Why are Top Brass from NXP, Qualcomm, Skyworks Keynoting Upcoming IEEE SOI-3D-SubVt (S3S) Conference? (San Francisco, Oct.’16)

Why are Top Brass from NXP, Qualcomm, Skyworks Keynoting Upcoming IEEE SOI-3D-SubVt (S3S) Conference? (San Francisco, Oct.’16)
by Adele Hars on 08-25-2016 at 12:00 pm

By Fred Allibert
The IEEE S3S Conference (10-13 October 2016 at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency) brings together 3 key technologies that will play a major role in tomorrow’s industry: SOI, 3D integration, and Subthreshold Microelectronics. The numerous degrees of freedom they allow enable the ultra-low power operation… Read More


If an Intel 10nm transistor fell in the ARM forest

If an Intel 10nm transistor fell in the ARM forest
by Don Dingee on 08-18-2016 at 4:00 pm

Intel’s news at IDF this week about partnering with ARM for foundry services on 10nm set off some wild speculation. It’s not a surprise that ARM would enable Intel – they’ve worked together before, ARM is an equal opportunity ecosystem partner, and ARM has publicly announced 10nm cores taped out at TSMC.… Read More


Qualcomm is Back on Top of the SoC World!

Qualcomm is Back on Top of the SoC World!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-13-2016 at 7:00 am

In 2015 Qualcomm stunned the fabless semiconductor world with an unprecedented layoff. When I first heard about it the number was 5% but it kept growing and finally hit 15%. The big misstep here was, that after being the SoC leader starting in 2007 with the Snapdragon series of chips that powered the Smartphone revolution, QCOM did… Read More


MIPI DevCon 2016: Opened to non-MIPI Members!

MIPI DevCon 2016: Opened to non-MIPI Members!
by Eric Esteve on 08-08-2016 at 7:00 am

The MIPI Alliance was founded in 2003 by large IDM to standardize chip-to-chip interfaces in the wireless phone (mobile) segment. The various MIPI specifications (CSI, DSI, DigRF and many more) have been adopted by the application processor chip makers (usually large IDM or fabless, like Intel or Qualcomm initially and many … Read More


Linley Mobile and Wearable Conference Drills into Rapidly Evolving Markets

Linley Mobile and Wearable Conference Drills into Rapidly Evolving Markets
by Tom Simon on 08-04-2016 at 7:00 am

Last week the Linley conference on mobile and wearables started with an overview and keynote address by the event’s namesake Linley Gwennap. His talk offered a few surprises and was informative all around. As you have seen recently reported here on SemiWiki, he sees smartphone shipments continuing to rise, but with a declining… Read More


A Chinese smartphone drill in progress

A Chinese smartphone drill in progress
by Don Dingee on 07-27-2016 at 4:00 pm

One of our astute readers caught what looks like a major gaffe in the Linley Group mobile conference presentations from this week. It’s another indication of the speed of change in mobile markets and the instability that is giving Apple and others heartburn.

Here’s the chart in question:


The point of contention is who, exactly, … Read More


Qualcomm Demonstrates First Sub-6 GHz 5G New Radio Prototype

Qualcomm Demonstrates First Sub-6 GHz 5G New Radio Prototype
by Patrick Moorhead on 07-27-2016 at 7:00 am

You may not know this, but on-time delivery at expected performance with 5G is being determined right now in engineering labs across the globe. This is true even though end user deployments won’t be for another three to four years. You see, the ground is being laid right now with manufacturers, operators and standards bodies. With… Read More


More Details on the Smartphone and Wearables Market

More Details on the Smartphone and Wearables Market
by Daniel Nenni on 07-26-2016 at 4:00 pm

The Linley Mobile Conference opened today with a nice keynote overview of the mobile market evolution. In the media I see a lot of doom and gloom articles about smartphones and wearables but if you look at it closely you will see a natural growth curve evolving.

The mobile semiconductor market is evolving as vendors split their focusRead More


Loving it when a Qualcomm plan comes together

Loving it when a Qualcomm plan comes together
by Don Dingee on 07-22-2016 at 4:00 pm

Corporate layoffs are always a touchy subject. I think that’s because there is skepticism that one round of layoffs can turn into two, then if business still doesn’t improve the spiral accelerates into more rounds. Too many rounds indicate management didn’t really have a clue what was going on in the business, instead trying to … Read More


The iPhone 7 Intel Modem Controversy Explained!

The iPhone 7 Intel Modem Controversy Explained!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-18-2016 at 7:00 am

The media is really having a field day on this one so I think it deserves further discussion. The rumor is that Intel has won the modem socket in the iPhone 7. The same rumor was circulating about Intel winning the modem socket for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 5e so it really has reached urban legend status. The question I have is why does … Read More