)
  Morris Chang, chairman of foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., has said his company has no intention of acquiring a wafer fab from struggling Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp., according to a Focus Taiwan news report.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase in May, Remain on Track for Modest Growth in 2012 (Wednesday Jul. 04, 2012)
  SIA today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.4 billion for the month of May 2012, a 1.4 percent increase over the prior month when sales were $24.1 billion.
  
  
• Broadcom extends MIPS deal but does not buy firm (Wednesday Jul. 04, 2012)
  MIPS Technologies Inc., a licensor of processor intellectual property that has been reportedly up for sale, has provided long-time customer Broadcom with a multi-faceted, multi-year patent and technology license in return for $26.5 million.
  
  
• Qualcomm signs UMC, Samsung for 28-nm chips, says report (Wednesday Jul. 04, 2012)
  Mobile processor supplier Qualcomm Inc. has signed up foundry United Microelectronics Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. as suppliers of 28-nm chips, according to a Taiwan Economic News report.
  
  
• Analyst lowers chip market forecast for 2012 (Wednesday Jul. 04, 2012)
  Actual global chip sales for May 2012 are likely to be reported at about 3 percent lower than the same month in 2011, according to Bruce Diesen, an analyst at Carnegie Group (Oslo, Norway).
  
  
• Marvell aims to be China chip leader (Friday Jun. 29, 2012)
  No, Marvell Technology is not moving to China. However, the U.S. fabless chip company based in Santa Clara, Calif., has a goal to become “the largest semiconductor company in China,” according to a Marvell executive here.
  
  
• Report: Qualcomm wafer fab not ruled out (Thursday Jun. 28, 2012)
  Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm Inc. (San Dieo, Calif.), the world's largest fabless chip company, has not ruled out owning a wafer fab or putting large amounts of cash down to ensure the firm's supply of semiconductor chips, according to a Bloomberg report.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Wafer Fab Equipment Spending to Decline 8.9 Percent in 2012 (Monday Jun. 25, 2012)
  Worldwide wafer fab equipment (WFE) spending is on pace to total $33 billion in 2012, a decline of 8.9 percent from 2011 spending of $36.2 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Intel may see $2B non-x86 growth in 2013 (Monday Jun. 25, 2012)
  Next year, Intel is poised to generate $2 billion in revenues—half its expected revenue growth—from chips outside its traditional x86 processors, according to a financial analyst who tracks the company.
  
  
• Patent snafus could delay new video codec (Monday Jun. 25, 2012)
  The H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard is about to be ratified, promising a new generation of higher resolution and more compact digital video products. The bad news is chip makers are afraid to design products using it.
  
  
• GSA Reports An Increase in Funding Activity (Thursday Jun. 21, 2012)
  GSA Releases May 2012 Statistics from its Global Semiconductor Funding, IPO and M&A Update. In May 2012, venture investment dollars received by semiconductor companies (i.e., fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and semiconductor suppliers) was $134.5 million, a 42.5% decrease from April 2012 and a 122.7% increase from May 2011.
  
  
• Is China's fabless model sustainable? (Thursday Jun. 21, 2012)
  Let’s face it. China’s IC industry still lacks its own superstars – equivalent to Intel, Qualcomm or Broadcom in the West – in terms of the scale, reach and quality these brands possess on the global market.
  
  
• Panel: ARM to dominate consumer apps (Wednesday Jun. 20, 2012)
  Vendors defended the mass migration to ARM cores for their low-power, broad spectrum of performance levels and more economical software here at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) Tuesday (June 19).
  
  
• Microsoft picks both ARM and Intel for tablet (Tuesday Jun. 19, 2012)
  Microsoft has unveiled a 10.6-inch tablet in a 16:9 aspect ratio, dubbed the Surface, to be available in two options, one powered by Intel's 22-nm Ivy Bridge processor running Windows 8, and another Surface powered by an ARM chipset and Windows RT.
  
  
• Report: Renesas Mobile up for sale in re-org (Tuesday Jun. 19, 2012)
  Renesas Mobile Corp., the mobile chip company subsidiary of struggling Renesas Electronics Corp., could be put up for sale as part of a previously reported re-organization.
  
  
• The fabless-foundry model will survive (at least through 14-nm) (Monday Jun. 18, 2012)
  In a rebuttal to comments made earlier this year by Intel's Mark Bohr, Handel Jones of IBS argues that the fabless-foundry model will be around for a while.
  
  
• Apple and Samsung Garner 50% of Global Smartphone Market and 90% of Its Profits (Monday Jun. 18, 2012)
  Although smartphone shipments grew 41% year-over-year to 144.6 million as of the quarter ending March 2012, many smartphone OEMs are not enjoying the benefits of a rapidly expanding market. Samsung and Apple captured 55% of global smartphone shipments in 1Q’2012 and over 90% of the market’s profits. The question remains: can anyone break away to become a strong third in this market?
  
  
• Nokia job cuts don't and won't impress anyone (Thursday Jun. 14, 2012)
  The announcement earlier today by Nokia Corp. that it will eliminate one of every five jobs in its mobile handset division and remove three senior executives didn't impress investors who promptly dumped the stock, driving down the company's market value by more than 15 percent in intraday trading.
  
  
• Nokia to cut 10,000 jobs, divest assets (Thursday Jun. 14, 2012)
  Nokia Corp. has replaced three senior executives, including the head of its mobile phone division. And it plans to reduce payroll by up to 10,000 as it struggles to restore profitability and improve its competitive position against companies like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC).
  
  
• Interview: JEDEC on LPDDR3 (Thursday Jun. 14, 2012)
  In response to surging bandwidth demand from the mobile device market, the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association just released LPDDR3, a new mobile memory standard that boasts a data rate of 1600 Mbps. We sat down with Hung Vuong, Chairman of JEDEC’s JC-42.6 Subcommittee for Low Power Memories to talk about the new standard, memory challenges, and what comes next.
  
  
• ARM improves its image in graphics (Wednesday Jun. 13, 2012)
  ARM has been doing better at shipping graphics cores than it has been given credit for, according to Jem Davies, ARM Fellow and vice president of technology for the media processing division.
  
  
• ARM fills in GPU line with Mali-450 (Tuesday Jun. 12, 2012)
  ARM has provided some details of the Mali-450, a graphics processor based on ARM's Utgard architecture.
  
  
• SEMI Reports First Quarter 2012 Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Figures; Billings US$ 10.6 Billion (Tuesday Jun. 12, 2012)
  SEMI today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$ 10.61 billion in the first quarter of 2012. The billings figure is 14 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2011 and 9 percent lower higher than the same quarter a year ago.
  
  
• ARM still struggling with Win 8 devices (Tuesday Jun. 12, 2012)
  By all accounts, this year’s Computex Taipei wasn’t an earth shattering event. No major news, and no huge announcements, though there were a steady slew of new Ultrabook designs from Asus, Acer and Toshiba.
  
  
• Report: Taiwan approves TSMC's 450-mm fab plan (Monday Jun. 11, 2012)
  The Taiwan government has a approved a proposal from foundry chip company Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. to build a 450-mm wafer fab in central Taiwan early in 2014, according to a Reuters report.
  
  
• Room for IC industry expansion, analyst says (Monday Jun. 11, 2012)
  The IC industry growth will grow over the next ten years, said Bill McClean, CEO of IC Insights (Scottsdale, Ariz.)., at the recent IMEC Technology Forum at the Square meeting center in Brussels, Belgium.
  
  
• Samsung to spend $1.9 billion on logic fab, says report (Thursday Jun. 07, 2012)
  Consumer equipment giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has said it will spend $1.9 billion building a wafer fab line for logic chips in support of smartphones and tablet computers, according to a Reuters report.