Recently, the combined market share of the top ten and top twenty semiconductor companies has been increasing, contrary to the trend of the last fifty years. Given the acceleration in mergers and acquisitions that began in 2015, one might assume that, as the semiconductor industry approaches maturity, companies are consolidating… Read More
The second keynote at Mentor’s U2U this year was given by Hooman Moshar, VP of Engineering at Broadcom, on the always (these days) important topic of design for power. This is one of my favorite areas. I have, I think, a decent theoretical background in the topic, but I definitely need a periodic refresh on the ground reality from the… Read More
It has been reported over the holiday weekend that Intel is in talks with Micron over a proposed merger that would value Micron at $70 per share in a deal of a combination of stock and cash for Micron shareholders. It is said that the boards of both companies have already approved the deal.
Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich said, “We… Read More
The war of words continues between Broadcom and Qualcomm and the stock analysts still seem to be split on the merger. Please note that Broadcom is proposing to merge with Qualcomm instead of a tender offer which is what Qualcomm has proposed for the acquisition on NXP. Same result but two very different approaches. Another interesting… Read More
This has been an amazing year for me both personally and professionally. Personally we are now empty nest and have our first grandchild. SemiWiki is prospering, a company that I have been involved with for ten years (Solido Design) had a very nice exit, and my time promoting semiconductor stocks to Wall Street paid off with the PHLX… Read More
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
In 2014 Apple released the iPhone 6 which included the first SoC built on a TSMC (20nm) process. This phone started what many call a “Super Cycle” of people upgrading. According to Apple, they now have more than 1 billion activated devices so this super cycle could be seriously super, absolutely.… Read More
Traditionally, EDA has been a brute force methodology where we buy more software licenses and more CPUs and keep running endless jobs to keep up with the increasing design and process complexities. SPICE simulation for example; when I meet chip designers (which I do quite frequently) I ask them how many simulations they do for a … Read More
DAC is upon us again! The Design Automation Conference holds special meaning to me as it was the first technical conference I attended as a semiconductor professional, or professional anything for that matter. That was 33 years ago and I have not missed one since. This year my wife and I both will be walking the DAC floor and it would… Read More
The global semiconductor market posted strong 11.6% growth in 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] quarter 2016 from 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] quarter, according to WSTS. This strength is reflected in the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] quarter revenue growth reported by the major semiconductor suppliers. Of the 12 companies, half (Intel, Samsung, Broadcom, TI, Micron… Read More
