The 2015 semiconductor market finished with a 0.2% decline from 2014, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). Optimists will round this to flat with 2014. The flat 2015 follows healthy 9.9% growth in 2014. Going into 2015, forecasts were in the range of 3% to 11%. We at Semiconductor Intelligence were at the high… Read More
Tag: broadcom
Slinging Stones at the Data Center Semi Goliaths
For those not aware, there is quite a battle brewing in data center wired communication segment (across which most wireless data traffic traverses). A primary impetus driving the competitive positioning is the recent commercial availability of single lane 25 Gbps serdes (serializer / deserializer) channels in 28 nm CMOS from… Read More
IDMs are Much Ahead of Fabless Semicon Companies
In a balancing global economy, it’s a common phenomenon that at certain times a few sectors or segments within the sectors grow much faster compared to others. And a few companies within the growing sectors lead those sectors. Both the growing sectors and the leading companies in those sectors become the centers of attraction. … Read More
Dinner with the Man who is Reshaping the Semiconductor Industry!
The recent mega acquisition of Broadcom Corp by Avago can be traced all the way back to Silicon Valley stalwart Hewlett Packard (founded in a two car Palo Alto garage in 1939). Even more interesting is the man behind the acquisition and how he got to where he is today.Avago began as the semiconductor products division of HP in 1961, … Read More
Make American Semiconductor Great Again!
As I watched the GOP debate between the top 10 candidates last week I asked myself which one of those men would I pick to help the United States stay competitive in the semiconductor industry. I’m saddened to say that the only candidate even remotely qualified for that conversation in my opinion is Donald Trump. Of course I backed Ross… Read More
Apple Watch – A Great New Design, Needs More
During 52[SUP]nd[/SUP] DAC, there was a special session where a brand new Apple watch was opened and each of its components was shown with a brief description about it. I found this tear down session a great innovative idea coming from DAC organizers; actually two buzzing products, AppleWatch and DJI’s Phantom Drone were opened… Read More
Semiconductor Acquisitions will Fuel Innovation!
Has the semiconductor world gone acquisition crazy? It certainly seems that way with the more than $60B in M&A activity which may now include Altera. We are probably getting close to the 80/20 rule where 80% of the semiconductor revenue is being generated by 20% of the companies. Not far off from where we were at 25 years ago when… Read More
SemiWiki at #52DAC: Nominated for Best Paper Award!
Blogging for Semiwiki is a very good exercise to prepare a paper submission at DAC. Writing a short article using about 600 words to pass one message, and try to deliver this message as clearly as possible. Writing a paper for DAC is very similar, as you have to be synthetic and develop a thesis in 5 slides, no more, as it’s a time limited… Read More
Why Intel will Never Succeed in IoT Market?
Let me precise that by “IoT” I think about the IoT devices market, made of hundreds of application, wearable gadget to medical, home automation, and so on. One direct consequence of IoT (device) market explosion will be the strong growth of the server market (cloud), to transfer, compute and store information generated by the billions… Read More
Shift-West of Semicon Power Centers
It’s true that Japan was once the center of semiconductor business and we were carrying on with that perception until recently. In 1990, six out of top10 semiconductor companies (excluding pure-play foundries) were in Japan; and 59% of worldwide semiconductor market was concentrated with the top10 companies. The semiconductor… Read More