IPnest has released the 9[SUP]th[/SUP] version of the Interface IP Survey, ranking by protocol the IP vendors addressing the Interface segments: USB, PCI Express, (LP)DDRn, MIPI, Ethernet & SerDes, HDMI/DP and SATA. When the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] version has been issued in 2009, the IP segment was weighting $225 million and the… Read More
Electronics Production Rising in 2017
Production of electronic equipment is continuing healthy growth. China, the world’s largest producer of electronics, had a three-month-average increase of 14% in October 2017 versus a year ago. Year-to-date through October, China’s electronic production has gained 13.8% compared to 10.0% for the year 2016, putting China… Read More
ASIC and TSMC are the AI Chip Unsung Heroes
One of the more exciting design start market segments that we track is Artificial Intelligence related ASICs. With NVIDIA making billions upon billions of dollars repurposing GPUs as AI engines in the cloud, the Application Specific Integrated Circuit business was sure to follow. Google now has its Tensor Processing Unit, Intel… Read More
New e-Book – Custom SoCs for IoT: Simplified – Available for Free Download
We are fortunate to be living in one of the most amazing and exciting times in the history of our planet. The developments seen in my life time alone have been astounding and we are now on the cusp of yet another inflection point. The world wide web has morphed into the internet of things (IoT), some even call it the internet-of-everything… Read More
Will Broadcom become a Chipzilla or is the deal DOA?
The Broadcom bid for Qualcomm is the biggest, boldest semiconductor deal to date. Just when we thought semi M&A was cooling off, this deal is a years worth of deals rolled into one. Not only does this deal upset the current balance between chip suppliers and customers, it would create a giant entity smack in the middle of IOT, AI,… Read More
Deep Learning and Cloud Computing Make 7nm Real
The challenges of 7nm are well documented. Lithography artifacts create exploding design rule complexity, mask costs and cycle time. Noise and crosstalk get harder to deal with, as does timing closure. The types of applications that demand 7nm performance will often introduce HBM memory stacks and 2.5D packaging, and that creates… Read More
Choosing the lesser of 2 evils EUV vs Multi Patterning!
For Halloween this week we thought it would be appropriate to talk about things that strike fear into the hearts of semiconductor makers and process engineers toiling away in fabs. Do I want to do multi-patterning with the huge increase in complexity, number of steps, masks and tools or do I want to do EUV with unproven tools, unproven… Read More
Capex Driving Overcapacity?
Semiconductor capital expenditures (cap ex) in 2017 will increase significantly from 2016. In August, Gartner forecast 2017 cap ex growth of 10.2% and IC Insights projected 20.2% growth. SEMI expects spending on semiconductor fabrication equipment will increase 37%. Cap ex growth is primarily driven by increased capacity… Read More
Navigating the System-in-a-Package Manufacturing Ecosystem
Being an old ASIC physical design guy, I tend to think of ASICs from a “bond-pads-in” perspective. This week however, I had a very eye-opening discussion with Dan Leung, Director of Packaging and Assembly for Open-Silicon, that totally changed my perspective. While I had been exposed many times to the concept of systems-in-a-package… Read More
The Interface IP Market has Grown to $530 Million!
According with IPnest, the Interface IP market, including USB, PCI Express, (LP)DDRn, HDMI, MIPI and Ethernet IP segments, has reached $532 million in 2016, growing from $472 million in 2015. This is an impressive 13% Year-over-Year growth rate, and 12% CAGR since 2012!
Who integrate functions to interface a chip with others … Read More
Rapidus, IBM, and the Billion-Dollar Silicon Sovereignty Bet