The world has come through a long way from the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] UNIVAC computer in 1952, IBM mainframes and minicomputers in secured computer rooms to laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and so on in our hands. Imagine the compute power of a minicomputer then and the compute power of your smartphone or tablet today. And do you know the… Read More
Tag: sk hynix
Samsung to cut Semi Capex 20% due to over capacity
Article confirms market fears…
An article in the Korea Times cites sources that say Samsung will cut Semi Capex by 20% due to current oversupply and weak pricing. This is obviously a huge negative as Capex for 2016 will certainly be down significantly from 2015 given these cuts which follow on cuts by Intel and others. We can… Read More
Changing Trends at the Top of Semicon Space
As we have moved down from a CAGR of ~9% over last three decades to a CAGR of ~5% in the current decade, it’s time to check the realities. It can be definitely argued that a 5% of CAGR over a solid base of ~$378 billion should be considered good enough. In my view that’s the sign of maturity in the semiconductor market. At the same time we are… Read More
Breakfast was Fab: West Coast Wafers to Wall Street
SEMI describes themselves as “the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries.” That is a pretty broad remit. One of the things that they do as a neutral party is produce the World Fab Forecast. This is actually a bottom-up database that tracks fabs as they … Read More
Who Leads Semiconductor Innovation?
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
Samsung Continues to Top 300mm Wafer Capacity
In 1992, when Samsungbecame the largest producer of memory chips, it was not in top10 list of semiconductor companies. It was ranked at #11. Since then it has strived to attain higher ranks in the top10 list. In around 2000, it climbed to the ranks of top5 and then since 2002 until now it is at #2 in the worldwide semiconductor sales which… Read More
Is Fab Business The Forte of APAC?
A little ago, I was looking at the top20 semiconductor companies in the world and was surprised to see a couple of large companies in Taiwan and South Korea garnering >34% of total sales (See – Look who is Leading the World Semiconductor Business). This time it’s another surprise, when I look at IC Insights report on global 300mm… Read More
Look who is Leading the World Semiconductor Business
A couple of days ago I was reading a news article which said how long the world economy will be dependent on a single engine to drive it; obviously that single engine is USA. If we consider the overall economy, definitely USA is driving it, and semiconductor is a large part of it. The semiconductor is driving electronics and that is attracting… Read More
Proving the Power of Virtual Fabrication
There are many facets of our lives that are being driven to a more virtual method of doing things. This is largely due to issues such as scaling due to whatever reason – technical, business, economic. Let’s look at some general cases: In yesteryears people used to travel all the way for face-to-face meetings; today virtual meetings… Read More
Semiconductors Down 2.7% in 2012, May Grow 7.5% in 2013
The world semiconductor market in 2012 was $292 billion – down 2.7% from $300 billion in 2011, according to WSTS. The 2012 decline followed a slight gain of 0.4% in 2011. Fourth quarter 2012 was down 0.3% from third quarter. The first quarter of the 2013 will likely show a decline from 4Q 2012 based on typical seasonal patterns and the… Read More