The SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS 2018) started today with session one on economic trends. Daniel Niles (Alpha One Capital Partners) started it off with “A Golden Age for Global Growth – Semiconductor revenues up over 20% y/y (The Good News is Also the Bad News)”. The good news of course is that semiconductors continue… Read More
Production of electronic equipment is continuing healthy growth. China, the world’s largest producer of electronics, had a three-month-average increase of 14% in October 2017 versus a year ago. Year-to-date through October, China’s electronic production has gained 13.8% compared to 10.0% for the year 2016, putting China… Read More
One of the most important aspects of any manufacturing effort is the yield of the process. Today, the investment in facilities, equipment and materials is so high that consistently high yields are vital to the profitability of the semiconductor manufacturer. Furthermore, the engineers must get to that consistent high yield … Read More
This was my 34[SUP]th[/SUP] DAC, yes 34. It is a shame blogging did not exist back then because I would have liked to have read thoughts from my eager young mind, or maybe not. The first thing that struck me this year is the great content. Before DAC I review the sessions I want to see and this year there were many more than I had time for. … Read More
Production of electronics has been accelerating in the last several months, contributing to strong growth in the semiconductor market. China, the largest producer of electronics, has seen three-month-average change versus a year ago (3/12 change) accelerate from below 10% for most of 2016 to 14.5% in April 2017. China’s April… Read More
TSMC has been an ardent supporter of DAC for the last 18 years which has brought in the other foundries because, as the industry leader, wherever TSMC goes the other foundries naturally follow. The exception of course is Intel Custom Foundry because they march to the beat of a different drummer, if you know what I mean. The CoFluent… Read More
Regular Semiwiki readers are aware of the rapid emergence of various (multi-die) advanced package technologies, such as: FOWLP (e.g., Amkor’s SWIFT, TSMC’s InFO); 2D die placement on a rigid substrate (e.g., TSMC’s CoWoS); and, 2.5D “stacked die” with vertical vias (e.g., any of the High Bandwidth Memory,… Read More
The semiconductor market was down 0.4% in first quarter 2017 from 4Q 2016 and up 18.1% from a year ago, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). The 0.4% decline in 1Q 2017 versus 4Q 2016 is strong compared to an average 4% decline from 4Q to 1Q over the previous five years. The relative strength in 1Q 2017 was driven… Read More
The semiconductor IP market continues growing at a healthy rate, and IP reuse is a staple of all modern SoC designs. Along with the acceptance of IP reuse comes a host of growing challenges, like:
Last week I was invited to attend the TSMC earnings call at the Shangri-la Hotel in Taipei which was QUITE the experience. I generally listen in on the calls and/or read the transcripts but this was the first one I attended live. I didn’t really know what to expect but I certainly did NOT expect something out of Hollywood. Seriously,… Read More
