As a professional conference attendee I see a direct correlation between the number of people attending and the quality of the keynotes. Let’s face it, it’s all about the keynotes so you had better get some big names if you want more than your friends and family to show up. In this regards the upcoming CASPA event will probably be one… Read More
Semiconductor double digit growth in 2014 & 2015
The global semiconductor market was US$82.2 billion in the second quarter of 2014 according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). 2Q 2014 was up 4.8% from 1Q 2014 up 10.1% from 2Q 2013. Healthy growth should continue into 3Q 2014. The table below shows initial revenue growth guidance for 2Q 2014, final reported revenue… Read More
Strategic Materials Conference
SEMI’s Strategic Materials Conference is coming up fast, on September 30th and October 1st next week at the Biltmore in Santa Clara. This year’s theme, Materials Matter—Enabling the Future of IC Fabrication and Packaging, will take a broad look at what is driving the demand for new materials, and how material suppliers … Read More
What’s eSilicon Up To Now?
eSilicon, in conjunction with King Research, is conducting an unusual survey. A lot of vendor-driven surveys focus on specific pain points that are addressed by that particular vendor’s product/service. The idea is typically to either promote visibility for the product/service or establish its undeniable need in the market.… Read More
Big Data, the Cloud and the Internet of (Silicon) Things
Next week, eSilicon are kicking off a very widespread survey to measure some important semiconductor design and manufacturing challenges. Their goal is to measure customer sentiment regarding how Big Data, the Cloud and the Internet can impact these challenges. But here’s a secret, the survey is already live and you can… Read More
What Comes After FinFET?
So what comes after FinFETs? At 14/16nm (or 22nm if you are Intel) we had FinFET transistors, where the channel was no longer planar but stuck out of the wafer vertically, and the gate wrapped around it on 3 sides. The key thing that made FinFET transistors attractive was that the channel was thin so that the gate controlled it well. … Read More
Semiconductor Revenue Trends
Image Source: Wikipedia
Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. (Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain forever a child.)–Cicero
2014 is destined to be a pivotal year for Silicon Valley and High Tech in general. End user markets have been stagnating or declining over the last… Read More
eSilicon and the Ten Minute Quote
One of the challenges in bringing a design into production is getting a quote that includes all the various stages of the process. The quote cycle typically takes a couple of weeks. It is also pretty wasteful. A typical design might be quoted by 3 manufacturers and so 2 out of 3 quotes are wasted expense because the design is lost to a … Read More
EUV Pellicles
Shakespeare reckoned that a man went through seven stages in his life.All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.
Well, an EUV mask seems to only go through three main stages:
[LIST=1]
Getting a Tapeout Quote in 10 Minutes!
On Thursday, July 31[SUP]st[/SUP] at 8 AM Pacific Daylight Time I’ll be moderating a webinar that will demo eSilicon’s new GDSII quoting portal. You can find more details about the webinar here, and you can register here.
I’ve worked with a lot of companies that do advanced custom IC designs. Getting a quote that covers all the NRE… Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification