Japanese stood to be the world leaders during 1980-1990 regime in semiconductor manufacturing[SUP] [2][/SUP]. During my research, I found that Japanese semiconductor firms are very strong leaders in process which gave them a competitive advantage over others. Situation is bit different today, as we have fabless firms taking… Read More
Intel to Focus on IoT and NOT Mobile?
The Intel Q4 investor call was last week and as Brian Krzanich approaches his 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] year as Intel CEO a new synergistic corporate strategy is emerging:
That strategy is also resulting in the evolution of our business model to focus on three key areas of growth: The Data Center, the Internet of Things, and Memory.
DCG, IoTG… Read More
Pure-play Foundries to Prevail in Future
In a consolidating semiconductor business environment and innovation in semiconductor fabrication already scaling new heights with existing strong players, where do you think the wafer capacity should concentrate? It’s pure-play foundries or pure-play-like foundries, and those who supply high-volume common components… Read More
The China Semiconductor Market Explained!
The overwhelming theme of the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium in Half Moon Bay this week was China. On day number two Sunny Hui, SVP of SMIC, did one of the best overviews of the China market I have seen, absolutely. While I’m not allowed to post the presentation in its entirety I can post up to three slides (the prettiest ones) and summarize… Read More
FinFET will finally arrive for GPU’s in 2016
It used to be that GPU chips moved to new process nodes pretty frequently, previously as often as annually. That is up until 2011. That was the year that 28nm GPU’s were unveiled. Since then there has been a long pause. Now in the wake of the 2016 CES both Nvidia, with its previously announced Pascal, and AMD, with the just announced Polaris,… Read More
Freescale: The End of a Long Journey – Part II
There is a famous story about Bill Gates’ mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, asking guests on a dinner table about the single biggest factor that contributed to their success. The answer of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet was the same: Focus.… Read More
Atmel Wireless Connectivity supports Industrial IoT revolution
The Consumer Electronic Show is about to close, some of the gadgets unveiled during the show will find a market and go to production and some won’t (I am skeptic about the Smartshoe offering self-fastening mechanism…) and during the week, IoT revolution has silently progressed in industrial automation. You will be surprised if… Read More
Are AI Powered Robot Soldiers Coming?
2016 will be another defining year for semiconductors and it all starts with the Industry Strategy Symposium in Half Moon Bay next week. If you have not attended one of these you should definitely put it on your bucket list. Not only do you get to hang out in a five star cliff side resort, you get to mingle with semiconductor royalty and… Read More
IEDM Blogs – Part 7 – IMEC Technology Forum – Part 2
On Sunday evening December 6[SUP]th[/SUP] before IEDM, IMEC held the IMEC Technology Forum (ITF). In part 1 of this blog I discussed the introduction and the first two presentations given by An Steegen and Mark Rodder. In this blog I will discuss the final two presentations. Part 1 can be accessed here.… Read More
Seven Predictions for 2016
Wireless Power Will Become Mainstream:
Wireless power will continue to gain traction with increased consumer demand charged by new products and applications. There are two different standards vying for consumer adoption; Qi and Rezence, but the consumer need not worry about a standards war because companies like Hewlett Packard… Read More
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