Earlier this week it was the Synopsys user group meeting SNUG. Not just any old SNUG but the 25th Annual SNUG. The first one was 15th March 1991 and was attended by 100 people. At the time, Synopsys had annual revenues of $22M. This year, the various SNUGs around the world will have a total attendance of 10,000 people and Synopsys revenue… Read More
A weak first quarter outlook for the semiconductor market is indicating a slow start to 2015. Intel recently lowered the midpoint of its 1Q 2015 revenue guidance from $13.7 billion (down 7% from 4Q 2014) to $12.8 billion (down 13%). The table below shows the estimated top 25 semiconductor companies revenue change for 4Q 2014 versus… Read More
When I joined Calma in 1982, Intel was a small company making microprocessor chips in a crowded marketplace. They had scored big with IBM who was using their 8088 in the very first personal computer. Wind River was a hatchling with David Wilner and Jerry Fiddler working out of a rented warehouse in Berkeley – I know, I hung out… Read More
If we look back in the last century, performance and area were two main criteria for semiconductor chip design. All design tools and flows were concentrated towards optimizing those two aspects. As a result, density of chips started increasing and power became a critical factor. Now, Power, Performance and Area (PPA) are looked… Read More
Take a look at the figure below and tell me this information did not come from inside Apple. The question is: Was it voluntary or involuntary? Inquiring minds want to know! There are some minor surprises which I will get to in a minute but the actual source information is spot on to what I have heard the past few quarters. This spicy little… Read More
We read about FinFET technology in the semiconductor press daily now, thanks to Intel introducing their TriGate transistors starting in 2011 and creating a race with foundries and IDMs to switch from planar CMOS nodes. To get some perspective about the progress of FinFET IP and EDA tools I spoke with two experts from Synopsys, Swami… Read More
This week it was Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Everyone who is anyone in mobile is there. Unfortunately I’m not since Barcelona is one of my favorite cities to visit. Two companies that set high expectations before the show were Samsung and Intel.
Samsung announced the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones on Sunday.… Read More
Rumor that Intel has quit Sematech confirmed by website?
Potential industry impact-
Is this a consolidation by-product?
Do we need a trade group?
Does it benefit Intel?
We have heard from several sources over the last few days that Intel has quit Sematech, the semiconductor industry trade group focused on technology development… Read More
Semiconductor business is highly dependent on technology and that changes very rapidly in the semiconductor space. It’s important to recognize the importance of research and innovation activities in this space. In my last article on 7nm technology node, one respondent commented, very rightly, “It’s important to have competition… Read More
‘Laughing Buddha’ is eternal, but for semiconductor industry, I must say it’s ‘laughing Moore’. Moore made a predictive hypothesis and the whole world is inclined to let that continue, eternally? When we were at 28nm, we weren’t hoping to go beyond 20/22nm; voices like ‘Moore’s law is dead’ started emerging. Today, we are already… Read More
