I mentioned some time ago (a DVCon or two ago) that Accellera had started working on a standard to quantify IP security. At the time I talked about some of the challenges in the task but nevertheless applauded the effort. You’ve got to start somewhere and some way to quantify this is better than none, as long as it doesn’t deliver misleading… Read More
Micron Mired in Murky Memory Market – Cutting Capex 30%- 2020 Challenging
- Solid Quarter but soft Outlook
- Recovery Slow- Future Cost Downs Harder
- Demand slightly ahead of supply-Shelf Stuffed?
- Bouncing along the Bottom of the Cycle
Results ahead of expectation but guide behind expectation
Quarterly results were slightly better than street expectations at $0.56 EPS and $4.87B in revenues however … Read More
AI Hardware Summit, Report #1: Doing More to Cost Less
I recently had the pleasure of attending the AI Hardware Summit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. This two-day conference brought together many companies involved in building artificial intelligence solutions. Though the focus was on building the hardware for this area, there was naturally much discussion… Read More
Semiconductors back to growth in 2020
The global semiconductor market is headed for the largest decline in 18 years. The market dropped 32% in 2001 when the Internet bubble burst. The 2019 decline should be around 15%, the third largest annual drop after 2001 and a 17% drop in 1985. The current weakness is largely due to excess memory capacity (DRAM and NAND flash) relative… Read More
Is Samsung having problems with 7NM? Do long lines at TSMC prove that?
Reports of increasing TSMC 7NM lead times
There have been a number of increasing media reports about lengthening leads times for TSMC 7NM process. From what we have been able to determine its not due to TSMC having a yield bust or other production issues, it is simply one of stronger than expected demand.
There have been reports of … Read More
The Korea/Japan trade war benefits US more than US/China hurts US
GloFo & TSMC lawsuit- A Surrogate Trade War- Pushing TSMC into China’s open arms?
Surrogate Wars
Is GloFo using the trade war as an excuse?
Does TSMC get lumped in with China on trade?
Does this alienate TSMC into China’s embrace?
Much like Vietnam and Korea before it, there have been a number of “surrogate” wars between the US and China as well as many other wars between the US and Russia using… Read More
Memory Manifesto – Examining the “new (slower) normal” of the memory industry
- The perfect storm that drove memory is over
- The “new normal” goes back to older model
- The capex & tech pendulum swings to logic
We try to examine the future of the memory segment of the semiconductor industry given the current market and technology drivers combined with historical behavior.
Passing the Baton
The memory market… Read More
Hopes of a 2020 recovery but nothing solid yet
An in line quarter
Applied reported a quarter just above the mid point of guidance and analyst numbers (which mimic guidance) with revenues of $3.56B and EPS of $0.74 with guidance of $3.685B+-$150M and EPS o $0.72 to $0.80, also in line with current expectations. All in all a fairly boring quarter with business bouncing along a soft… Read More
Is Hong Kong a preview of Taiwan? Will HK embolden China to take Taiwan faster?
On our recent Asian tour, Hong Kong was our last leg, arriving this past Friday and departing Monday, the day the airport stood still. We were on a 2:20PM flight out of Hong Kong back to the states which was one of the last flights to leave before the airport was shut down. Much like the China trade issue, the Hong Kong problem looks to be… Read More
Intel High NA Adoption