Shakeup in Analog Rankings

Shakeup in Analog Rankings
by Bill Jewell on 09-20-2016 at 4:00 pm

Last week Renesas Electronics announced an agreement to acquire Intersil Corporation for US$3.22 billion. This follows July’s announcement that Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) will acquire Linear Technology Corp. (LTC) for $14.8 billion. These deals will cause a shakeup in the analog IC market. According to IC Insights ranking … Read More


Pushing automotive-grade embedded flash to 28nm

Pushing automotive-grade embedded flash to 28nm
by Don Dingee on 09-02-2016 at 4:00 pm

18 months ago Renesas announced they were prototyping their SG-MONOS eFlash on 28nm, and at the time we said it would be a couple of years before actual product. Yesterday, Renesas revealed their partner in this effort is TSMC – no surprise – and hinted things are moving, with better performance than expected but on a longer qualification… Read More


Semiconductors negative in 2016, positive in 2017

Semiconductors negative in 2016, positive in 2017
by Bill Jewell on 08-17-2016 at 12:00 pm

Note: the table and text below have been revised from an earlier post to correct the numbers for STMicroelectronics.

Semiconductor companies posted a wide range of results in 2nd quarter 2016. Intel, Micron Technology and Renesas Electronics all had declines in revenue in 2Q 2016 versus 1Q 2016. Samsung Semiconductor, Qualcomm… Read More


2015 semiconductor market flat, 2016 looking somewhat better

2015 semiconductor market flat, 2016 looking somewhat better
by Bill Jewell on 02-27-2016 at 7:00 am

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


Positive pointers from Samsung, GF, Renesas, NXP/Freescale, ST, Soitec – so will 2016 be the year of FD-SOI?

Positive pointers from Samsung, GF, Renesas, NXP/Freescale, ST, Soitec – so will 2016 be the year of FD-SOI?
by Adele Hars on 02-10-2016 at 4:00 pm

A little over a month into 2016 and we already have a raft of FD-SOI news from Samsung, GlobalFoundries, NXP/Freescale, Renesas and more. Quite a bit of it came out of the recent SOI Consortium forum in Tokyo. Many of the presentations are now available on the SOI Consortium website (click here to see what’s there) – but keep checking… Read More


Does IoT need Sensor Fusion? Yes, but at low-power, low cost…and higher performance

Does IoT need Sensor Fusion? Yes, but at low-power, low cost…and higher performance
by Eric Esteve on 01-27-2016 at 12:00 pm

We said this in the past, but let’s reiterate that IoT devices will be successful if they can meet low-cost and low-power requirements. Low-cost is the condition for IoT devices market penetration, I mean such a market adoption that we count several IoT systems (and dozens of devices) in every house. That’s the only way to reach the… Read More


Semiconductor capital spending consolidating

Semiconductor capital spending consolidating
by Bill Jewell on 12-14-2015 at 10:00 pm

Shipments of semiconductor wafer fab equipment are expected to grow 2.5% in 2016 after 0.5% growth in 2015 according to the December forecast from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). Gartner is more pessimistic, with its October forecast calling for fab equipment to decline 0.5% in 2015 and drop 2.5%… Read More


SoCs in New Context Look beyond PPA – Part2

SoCs in New Context Look beyond PPA – Part2
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-10-2015 at 10:00 am

In the first part of this article, I talked about some of the key business aspects along with some technical aspects like system performance, functionality, and IP integration that drive the architecture of an SoC for its best optimization and realization in an economic sense. In this part, let’s dive into some more aspects that… Read More


Open Source Software Platform Fuels Automotive Innovation

Open Source Software Platform Fuels Automotive Innovation
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-23-2015 at 1:00 pm

These days, most of the innovative concepts in our cars are driven by electronics; not only infotainment systems, but also instrument clusters, safety systems including ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), information displays, night vision, airbags, backup camera, stability control, and so on. The upcoming connected… Read More


Not Mobile, Automotive to See Max Semiconductor Growth!

Not Mobile, Automotive to See Max Semiconductor Growth!
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-22-2014 at 9:00 am

There is no denying that mobile market is almost matured, the growth in the semiconductor industry has to pick up somewhere else. Although it’s expected that worldwide cellphone subscription will exceed the world population in 2015 (already exceeded in many parts of Europe) and continue for some time (while CAGR in unique subscription… Read More