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ASML Will Take Semiconductor Equipment Lead from Applied Materials in 2019

ASML Will Take Semiconductor Equipment Lead from Applied Materials in 2019
by Robert Castellano on 12-02-2019 at 10:00 am

For the first time since 1990, Applied Materials is poised to lose its lead in the semiconductor equipment market, according to my recently published report “The Global Semiconductor Equipment: Markets, Market Shares, Market Forecasts.

Applied Materials, which has been losing market share in the wafer front end (WFE) equipment… Read More


Intel vs AMD vs Google vs Amazon vs NUVIA

Intel vs AMD vs Google vs Amazon vs NUVIA
by Daniel Nenni on 11-29-2019 at 6:00 am

Arguably the cloud was the quickest road to riches for chip designers large and small. As an emerging company, if you wanted to raise money just put “Datacenter” in your pitch deck and you were assured millions. You would be competing with semiconductor’s version of David and Goliath (AMD and Intel) but that was a good thing, right?… Read More


Webinar Recap: IP Security Threats in your SoC

Webinar Recap: IP Security Threats in your SoC
by Daniel Payne on 11-28-2019 at 10:00 am

Methodics Security SoC

Three years ago my youngest son purchased a $17 smart watch on eBay, but then my oldest son read an article warning about how that watch would sync with your phone, then send all of your contact info to an address in China. My youngest son then wisely turned the watch off, and never used it again. Hackers have been able to spoof and hide Read More


GM’s CES No Show: EmBARRAssing!

GM’s CES No Show: EmBARRAssing!
by Roger C. Lanctot on 11-28-2019 at 6:00 am

After failing in 2017 and 2018 to put a single woman on-stage to deliver a high profile keynote, the Consumer Technology Association featured four female keynoters in 2019. Until recently, two women were on the docket for the 2020 show in January, but news arrived last week that General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra had cancelled… Read More


Webinar Recap: Challenges of Autonomous Vehicle Validation

Webinar Recap: Challenges of Autonomous Vehicle Validation
by Daniel Payne on 11-27-2019 at 10:00 am

Waymo Jaguar

Autonomous vehicle progress is in the daily news, so it’s quite exciting to watch it develop with the help of SoC design, sensors, actuators and software from engineering teams spanning the entire globe. Tesla vehicles have reached Level 2 autonomy, Audi e-tron is at Level 3, and Waymo nearly at Level 5 with robot taxis being… Read More


MEMS Actuation and the Art of Prototyping

MEMS Actuation and the Art of Prototyping
by Bernard Murphy on 11-27-2019 at 5:00 am

Thermal actuator prototyping

I mentioned a while back that I’m really getting into the role that sensors play in our new hyper-connected world – in the IoT, intelligent cars, homes, cities, industry, utilities, medicine, agriculture, etc, etc. If we can think of a way to sense it and connect it, someone is probably already doing it. But there’s more to … Read More


Mentor unpacks LVS and LVL issues around advanced packaging

Mentor unpacks LVS and LVL issues around advanced packaging
by Tom Simon on 11-26-2019 at 6:00 am

Innovations in packaging have played an important role in improving system performance and area utilization. Advances like 2.5D interposers and fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) have allowed mixed dies to be used in a single package and have dramatically reduced the number of connections that need to go all the way to the… Read More


Where has the ASIC Business Gone?

Where has the ASIC Business Gone?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-25-2019 at 10:00 am

As the traditional ASIC business disappears before our eyes with the recent divestitures and acquisitions, I have been asking questions amongst the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and am getting few answers.

Who or what is going to step in to enable start-ups and new to silicon systems companies with application specific chips?Read More


Could TSMC’s spend be part of the seasonal pattern?

Could TSMC’s spend be part of the seasonal pattern?
by Robert Maire on 11-25-2019 at 5:00 am

Is there more downside than upside in stocks?
Entering a seasonally weak period, then what?
Does China trade come back to haunt industry?
Cycle is past the bottom-But what kind of up cycle?

The most recent up cycle in the industry was a huge one, driven by a huge spend on NAND as SSD’s sucked up infinite number of devices. DRAM … Read More


Top Three Reasons to Attend the Synopsys Fusion Compiler Event!

Top Three Reasons to Attend the Synopsys Fusion Compiler Event!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-22-2019 at 10:00 am

As a professional semiconductor event attendee I can pretty much tell if an event will be successful by looking at the agenda. What I look for is simple, customer presentations. Not company presentations or partner presentations but actual customer case studies presented by name brand companies. For this event Google, Intel,… Read More