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Commentary / Analysis

• Long, bumpy transition seen for USB 3.0 (Monday Sep. 21, 2009)
  The Intel Developer Forum is expected to generate buzz around SuperSpeed USB this week, but the transition to the 5 GHz interface may be slower and bumpier than many would hope due to cost, power and support issues.
  
  
• Optimization key to the future, says EDA pioneer (Monday Sep. 21, 2009)
  The greatest opportunity for EDA lies in providing optimization for system-on-chip designers as opposed to more functionality, according to a long-standing veteran of EDA
  
  
• Intel's Ambitious Process Roadmap (Monday Sep. 21, 2009)
  Intel recently released some details about its future process goals. One highlight: by 2022 they'll be producing, in volume, chips with 4 nanometer(nm) geometries.
  
  
• Analyst: IC sales set for 'V' shaped recovery (Friday Sep. 18, 2009)
  Sales and unit volume shipments of NAND flash between January and July of this year increased by a massive 98 percent and 67 percent respectively, with healthy figures also for other categories, suggesting that the industry is headed towards swift recovery and a 'V' shaped rebound, says market trackers IC Insights.
  
  
• Commentary: ARM's Osprey broadens the battle front with Intel (Wednesday Sep. 16, 2009)
  ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) has fired off the latest salvo in a battle against Intel Corp. for domination of the world's microprocessor slots and sockets.
  
  
• Viewpoint: Why programmability is now a game changer (Friday Sep. 11, 2009)
  The common wisdom these days says that the semiconductor industry is heading for the cliff. Some even say that we are like the cartoon character that went over the cliff and his legs are still moving, not realizing that there is no ground under him. The increased in design cost, the growth in the number of IPs and the mask costs are combining to seemingly make any but the highest volume chips economically unfeasible.
  
  
• Opinion: Winners, losers in ATIC-Chartered deal (Wednesday Sep. 09, 2009)
  So who are the winners and losers in the ATIC-Chartered deal?
  
  
• GlobalFoundries to give UMC a run for its money (Wednesday Sep. 09, 2009)
  Can GlobalFoundries Inc. overtake SMIC, TSMC and UMC in the foundry business?
  
  
• Chartered-GlobalFoundries marriage to change landscape (Monday Sep. 07, 2009)
  Abu Dhabi's bold move to acquire Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. makes sense and could change the foundry landscape, according to a report.
  
  
• Analysis: Wipro's French unit closure may signal semi IP exit (Monday Sep. 07, 2009)
  Wipro Technologies, one of the world's largest outsourced R & D services provider, has apparently decided to get out of the semiconductor IP business.
  
  
• July chip figures: What analysts are saying (Friday Sep. 04, 2009)
  What do July's chip figures mean? So far, analysts from Carnegie ASA, Gartner and Semico have separately interpreted the data. Now, Cowan, Databeans and Semiconductor Intelligence have added fuel to the fire.
  
  
• TSMC sees Q3 demand as it solidifies roadmap (Thursday Sep. 03, 2009)
  As it solidifies its process roadmap, TSMC continues to see a surge in business. After a slump in the first quarter, TSMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) rebounded and recently posted strong results in the second quarter.
  
  
• Analyst: Freescale to sell 3G IP to Chinese firm (Wednesday Sep. 02, 2009)
  Freescale Semiconductor Inc. plans to transfer its 3G cellular intellectual property (IP) to Beijing Capital Semiconductor in a deal valued at between $30 million and $40 million, according to a market analyst.
  
  
• Nonvolatile memory IP market set to stall, says Gartner (Monday Aug. 31, 2009)
  The market for nonvolatile memory intellectual property was $23 million in 2008, down 6.3 percent from 2007, according to market analysis company Gartner Inc. Gartner expects the market to grow 3 percent in 2009
  
  
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Revenue on Pace to Decline 17 Percent in 2009 (Thursday Aug. 27, 2009)
  orldwide semiconductor revenue is on track to total $212 billion in 2009, a 17.1 percent decline from 2008 revenue of $255 billion, according to the latest outlook by Gartner, Inc. This forecast is better than the second quarter projections when Gartner projected semiconductor revenue to decline 22.4 percent this year.
  
  
• As design goes global, tools get more critical (Monday Aug. 24, 2009)
  Disaggregation of the IC and system design chain toward a specialty model has included a growing reliance on outsourcing. That has created an opportunity for developers of advanced tool suites to field design environments in which the "best of the best"--from anywhere around the globe--can be assembled for round-the-clock development of fully optimized designs.
  
  
• Study: Outsourced IC design growth slowed in '08 (Thursday Aug. 20, 2009)
  This year will be a make or break year for chip design service providers after the global recession slowed the growth of outsourced chip design starts in 2008, according to a survey by market research firm Gartner Inc.
  
  
• Will Silicon Image's LiquidHD gamble pay off? (Monday Aug. 17, 2009)
  While Silicon Image is methodically paving the way for LiquidHD -- a new protocol suite designed for networked digital consumer devices -- by integrating Ethernet support in HDMI 1.4 spec-based chips, the company so far has yet to entice any service operators or OEMs onto the bandwagon.
  
  
• TSMC keynoter touts cooperative business models (Wednesday Jul. 29, 2009)
  Future growth in EDA and other segments of the semiconductor industry supply chain depends on the evolution of a new breed of collaborative business model that enable partners to pool costs and increase profits, according to Fu-Chieh Hsu, vice president of Design & Technology Platform at leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).
  
  
• The TSMC Tsunami at DAC 2009 (Tuesday Jul. 28, 2009)
  In a well-orchestrated and clearly scripted show of force, the CEOs of the three "largest" companies in EDA appeared together under the Big Top at the 2009 Design Automation Conference in San Francisco on Monday, July 27th, for a highly touted afternoon keynote panel purportedly addressing "Futures for EDA."
  
  
• The business of IP: it ain't a bake sale (Wednesday Jul. 22, 2009)
  IP vendors have long maintained that theirs is a product business model. In the face of rising complexity and shrinking geometries, however, selling IP may no longer be about baking up a plate of brownies, sealing it in shrink wrap, and putting it out there for sale.
  
  
• Study: FPGAs to grow faster than broader IC market (Thursday Jul. 16, 2009)
  FPGA revenue is projected to grow to nearly $3.5 billion in 2013 from $2.55 billion in 2009, a faster growth rate than is anticipated for the broader IC market, according to a study released Monday (July 13) by market research firm The Linley Group.
  
  
• EDA Consortium Reports Industry Revenue Down in First Quarter 2009 (Thursday Jul. 16, 2009)
  The EDA Consortium (EDAC) Market Statistics Service (MSS) today announced that the electronic design automation (EDA) industry revenue for Q1 2009 declined 10.7 percent to $1192.1 million, compared to $1334.2 million in Q1 2008, driven primarily by an accounting shift at one major EDA company.
  
  
• More than 30 fabs to close in '09, says analyst (Tuesday Jul. 14, 2009)
  By the time it's all said and done, more than 30 semiconductor fabs will shut their doors this year as chip companies cut capacity in response to the downturn, according to Christian Gregor Dieseldorff, senior analyst and director of market research for the SEMI trade group.
  
  
• Analysis: Intel slowly gears up for system-on-chips (Friday Jul. 10, 2009)
  Intel Corp. isn't giving much detail on its two-year old initiative to become a systems-on-chip supplier, but interviews with executives and analysts show the company is making gradual progress laying the foundations to build competitive SoCs for cellphones, TVs, videogame consoles and communications gear.
  
  
• NXP CoolFlux BSP's 12-bit computation has pros and cons for low-power baseband (Thursday Jul. 09, 2009)
  The new CoolFlux DSP core from NXP targets low-power baseband applications with some unusual features, particularly its complex, 12-bit computational capabilities. BDTI's analysts took a look inside the core and while it has many strengths, they raise some interesting questions concerning its viability in that space.
  
  
• UMC denies 65-nm yield issues (Wednesday Jul. 08, 2009)
  UMC Tuesday (July 7) denied a report that it experienced yield problems on its 65-nm process and said some isolated problems in meeting customer requirements were the result of tight capacity due to customer rush orders.
  
  
• ARM Maintains Lead Over MIPS and Power Architecture in the Battle for the Digital Home (Tuesday Jul. 07, 2009)
  Analysis of findings from Semicast’s Embedded Processing Service shows that ARM maintained its position as the leading architecture for embedded processors in digital home applications in 2008, ahead of MIPS and Power Architecture.
  
  
• Xilinx mum on supply glitch as speculation swirls (Tuesday Jul. 07, 2009)
  Feed: EETimes Title: Xilinx mum on supply glitch as speculation swirls Xilinx is keeping tight lipped about the source of a supply problem that caused it to lower its June quarter outlook. Meanwhile, speculation swirls that the issue is related to 65-nm yield issues at foundry partner UMC.
  
  
• The ESL battle for hearts and minds (Thursday Jul. 02, 2009)
  Things have turned deadly serious this week between two major players in the ESL market, Mentor Graphics and Forte Design Systems.