Global semiconductor capital expenditures (capex) are expected to return to the level of 2011 either this year or next. 2011 was the record year for capex as the industry returned to growth following the 2009-2010 recession. IC Insights’ August 2016 forecast called for 3.5% growth in capital spending to reach $67.1 billion, the… Read More
Tag: freescale
Soitec – Enabling the FDSOI Revolution
Recently I published two blogs on Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FDSOI) and the potential the technology shows for a variety of low power and wireless applications. In order to produce FDSOI devices, the device layer has to be thin enough to ensure the device is fully depleted and ideally the buried oxide has to be thin enough… Read More
Why is NXP Moving to FD-SOI?
The latest generations of power efficient and full-featured applications processors in NXP’s very successful and broadly deployed i.MX platform are being manufactured on 28nm FD-SOI. The new i.MX 7 series leverages the 32-bit ARM v7-A core, targeting the general embedded, e-reader, medical, wearable and IoT markets, where… Read More
Join the Multi-die IC session on April 21 at EDPS 2016 in Monterey, CA
Following Moore’s Law down to 10 or even 7 nm labeled feature size demands US $ hundreds of millions of up-front investment, a very large design team and two or more years of development time. These parameters suggest that it only makes sense for very high volume applications to continue on the shrink path to increase SoCs’ functionalities.… Read More
2015 semiconductor market flat, 2016 looking somewhat better
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
NIGHTWATCH Smart Halter: A Great Example of ARM’s IoT Ecosystem Innovation And Diversity
We’ve all seen examples over the past few years of complex IoT technology solutions to help solve real-world problems from a variety of small companies. In fact, last year while I was at the ARM Holdings annual industry analyst conference and TechCon, a gathering of the ARM ecosystem powers, you could find hundreds, if not thousands… Read More
My Tryst with Semiconductors and EDA
Yes, today I realize it feels like a tryst with semiconductors. In actual meaning; it wasn’t a love affair with semiconductors, but I must say the greatest thing it taught me about how it approaches towards perfection. And that became the guiding principle in my life; how can I do something better. Of course nothing is perfect in life… Read More
Trends in Automotive Electronics at #52DAC
The coolest and most expensive car at DAC this year had to be the McLaren P1, priced at $1,150,00 and powered by a 903 hp gas/electric hybrid. Electronics are used in autos to provide safety features, infotainment, motor control and performance.
Also at DAC this year there was an Automotive Village with more cars and experts from … Read More
Changing Trends at the Top of Semicon Space
As we have moved down from a CAGR of ~9% over last three decades to a CAGR of ~5% in the current decade, it’s time to check the realities. It can be definitely argued that a 5% of CAGR over a solid base of ~$378 billion should be considered good enough. In my view that’s the sign of maturity in the semiconductor market. At the same time we are… 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