– KLAC reported an OK QTR & flat guide-waiting for 2025 recovery?
– China exposure remains both risk & savior & big in backlog
– Wafer inspect strong- Patterning on long slide- PCB biz for sale
– Some bright spots but memory still weak- Foundry/Logic OK
LRCX- In line Q4 & flat guide- No recovery yet- China still 40%- Lags Litho
– Lam reported as expected and guided flat- No recovery yet
– Some mix shifts but China still 40% (8X US at 5%)-NVM still low
– HBM is promising but Lam needs a broad memory recovery
– Lam has not seen order surge ASML saw- Likely lagging by 3-4 QTRs
An in line quarter and uninspiring flat guide for Q1
As compared… Read More
ASML – Strong order start on long road to 2025 recovery – 24 flat vs 23 – EUV shines
– ASML orders more than triple sequentially- Utilization increases
– Management remains conservative with flat revenues 2024 vs 2023
– Recovery will be slow, targeting 2025- Long & weak cyclical bottom
– Litho orders are leading indicator of future wider recovery
Strong orders pave the way for
… Read More2024 Semiconductor Cycle Outlook – The Shape of Things to Come – Where we Stand
- What kind of recovery do we expect, if any, after 2 down years?
- What impact will China have on the recovery of mature market chips?
- What will memory recovery look like? Will we return to stupid spend?
- Stock selection ever more critical in tepid recovery
Chip stocks have rocketed but the industry itself, not so much, “Anticipation….is
… Read MoreTransformative Year for Sondrel
This is our third year working with Sondrel and it has been a great experience. I have always been fascinated with the ASIC business and put a full chapter about it in our first book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor industry.” Companies like Sondrel enabled our move to the fabless model and now they … Read More
IEDM 2023 – Imec CFET
At IEDM 2023, Naoto Horiguchi presented on CFETs and Middle of Line integration. I had a chance to speak with Naoto about this work and this write up is based on his presentation at IEDM and our follow up discussion. I always enjoy talking to Naoto, he is one of the leaders in logic technology development, explains the technology in … Read More
WEBINAR: Mastering DC-DC Converters: Your Guide to Better Hardware
Renie Ananthakumar, Principal Engineer at TenXer Labs., invites System Design Engineers globally to a webinar that’s all about practical insights—From Bench to Board: A Comprehensive Guide to DC-DC Converter Selection and Remote Testing.
See the Replay Here
In this session, we are breaking down the complexity of DC-DC… Read More
CES 2024
CES 2024 is being held this week in Las Vegas, Nevada with an estimated 130,000 attendees and over 4,000 exhibitors. CES (previously Consumer Electronics Show) has been held in Las Vegas every year since 1978, except for 2021 due to COVID-19. This was my ninth CES representing Semiconductor Intelligence, with the first in 2012.… Read More
An Accellera Functional Safety Update
In May of 2021 Accellera released a first white paper on the challenges they hope to address with their functional safety standard, together with the scope and goals they set for themselves. One major goal in this effort has been exchange and integration of functional safety data between different tools and flow and particularly… Read More
IEDM 2023 – Modeling 300mm Wafer Fab Carbon Emissions
For the first time ever, IEDM held a sustainability session at the 2023 conference. I was one of the authors who presented an invited paper, the following is a summary of my presentation.
Call to Action
From the United Nations [1]:
“Climate Change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment.”
“Without drastic … Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography