The war of words continues, when will it end? I consider myself a reasonably educated and informed person, certainly above average by U.S. standards, yet I have no idea why the U.S. Government continues to write checks they cannot cash and I don’t know who to believe in the resulting media blasts. I truly miss the days of Ross… Read More
Global semiconductor capital spending is headed for another decline in 2013, following a 12% decline in 2012. Gartner’s September forecast called for a 7% decline in 2013. Most of the major spenders expect flat to declining expenditures in 2013. Intel in July estimated 2013 spending of $11 billion, flat with 2012 and down from … Read More
The legend of Intel being two process nodes ahead of the rest of the industry is quickly coming to an end. To come to terms with this you need to do an apple to apple comparison which is what I will do right here, right now.
First and foremost let’s compare SoC silicon delivery since SoCs are driving the semiconductor industry and will … Read More
This time it is between the suppliers of semiconductor manufacturing equipments. And they are among the top ranked global peers. Applied Materials Inc., holding the numero uno position in sales of chip manufacturing equipments in 2012, agreed to acquire Tokyo Electron Ltd, the third in that ranking. Gary Dickerson of Applied… Read More
Many people are underestimating the speed and the magnitude of the transition that is about to take place with the tandem rollout of iOS 7 and the 64 bit A7 processor. While the former provides a nice visual upgrade to the entire ecosystem the latter will be used to collect accolades and drive application development that will result… Read More
Now that the IDF 2013 euphoria is fading I would like to play devil’s advocate and make a case for why Intel is still not ready to compete in the mobile market. It was very clear from the keynotes that Intel is a chip company, always has been, always will be, and that will not get them the market share they need to be relevant in mobile electronics,… Read More
At IDF Brian Krzanich gave the keynote. I won’t summarize the whole thing here but just talk about one part that was something they had actually managed to keep secret ahead of time: Quark.
Quark is a synthesizable core. It uses 1/10th power of Atom and is 1/5 size. Now I am writing this, I don’t know if this is a fair comparison… Read More
Remember? During DAC2013 I talked about a new kind of innovation: A Virtual Fabrication Platform, SEMulator3D, developed by COVENTOR. Now, to my pleasant surprise, there is something to report on the proven results from this platform. IBM, in association with COVENTOR, has successfully implemented a 3D Virtual Fabrication… Read More
Ecosystem is everything when it comes to modern semiconductor design, especially if it is mobile. The fabless semiconductor industry has been all about ecosystem since the beginning and that is why we hold supercomputers in our hands today, believe it. After the invention of the transistor in 1947, and the invention of the integrated… Read More
Imagination seems to be well known for a couple of things. Firstly, everyone knows that it is the graphics processor used in the iPhone and the iPad and lots of other phones. And they know that Imagination acquired MIPS at the start of this year.
But what people don’t seem to really appreciate is just what a huge portfolio of IP… Read More
