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Commentary / Analysis

• Moore's Law could enter the fourth dimension--via the third (Thursday Dec. 23, 2010)
  I was intrigued by Marvell CEO Sehat Sutardja's call in EE Times to "change and rethink Moore's Law to include the long-ignored fourth dimension" of power consumption efficiency. "What we need now is a new social contract," Sutardja wrote.
  
  
• SuperSpeed USB Adoption Slowed by PC Core Logic Integration, but Future Is Still Bright (Wednesday Dec. 22, 2010)
  SuperSpeed USB (also known as USB 3.0) will ship in nearly 14 million devices in 2010, just short of industry expectations, according to In-Stat. By 2014, however, over 1.7 billion devices will ship with the interface enabled, a 12x increase over 2010.
  
  
• Foundries to boost capex in 2011 (Wednesday Dec. 22, 2010)
  The so-called capital spending ''arms race'' in the foundry business will continue, as leading-edge vendors will boost their expenditures in 2011, according to an analyst.
  
  
• 13 'fabless' chip firms to top $1B in sales (Wednesday Dec. 22, 2010)
  A record number of "fabless" semiconductor companies are expected to top $1 billion in sales in 2010, according to IC Insights Inc., though the market research firm defines the term to include companies that maintain fabs but get most of their finished wafers from foundries.
  
  
• Evolution of design methodology II: The re-aggregation era (Tuesday Dec. 21, 2010)
  Unlike previous changes to the abstraction level of design, the block level not only goes down into the implementation flow, but also goes up into the software development flow. Software and chip-design must be verified against each other. Since the purpose of the chip is to run the software load, it can't really be optimized any other way.
  
  
• Google asks partners to pause TV (Monday Dec. 20, 2010)
  Google Inc. has asked consumer electronics companies that were preparing to launch TVs running the Android-based Google TV to put their plans on hold while it improves the software, according to a New York Times article.
  
  
• Opinion: 8 embedded trends for 2011 (Thursday Dec. 16, 2010)
  Here are eight key trends for the embedded software and tools market in 2011, courtesy of market research company VDC Research Group (Natick, Mass.).
  
  
• Semico: 2011 Semiconductor Preview (Wednesday Dec. 15, 2010)
  We can all agree, 2010 has been a great year: +30% growth over 2009. Semico predicts 2011 semiconductor revenues to grow less than 10% over 2010. At first glance, this looks like bad news. After all, a drop of almost 25 percentage points has to be bad, right?
  
  
• Welcome to the 'fab-tight' era, says Penn (Wednesday Dec. 15, 2010)
  Something has changed in the psyche of semiconductor manufacturers according to Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with Future Horizons. They are no longer building wafer fabs in anticipation of demand. "Forget fab-lite, welcome to the fab-tight era," said Penn speaking at a one-day presentation on his forecast for 2011.
  
  
• Mentor chief sees system design as main challenge (Tuesday Dec. 14, 2010)
  System design will pose the main challenge to the EDA industry as a whole in the decade starting 2011, according to Mentor Graphics Corp. Chairman and CEO Walden Rhines.
  
  
• What's your forecast for the 2011 semiconductor market? (Tuesday Dec. 14, 2010)
  The predictions for 2011 semiconductor market growth range from 2.3 percent on the low end to 10 percent on the high end. For reference, here are the most recent growth forecasts from several of the analysts we track on the 2011 chip market.
  
  
• Transforming the U.S. semiconductor business model (Monday Dec. 13, 2010)
  2011 will be the year that transforms the U.S. semiconductor business model from fabless companies designing chips and building them off-shore, to focusing on just licensing the core technologies to chip companies worldwide. This model is formally called the semiconductor intellectual property (SIP) licensing business, and after its meteoric rise in the mid-1990s and much neglected due to a lack of success, is finally making a comeback again.
  
  
• Researcher: ARM to increase industrial/medical sector market share to 2015 (Monday Dec. 13, 2010)
  Revenues for 32/64-bit microcontrollers and embedded microprocessors (MCUs/eMPUs) in the industrial and medical sector are forecast to double from $1.6 billion in 2010 to $3.2 billion in 2015, a CAGR of nearly fifteen per cent.
  
  
• What’s the cost for 3-D chips? (Friday Dec. 10, 2010)
  What’s the biggest hurdle to bring 3-D chips based on through-silicon via (TSV) technology into mass production?
  
  
• Global chip making capacity rises, says SEMI (Thursday Dec. 09, 2010)
  Fab tool trade group SEMI is predicting an 8 percent annual growth in installed IC manufacturing capacity in 2010 to be followed by at least 8 percent in 2011 and at least 9 percent in 2012.
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue Increased 31.5 Percent in 2010 to Exceed $300 Billion (Thursday Dec. 09, 2010)
  After a worldwide economic recession, the semiconductor market rallied in 2010 with worldwide revenue reaching a landmark $300.3 billion in 2010, up 31.5 percent from 2009, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Qualcomm lists challenges in IC production (Wednesday Dec. 08, 2010)
  Jim Clifford, senior vice president and general manager of operations for Qualcomm Inc., reached for the panic button.
  
  
• ARM 64-bit CPUs coming soon, says report (Monday Nov. 22, 2010)
  Processor intellectual property licensor ARM Holdings plc is expected to reveal its plans for processor cores that support 64-bit computing, within the next few weeks, according to an IDG news service report that cited sources close the company speaking at an ARM technology conference in Taipei.
  
  
• Report: ARM in Google talks, could oust Intel (Monday Nov. 22, 2010)
  ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) is in discussions with Google Inc. about ARM processors being used for the GoogleTV initiative, according to a Dow Jones report that quotes ARM president Tudor Brown.
  
  
• Analog IC market projected to decline in Q4 (Thursday Nov. 18, 2010)
  Fourth quarter analog semiconductor revenue is projected to be roughly $10.3 billion, a decline of 7 percent compared to the third quarter, according to the latest forecast from market research firm Databeans Inc.
  
  
• Commentary: Stakeholders see turning point for chip industry (Monday Nov. 15, 2010)
  The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point that will determine its course for years to come, according to an informal survey of respected industry executives.
  
  
• Intel aims for 'smart' embedded SoC (Friday Nov. 12, 2010)
  Intel Corp. is aiming to exploit "smart sensing opportunities in embedded markets" according to Vida Ilderem, vice president of Intel Labs, who gave the closing keynote at the MEMS Executive Congress in Scottsdale, Ariz., last week.
  
  
• ARM servers ready for prime time (Wednesday Nov. 10, 2010)
  ARM-based servers are ready for prime time, but the technology will take time to hit the mainstream, according to Marvell Technology.
  
  
• Samsung: Ready for big foundry push (Wednesday Nov. 10, 2010)
  At the ARM Technology Conference here, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. sent a message to the foundry industry: It’s ready for a big push in 32-nm production with high-k.
  
  
• Update: Intel licenses DSP (Tuesday Nov. 09, 2010)
  Is Intel Corp. re-entering the DSP business? In a major move, Intel has licensed Ceva Inc.'s digital signal processor (DSP) intellectual property (IP).
  
  
• Analyst: Intel buying into wireless (Tuesday Nov. 09, 2010)
  After years' of trying to enter the wireless chip fray, Intel Corp. is buying its way back into the arena-again, according to an analyst.
  
  
• Will Intel be a big foundry player? (Monday Nov. 08, 2010)
  Intel Corp. this week took a step into the foundry business. Intel will lend its semiconductor process technology muscle to build FPGAs for programmable logic startup Achronix Semiconductor Corp. at 22-nm and beyond under the terms of a strategic agreement between the two companies announced Monday (Nov. 1).
  
  
• Analyst: Intel to endorse SOI at 22-nm (Thursday Nov. 04, 2010)
  For years, Intel Corp. has dismissed the need to use silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology for its processors. Instead, Intel has solved the power, leakage and mobility issues with high-k/metal gates, strained-silicon and other technologies.
  
  
• Qualcomm bought Sandbridge, says analyst (Thursday Nov. 04, 2010)
  Qualcomm has bought 4G modem chip company Sandbridge Technologies Inc., according to Will Strauss, president and principal analyst with Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.). The price paid is rumored to be about $55 million, Strauss said.
  
  
• MIPS CEO: "Companies need to have a soul" (Monday Nov. 01, 2010)
  In a sharp contrast to a year ago, the Wall Street loves MIPS. Share holders love them. Even the media seems to be in love. But MIPS CEO believes that’s not enough: “Companies need to have a soul.”