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Commentary / Analysis

• Driving Europe's Chip Renaissance: TSMC's Vision with ESMC (Monday Sep. 18, 2023)
  TSMC, in collaboration with Bosch, Infineon and NXP, is planning to invest in the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), based in Dresden, Germany. This strategic move aims to meet the burgeoning demand for advanced semiconductor-manufacturing services, particularly in the automotive and industrial sectors.
  
  
• Arm Begins 2nd Term on Nasdaq, at $54.5 Billion Valuation (Thursday Sep. 14, 2023)
  EE Times Interviews Paul Williamson, Arm’s senior VP and general manager for the IoT business
  
  
• 2024 Global Fab Equipment Spending Recovery Expected After 2023 Slowdown, SEMI Reports (Tuesday Sep. 12, 2023)
  Global fab equipment spending for front-end facilities in 2023 is expected to decline 15% year-over-year (YoY) to US$84 billion from a record high of US$99.5 billion in 2022 before rebounding 15% YoY to US$97 billion in 2024
  
  
• SK hynix's memory chips next in Huawei's 5G phone saga (Monday Sep. 11, 2023)
  Last week’s relatively low-key launch of Huawei’ Mate 60 Pro 5G phone is still making waves for China’s breakthrough in cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing technology with a 5G system-on-chip (SoC) produced on SMIC’s 7-nm process node. Especially, when SMIC doesn’t have access to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment.
  
  
• Semiconductor industry sees revenue increase for the first time since 2021 (Monday Sep. 11, 2023)
  
  
  
• Q2 2023 Global Semiconductor Equipment Billings Dip 2% Year-Over-Year, SEMI Reports (Monday Sep. 11, 2023)
  Global semiconductor equipment billings dipped 2% year-over-year to US$25.8 billion in the second quarter of 2023, while quarter-over-quarter billings slipped 4%, SEMI announced today in its Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) Report.
  
  
• Arm IPO Likely to Lag Early Expectations, Observers Say (Thursday Sep. 07, 2023)
  SoftBank’s sale of a stake in Arm is likely to raise less money than originally expected, due in part to the several uncertainties the British chip IP company continues to face, industry observers told EE Times.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 2.3% Month-to-Month in July (Thursday Sep. 07, 2023)
  SIA today announced global semiconductor industry sales totaled $43.2 billion during the month of July 2023, an increase of 2.3% compared to the June 2023 total of $42.2 billion but 11.8% less than the July 2022 total of $49.0 billion.
  
  
• Top Ten Semiconductor Foundries Report a 1.1% Quarterly Revenue Decline in 2Q23, Anticipated to Rebound in 3Q23, Says TrendForce (Tuesday Sep. 05, 2023)
  TrendForce reports an interesting shift in the electronics landscape: dwindling inventories for TV components, along with a surging mobile repair market that’s been driving TDDI demand, have sparked a smattering of urgent orders in the Q2 supply chain.
  
  
• Arm prices IPO (Monday Sep. 04, 2023)
  Arm has priced its IPO at $47-51 per share valuing the company at at $50-54 billion – compared to the estimated range of $19-73 billion.
  
  
• Arm IPO Faces Serious Difficulties, Observers Say (Friday Aug. 25, 2023)
  SoftBank’s initial public offering (IPO) for Arm on the Nasdaq stock exchange, planned for as early as next month, faces major challenges because the British chip designer is overvalued and growth prospects are dim, analysts and a person close to the company told EE Times.
  
  
• Huawei rumoured to be building secret fab stable (Thursday Aug. 24, 2023)
  Huawei is alleged to be building up a fab stable in China to try and evade US restrictions on tools and technology
  
  
• sureCore-Led CryoCMOS IP: Toward Scalable Quantum Computers (Thursday Aug. 24, 2023)
  sureCore CEO Paul Wells foresees further migration of control electronics “into the cryostat,” i.e., close to the qubits.
  
  
• 2 Startups Tackle Counterfeits, Including TI Chips (Thursday Aug. 24, 2023)
  Startups Alitheon and Cybord are tackling the problem of counterfeit chips in the electronics supply chain.
  
  
• GDDR Does Math, Big-Screen Explosions (Thursday Aug. 24, 2023)
  The “G” in GDDR stands for “graphics” (as in “graphics double data rate”), but today, the use cases for the high-performance memory boil down to math. It is the reason GDDR7, recently announced by Samsung Electronics, will find its way into high-performance computing (HPC), artificial-intelligence and automotive applications.
  
  
• Synopsys to add generative AI to design tools (Thursday Aug. 24, 2023)
  Synopsys is looking to add generative AI to its EDA tools to boost chip design productivity.
  
  
• Analysis: Arm IPO filing reveals depth of Chinese risk (Wednesday Aug. 23, 2023)
  The filing for an IPO in intellectual property licensor Arm has revealed details of problematic relations in China and risks to its continued business there.
  
  
• Esperanto Pivots to HPC and Generative AI (Wednesday Aug. 23, 2023)
  AI chip startup Esperanto recently pivoted its focus from recommendation acceleration to large language models (LLMs) and high-performance computing (HPC), releasing a general-purpose software development kit and PCIe accelerator card for its ET-SoC-1 first generation RISC-V data center accelerator chip.
  
  
• Gartner Forecasts Worldwide AI Chips Revenue to Reach $53 Billion in 2023 (Wednesday Aug. 23, 2023)
  Semiconductors designed to execute artificial intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9% from 2022, according to the latest forecast from Gartner, Inc.
  
  
• Interview: Arm's SystemReady 2.0 to Secure IoT Devices (Wednesday Aug. 16, 2023)
  We had the opportunity to talk to Paul Williamson, Arm’s SVP & GM for the IoT Line of Business, about SystemReady. He shared the essential benefits of the program and argued why it is crucial to ensure continuous security updates to all connected devices out there.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Industry on Track for 2024 Recovery but Near-Term Headwinds Remain, SEMI Reports (Wednesday Aug. 16, 2023)
  In Q3 2023, electronics sales are projected to post healthy quarter-on-quarter growth of 10%, while memory IC sales are expected to log double-digit growth for the first time since the downturn started in Q3 2022. Logic IC sales are predicted to remain stable and improve as demand gradually recovers.
  
  
• TSMC allocates $6bn for 2nm capacity in Taiwan (Friday Aug. 11, 2023)
  At a board meeting earlier this week, TSMC allocated $6 billion for building leading edge capacity in Taiwan.
  
  
• Intel CEO Voices Concerns About CHIPS Funds, Export Controls (Thursday Aug. 10, 2023)
  Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is lobbying for a large portion of the $52 billion that the U.S. will provide in subsidies for new fab construction—and urging the U.S. to ease up on export controls that are throttling sales to China, the world’s largest semiconductor market.
  
  
• Analog IP tackles side channel attacks (Thursday Aug. 10, 2023)
  Protecting against side channel attacks is a critical part of chip design, says Chris Morrison, director of product marketing at Agile Analog in Cambridge.
  
  
• Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 4.7% in Q2 Compared to Q1 (Monday Aug. 07, 2023)
  Global sales for the month of June 2023 were $41.5 billion, an increase of 1.7% compared to the previous month.
  
  
• CEO Interview: Intrinsic ID's Pim Tuyls on Embedded Security (Monday Aug. 07, 2023)
  With the rapid growth of connected devices or internet of things (IoT), security has become a significant concern for businesses and consumers using these products. Manufacturers and device vendors are having to respond to not only customer pressure, but also government legislation around the world.
  
  
• Remi El-Ouazzane: "A Tsunami of TinyML Devices is Coming" (Monday Jul. 31, 2023)
  TinyML will become the largest driver of the microcontroller market in the next 10 years, according to Remi El-Ouazzane, the president of STMicroelectronics’ microcontrollers and digital ICs group.
  
  
• PCIe Eyes Road Ahead with AI, Automotive (Monday Jul. 31, 2023)
  Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting more attention than ever thanks to the rapid emergence of ChatGPT, so it should be no surprise that well-established, incumbent technologies, such as the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe), are poised to play a critical role.
  
  
• Huawei planning on using SMIC to fab 7nm ICs this year (Monday Jul. 31, 2023)
  Huawei plans to fab 5G chips on a 7nm process at SMIC this year, reports the Nikkei.
  
  
• America Faces Significant Shortage of Tech Workers in Semiconductor Industry and Throughout U.S. Economy (Monday Jul. 31, 2023)
  An estimated 67,000 jobs for technicians, computer scientists, engineers in semiconductor industry—and 1.4 million such jobs across the U.S. economy—risk going unfilled by 2030, according to new SIA/Oxford Economics study