D&R Headline News | Most Popular | SoC News Alerts | |

Commentary / Analysis

• Report: ST-Ericsson re-org is prep for sale (Thursday Mar. 15, 2012)
  Didier Lamouche, the CEO appointed in December at fabless mobile chip joint venture ST-Ericsson, is set to announce a re-organization before the end of the month, which will ready the company for sale, according to a Reuters report that quoted unnamed sources.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Spending to Reach $316 Billion in 2012, a 4 Percent Increase from 2011 (Thursday Mar. 15, 2012)
  Worldwide semiconductor revenue is projected to total $316 billion in 2012, a 4 percent increase from 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. This outlook is up from Gartner's previous forecast in the fourth quarter of 2011 for 2.2 percent growth.
  
  
• GSA Reports A 237.1% Increase in February Semiconductor Funding Activity (Thursday Mar. 15, 2012)
  In February 2012, venture investment dollars received by semiconductor companies (i.e., fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and semiconductor suppliers) was $159.8 million; a 237.1% increase month-over-month (MoM) and a 218.3% increase year-over-year (YoY.)
  
  
• Cadence TSMC, ARM call for more collaboration (Wednesday Mar. 14, 2012)
  Electronics companies need to step up their collaboration to deal with growing complexity of the technology, said executives from Cadence, TSMC and ARM at an annual Cadence user event here.
  
  
• Who wins when Cortex-M adds RTOS? (Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012)
  Richard Barry of FreeRTOS.org examines who the winners and losers will be in ARM's decision to add an RTOS to its Cortex-M hardware abstraction layer, through the release of CMSIS 3 (Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard 3).
  
  
• ASIC Design Starts: Communications Dominate but Smart Grid and Transportation Growing Faster (Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012)
  The ASIC design start landscape has seen dramatic changes as end market demand rose and fell due to the financial meltdown in 2008, recovery in 2009 and 2010 and more uncertainty due to natural disasters and financial market fluctuations in 2011.
  
  
• U.S. Presidential Election Years Influence Semiconductor Market (Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012)
  Historically, U.S. presidential election years have been very good for the semiconductor market as many elected officials attempt to pass (mostly short-term) legislation to boost the economy in order to look good in the eyes of voters and stand a better chance of getting re-elected.
  
  
• Report: Fewer design starts are yielding higher value (Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012)
  The number of new ASIC design starts is declining, but the revenue per design is rising, according to market research firm Gartner.
  
  
• Intel unimpressed with AMD's SeaMicro buy (Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012)
  Intel Corp. declined the opportunity to acquire microserver startup SeaMicro Inc. prior to the announcement last week that Intel's chief competitor in the microprocessor market, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., would acquire SeaMicro for $334 million, according to Diane Bryant, Intel vice president and general manager of the company's Datacenter and Connected Systems Group.
  
  
• How do you count cores? Or should you? (Tuesday Mar. 06, 2012)
  As we enter 2012, we know that many new processor introductions are on the horizon. Intel will be introducing its new platforms for PCs and servers, ARM will be formally announcing a 64-bit architecture, and many of the ARM partners will be introducing new processors based on the various Cortex cores and core combinations.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Decline 2.7 Percent in January with Sales Poised for Future Growth (Tuesday Mar. 06, 2012)
  SIA today announced that worldwide semiconductor sales were $23.1 billion in January 2012, a 2.7 percent decrease from the month prior when sales were $23.8 billion. All monthly sales numbers represent a 3-month moving average.
  
  
• Intel's Ivy Bridge delayed says senior executive (Monday Feb. 27, 2012)
  A senior Intel Corp. executive has admitted that its next generation Ivy Bridge microprocessor will be delayed by around eight to 10 weeks to be launched in June.
  
  
• North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts January 2012 Book-to-Bill Ratio of 0.95 (Friday Feb. 24, 2012)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.18 billion in orders in January 2012 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.95, according to the January Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.
  
  
• Magma's Madhavan won't join Synopsys (Thursday Feb. 23, 2012)
  Synopsys Inc. said Wednesday (Feb. 22) it closed the $523 million acquisition of long-time rival Magma Design Automation Inc. and revealed that Rajeev Madhavan, Magma's chairman and CEO, would not be joining Synopsys as a result.
  
  
• Will Nvidia have more success with Windows 8 than Android? (Thursday Feb. 23, 2012)
  Nvidia Corp.is likely to have more success with Windows on ARM than it did with Android, according to analysts.
  
  
• Intel confirmed as foundry for second FPGA startup (Tuesday Feb. 21, 2012)
  Tabula Inc. confirmed Tuesday (Feb. 21) that Intel Corp. will manufacture the firm's 22-nm 3PLD products using Intel's 3-D tri-gate transistors.
  
  
• Reports of Counterfeit Parts Quadruple Since 2009, Challenging US Defense Industry and National Security (Friday Feb. 17, 2012)
  Reports of counterfeit parts have soared dramatically in the last two years, presenting huge challenges for electronics manufacturing and especially the military and aerospace industry at a time when the U.S. government is tightening regulations covering fake components, according to information and analysis provider IHS.
  
  
• Tower bids to build 300-mm wafer fab in India (Friday Feb. 17, 2012)
  Tower Semiconductorhas said it has signed a binding memorandum of understanding with an unnamed Indian infrastructure company, to build and operate a 300-mm wafer fab in India.
  
  
• STMicro causes financial analyst concerns (Thursday Feb. 16, 2012)
  French-Italian electronics manufacturer STMicroelectronics N.V. needs to act drastically if it is to halt its alarming profit slide and retreat into the periphery of the semiconductor space, according to financial analysts at Arete Research Services
  
  
• The new battleground for mobile processors (Thursday Feb. 16, 2012)
  According to NPD In-Stat, the Android portion of the low-cost smartphone segment will grow from just 4.7 percent of the total smartphone market in 2011 to 33.6 percent of the total market and 54.2 percent of the Android market in 2015.
  
  
• IC Companies Close 49 Wafer Fabs from 2009-2011 (Thursday Feb. 16, 2012)
  Data recently compiled and released in IC Insights' Global Wafer Capacity 2011-2012 report, shows that 49 semiconductor wafer fabs were closed between 2009-2011. Since mid-2007, the IC industry has been paring down its older capacity (i.e., ≤200mm wafers).
  
  
• PTC and Tech-Clarity Unveil New Research on Developing Software-Intensive Products (Thursday Feb. 16, 2012)
  Study, Developing Software-Intensive Products, showed that the majority of respondents significantly increased the amount of software, the importance of software and the innovation driven by software in their products over the last five years with nearly seventy five percent of the respondents planning to increase these efforts further over the next five years.
  
  
• Imagination technologies to see big royalty uptick (Monday Feb. 13, 2012)
  Exponential mobile computing growth and major upgrades to graphics chips are aligning to give Imagination Technologies’ royalties a huge boost, according to Arete Research Services.
  
  
• Microsoft: Windows 8 on ARM to be 'no-compromise' experience (Friday Feb. 10, 2012)
  Using Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) devices “out of the box” will feel the same as on x86/64 PCs, and both versions will be released at the same time, Microsoft has said.
  
  
• Next-gen video codec hits milestone (Thursday Feb. 09, 2012)
  The standards group hammering out the next generation of the MPEG media codec has forged a committee draft of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HVEC) standard in a regular meeting here this week. The spec also known informally as H.265 is expected to provide efficiency boosts in transmitting video for next generation systems and networks using it.
  
  
• Mobile Communications Revenue to Rise by Double-Digit Margin in 2012 (Thursday Feb. 09, 2012)
  Fueled by spectacular growth in the next-generation 4G wireless technology known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), the overall market for mobile communications equipment is expected to enjoy a strong double-digit expansion this year.
  
  
• Semiconductor Industry Posts Record-Breaking Revenues Despite 2011 Challenges (Wednesday Feb. 08, 2012)
  SIA today announced that worldwide semiconductor sales for 2011 reached a record $299.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 0.4 percent from the $298.3 billion recorded in 2010.
  
  
• A cloudy future for AMD (Tuesday Feb. 07, 2012)
  On the heels of the company’s financial conference, there is a buzz in the air about AMD and its new management team headed by Rory Read. From the presentation material to the press reports, it would seem that AMD made all the right moves and said all the right things.
  
  
• Silicon Wafer Revenues Up in 2011 (Tuesday Feb. 07, 2012)
  Worldwide silicon wafer revenues improved by two percent in 2011 compared to 2010 according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its year-end analysis of the silicon wafer industry. Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments decreased by three percent in 2011 when compared to 2010 area shipments.
  
  
• ARM Mulls Non-Volatile Memory IP acquisition (Monday Feb. 06, 2012)
  ARM CEO Warren East (shown) says the U.K. processor IP vendor would consider acquiring non-volatile memory IP as a way to bolster its physical IP division.