Transdermal patches – a maturing bio imprint application ?


Michael P.C. Watts It looks to me that Kimberly Clark (UK) are targeting the $3B transdermal patch market using imprint technology in a new development program with imprint supplier - Obducat (Sweden). Kimberly-Clark is one of the world’s largest paper companies, who have been acquiring medical companies over the last decade. In my experience, one of the key milestones in the maturation... » read more

A view from the top (20)


It is an article of faith among semiconductor industry watchers that the last 20 years have seen considerable consolidation among semiconductor makers, with further consolidation all but inevitable. Of course, we can all point to mergers (TI and National being the latest) and players exiting from the market (NEC was the #1 chipmaker in the world in 1991, but now is out of the business). But d... » read more

CMP, ST et al offer 28nm FD-SOI for prototyping, research


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ What would a port to 28nm FD-SOI do for your design?  A recent announcement by CMP, STMicroelectronics and Soitec invites you to find out.  Specifically, ST’s CMOS 28nm Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) process – which uses innovative silicon substrates from Soitec and incorporates robust, compact model... » read more

DFM is a Competitive Weapon


By Joe Davis, Mentor Graphics As my mom always told me, you always have a choice. The trick was, you had to be willing to accept the consequences of your decision. Don’t want to clean your room? Okay, but you can’t go out to play until you do. Easy enough to do the analysis on that one when you’re ten years old. But sometimes, understanding the consequences gets a little tougher, an... » read more

The top 20 ain’t what it used to be


Looking back on data of the annual top 20 semiconductor companies since 1987, it’s amazing how much has changed. In my last post I looked at all the companies that went bankrupt, spun-out, or merged their way into or out of the top 20 list. Change is definitely a constant in this field. Now, let’s look at the makeup of the 2010 list of top semiconductor companies. Here is the list, as g... » read more

SOI Conference Shows SOI Driving Key Roadmaps


By Adele Hars The 2011 IEEE SOI Conference, held in Tempe, AZ last week was not one to miss…but I did. Happily, I got the papers right away, along with observations shared by some of the folks who did get there. Highlights include excellent and insightful papers from ST, ARM, IBM, Intel, Leti, Peregrine and GlobalFoundries, plus many more that indicate SOI-based technologies are at th... » read more

It’s hard to stay on top


As part of my fascination with the history of the semiconductor industry, I’ve recently been reviewing data on the annual top 20 semiconductor companies since 1987. Using revenue data compiled by Gartner Dataquest (through 1999) and iSupply (2000 – 2010), it’s been very interesting to see what changes have come about at the top of the heap in our industry. Here is a brief synopsis of so... » read more

45nm and Below Grabs 24% of Wafer Demand in 2011


By Joanne Itow The economic malaise in Europe and the U.S., along with the natural disasters around the world, have put a damper on 2011 semiconductor sales. Heading into the holiday buying season, consumer confidence is low and inventories are higher than preferred. OEMs are, at best, cautious and in most cases, pessimistic about their markets. Semico expected a shakeout in the tablet mark... » read more

The Genealogy of DFM


By David Abercrombie Family histories are all the rage these days. With the advent of online databases, what was once a difficult and expensive task is now accessible to anyone with Internet access. Not only can you investigate census data, immigration records, and military service records with ease, but some sites also allow you to access information compiled by other site members. All of a... » read more

The End of the DRAM Era – Flash Spending Surpasses DRAM


By Clark Tseng, SEMI Industry Research and Statistics, Taiwan The semiconductor memory industry has a long history of fluctuating market cycles. The DRAM sector in particular has gone through a few bad cycles and witnessed quite a few consolidations in the past ten years or so.  However, DRAM continues to be one of the most important and capital intensive sectors in the semiconductor indust... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →