Executive Insight: Wally Rhines


Wally Rhines, president and CEO of [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor, a Siemens Business"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about industry consolidation, a shift in emphasis from chips to systems, and what the recent acquisition by Siemens will mean for Mentor. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: A year ago it looked as if the entire industry was going to b... » read more

What Next For OSATs


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss IC-packaging and business trends with Tien Wu, chief operating officer at Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering ([getentity id="22930" comment="ASE"]), the world’s largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) vendor. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What’s the outlook for the IC industry in 2017? Wu:... » read more

OSAT Biz: Growth And Challenges


Amid a challenging business environment, the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) industry is projected to see steady to strong growth in a number of packaging segments this year. Right now, the [getkc id="83" kc_name="OSATs"]—which provide third-party IC-packaging and test services—are seeing brisk demand for both legacy and advanced chip packages. In addition, IDMs continu... » read more

Rethinking Stats In Manufacturing Equipment


Consolidation, slower market growth due to increasing complexity, and extended lead times have prompted SEMI to drop its book-to-bill reports. Long considered the best way to assess the health of the semiconductor manufacturing equipment business, the industry organization now views the book-to-bill report as far less valuable than in the past. "At the leading edge, there are only a handf... » read more

Putting The Brakes On Consolidation


China's efforts to reduce its trade deficit by acquiring technology outside of its borders—particularly in the areas of process technology and memory—are hitting some snags. Any proposed acquisitions are being closely monitored by government agencies around the globe, and in many cases they have been quietly derailed. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is pa... » read more

IoT, Architectures, And Security


Mike Muller, CTO of [getentity id="22186" comment="ARM"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about security, IoT market changes, and future technology requirements. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Security is a growing problem. How do we deal with it? Muller: However fast the world is moving, if you look at fundamental hardware and system design, it’s ru... » read more

New Wave Of Consolidation


Consolidation is picking up again across the semiconductor industry, against a backdrop of looming interest rate hikes, geopolitical uncertainty, and the erosion of longstanding demarcations between markets. In the past couple of weeks, Siemens signed a deal to buy [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"] for $4 billion, and [getentity id="22865" e_name="Samsung"] purchased Harman, a ... » read more

Executive Insight: Jack Harding


[getperson id="11145" comment="Jack Harding"], president and CEO of [getentity id="22242" e_name="eSilicon"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about consolidation, business relationships, what it will take to survive in the IoT age, and how to better optimize chips. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: We’ve been looking at consolidation for a while and all th... » read more

More Consolidation Ahead


Consolidation fueled by low interest rates is nearing the end, at least for this round. The U.S. Federal Reserve is looking at another rate increase based upon healthy reports on the economy, possibly as early as September. If all goes well, there will be multiple interest rate hikes over the next few years, allowing investors to build more balanced portfolios that are not entirely reliant on t... » read more

The Road To 5nm


There is strong likelihood that enough companies will move to 7nm to warrant the investment. How many will move forward to 5nm is far less certain. Part of the reason for this uncertainty is big-company consolidation. There are simply fewer customers left who can afford to build chips at the most advanced nodes. Intel bought Altera. Avago bought Broadcom. NXP bought Freescale. GlobalFoundrie... » read more

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