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Commentary / Analysis

• Intel ramps hardware-software codesign research (Thursday Mar. 17, 2011)
  A hardware-software codesign project being conducted within Intel Labs Europe is going well – so well that Intel is not prepared to say much about it but has quadrupled the number of people working on the project.
  
  
• DATE 2011: SoC realization, the elephant in the room (Thursday Mar. 17, 2011)
  There was an interesting panel discussion at this week’s DATE Conference that included representatives from various links in the SoC supply chain – EDA suppliers, IP providers, services companies and even a bona fide SoC developer. The panelists were asked to provide their view of where the EDA and IP industries were headed.
  
  
• Analysts: Xilinx could beat Altera to 28-nm (Wednesday Mar. 16, 2011)
  Xilinx Inc. is poised for significant growth and could regain technology leadership from rival Altera at the 28-nm node after ceding Altera the advantage at the 40-nm node, according Wall Street analysts.
  
  
• Research project looks to repairing working chips (Tuesday Mar. 15, 2011)
  Crisp consortium researchers are demonstrating a self-testing and self-repairing chip at the DATE2011 conference in Grenoble this week. The consortium is developing a gracefully degrading chip while the IC is still operationally functional.
  
  
• Inside the iPad2 and the Apple A5 (Monday Mar. 14, 2011)
  Information on what's inside the Apple iPad2 is becoming available as teardown experts open up the first tablets going on sale. Here are some pictures and analysis from our sister division UBM TechInsights which is in the process of burrowing into the secrets of the system—including Apple's new A5 microprocessor.
  
  
• Updated: Samsung fabs Apple A5 processor (Monday Mar. 14, 2011)
  Samsung fabs the A5 processor used in the Apple iPad 2, according to teardowns of the system and chip conducted by UBM TechInsights, a division of United Business Media, publisher of EE Times.
  
  
• Update: Quake prompts supply chain worries (Friday Mar. 11, 2011)
  It is still hard to find out the state of a number of wafer fabs in the prefectures closest to the massive earthquake, and resulting tsunami that hit Japan Friday (March 11).
  
  
• Analyst: Altera to catch Xilinx in 2012 (Thursday Mar. 10, 2011)
  Altera Corp., the No. 2 player in the programmable logic market, is expected to catch up with market leader Xilinx Inc. in quarterly sales early next year, according to an analyst.
  
  
• Report: Microsoft to pay Nokia $1 billion for support (Wednesday Mar. 09, 2011)
  Microsoft will pay mobile phone company Nokia more than $1 billion to promote and develop handsets that run the Windows operating system, according to a Bloomberg report that cites two un-named sources.
  
  
• Apple, TSMC to expand foundry ties (Wednesday Mar. 09, 2011)
  Rumors are running rampant that Apple Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) are expanding their foundry ties-a possible blow for Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
  
  
• Thunderbolt interface rattles placid PC landscape (Tuesday Mar. 08, 2011)
  Intel's Thunderbolt interface, supporting two 10-Gbit/second bidirectional channels, has emerged in an Apple notebook and could leapfrog work on USB 3.0.
  
  
• New semi model: fabless and designless (Monday Mar. 07, 2011)
  Two approaches are competing for control of the semiconductor design process and supply chain.
  
  
• Videos: Demos on the Xilinx Zynq emulation board (Monday Mar. 07, 2011)
  At Embedded World several companies were showing demos of how the Xilinx Zynq-7000 family, which integrates a complete ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor-based system with 28nm, low-power programmable logic, can be used. Olaf Schiller, a field Applications Engineer with Xlinx GmbH describes of the emualtion board works.
  
  
• Analysts: Chip ASPs to fuel two good years (Monday Mar. 07, 2011)
  Both 2011 and 2012 will be growth years for the global semiconductor industry before a potential downturn in 2013, according to analysts Bill McClean of IC Insights and Malcolm Penn of Future Horizons Ltd.
  
  
• The case against Thunderbolt (Thursday Mar. 03, 2011)
  Intel Corp.'s new high-speed I/O technology, Thunderbolt, is leaving some people feeling burned. Rather than drive a new interface into the market, they want to see the chip giant give its full attention to a successful, existing one—USB.
  
  
• Ten things to know about Intel's Thunderbolt (Thursday Mar. 03, 2011)
  Intel and Apple sent quite a shock wave through the PC and consumer electronics communities today with the launch of Thunderbolt, a high-end interconnect that leapfrogs both Firewire and USB 3.0.
  
  
• Globalfoundries, TSMC square off in litho (Wednesday Mar. 02, 2011)
  It’s a clash of the titans in the foundry industry between Globalfoundries Inc. and TSMC. They are separately expanding their process offerings and services for customers, but they have different strategies to knock each other off from their respective perches.
  
  
• Sony goes 'coreless' in Cell processors (Wednesday Mar. 02, 2011)
  Sony Corp., best known for its consumer products but also a chip supplier, revealed to EE Times Japan that they have been successfully mass-producing high-end processors with coreless substrate packaging technology.
  
  
• Intel: 450-mm wafers must wait on 10-nm (Tuesday Mar. 01, 2011)
  The 10-nm process node appears to be the ideal point for the adoption of manufacturing on 450-mm diameter wafers, according Leonard Hobbs, head of research for Intel Ireland. Speaking at the Industry Strategy Symposium here (ISS Europe) he also indicated that the transition could not come sooner and could be pushed later, depending on the efficacy of industry collaboration.
  
  
• ST's Bozotti cheers for European chips (Tuesday Mar. 01, 2011)
  Carlo Bozotti, president and chief executive officer of STMicroelectronics, provided a keynote address to the Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS Europe) held here by industry body SEMI, which contained a commitment to European chip making – but only just.
  
  
• ISSCC panel sees challenges at 20-nm (Monday Feb. 28, 2011)
  After some debate, there is finally some consensus at the 22-/20-nm logic node-at least among leading-edge foundries.
  
  
• SEMI book-to-bill slips (Wednesday Feb. 23, 2011)
  North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a book-to-bill ratio of 0.85 in January, down from 0.90 in December, according to SEMI.
  
  
• Report: TSMC wins key 40-, 28-nm deals (Wednesday Feb. 23, 2011)
  TSMC is fighting back against rival Globalfoundries Inc. and winning key contracts from AMD for its 40-nm and 28-nm manufacturing process technologies, according to a Taiwan Economic News report.
  
  
• Firms push to extend mobile DRAM spec (Wednesday Feb. 23, 2011)
  There is a proposed standard to extend mobile DRAM technology to higher speeds-a move that could push out competing next-generation efforts from MIPI, Rambus, Silicon Image and the 3-D chip community.
  
  
• Study: foundries provide more IP than IP vendors (Monday Feb. 21, 2011)
  Chip foundries provide more design intellectual property (IP) to fabless chip companies than the IP core licensors whose principal business it is, according to the 2010 fabless ecosystem survey conducted by a university professor for the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) industry body.
  
  
• Intel: Foundry business is in oversupply trouble (Monday Feb. 21, 2011)
  The world's leading foundries are facing difficult times due to the creation of too manufacturing capacity, according to Paul Otellini, president and CEO of Intel Corp., the world's leading chip maker.
  
  
• Update: Intel to build fab for 14-nm chips (Monday Feb. 21, 2011)
  Intel Corp. announced plans to invest more than $5 billion to build a new chip manufacturing facility at its site in Chandler, Ariz.
  
  
• Analysis: 'Rogue' design win hurts ARM (Thursday Feb. 17, 2011)
  ST-Ericsson's announcement of a design win for a PowerVR Series 6 graphic processor core from Imagination Technologies Group plc in the Nova A9600 applications processor is a blow to ARM Holdings plc and its aspirations in graphics
  
  
• Broadcom-ARM deal hits MIPS (Wednesday Feb. 16, 2011)
  There is good news for ARM Holdings plc. It's not so good for MIPS Technology Inc. Broadcom Corp. and ARM have announced the signing of a broad reaching license agreement, enabling Broadcom to access the entire range of ARM processors, from the ARM Cortex-M0 processor, through to Cortex-A15 application processor and beyond.
  
  
• Is Apple switching foundry partners? (Wednesday Feb. 16, 2011)
  Is Apple Inc. switching foundry partners? Apple is mulling a plan to outsource the production of its A4 processor and other ARM-based chips to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), according to Digitimes.