The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Merger and acquisition activity continues to heat up across the semiconductor industry. On one front, Avago Technologies continues on its acquisition spree. And on another front, NXP Semiconductors is moving to spin off its RF power business. And there are other deals in the works as well, including Intel’s proposed move to buy Altera. Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities... » read more

Blog Review: May 27


With the launch of UNICEF and ARM's 'Wearables for Good' design challenge, David Maidment digs into the program's details and how unobtrusive wearables and sensor technology benefits not only consumers in affluent countries, but could improve conditions for those in the developing world as well. From an ultracompact beamsplitter that could boost processing power for supercomputers within the... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


At an event, Samsung rolled out its 10nm finFET technology. The company also showed a 300mm wafer with 10nm finFET transistors. "We have silicon-based PDKs out," said Kelvin Low, senior director of foundry marketing for Samsung. Samsung plans to move into production with its 10nm finFET technology by the end of 2016, he said. IC Insights released its chip rankings in terms of sales in the fi... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Cadence updated its Allegro PCB product line with a new manufacturing option that accelerates manufacturing documentation and technology updates for increased efficiency, control and productivity for designers and streamlining handoff to manufacturing. The release also allows users to develop custom fabrication and assembly rules. Invionics expanded its Invio EDA development platfor... » read more

Book-To-Bill Ratio Strengthens


The book-to-bill ratio, which is a measure of orders received versus product billed, was positive for the first four months of the year, a sign that equipment sales are up as foundries prepare for manufacturing at advanced nodes and for the IoT. The three-month moving average for bookings was $1.57 billion in April for North America alone, which is up 9% year over year from $1.44 billion. Th... » read more

Blog Review: May 20


FinFETs change the equation for power optimization, says Mentor's Vincent Lebars – and while companies are attacking some power gains, there is much more to be had doing datapath optimization within the place and route flow. Cadence's Richard Goering talks with Oz Levia about the future direction of formal and its integration into other product lines now that the merger between Cadence and... » read more

Extending The Hardmask


In chip production, the backend-of-the-line (BEOL) is where the critical interconnects are formed within a device. Interconnects—those tiny wiring schemes in devices—are becoming more compact at each node. This, in turn, is causing a degradation in performance and an increase in the resistance-capacitance (RC) delay in chips. “The scaling roadblocks that the interconnect faces need to ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


M&A Avago appears to be on the prowl for a new acquisition. According to a Reuters report, it has made inquiries at Xilinx, Renesas and Maxim and has more than $10B to spend. Avago made a bid for Freescale earlier this year, but NXP ended up buying Freescale for $11.8B. IP Sonics unveiled the ICE-Grain Power Architecture, a power management sub-system for mainstream SoC designs that c... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Cypress Semiconductor has made a bid to buy U.S. memory maker Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. (ISSI). In fact, Cypress may have started a bidding war against a Chinese consortium to buy ISSI. In March, a Chinese consortium of investors led by Summitview Capital entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire ISSI. The proposed transaction values ISSI’s equity at approximately $639.5 mi... » read more

Blog Review: May 13


From corralling graphene electrons to the wild west of space, this week's top five from Ansys' Bill Vandermark reaches from the tiny to the immense. This summer, an asteroid mining firm plans to deploy a satellite to seek out mineral-rich space rocks. But someday, when mining asteroids is a commonplace affair, it may be archeologists who are doing the digging on distant planets. Could a smar... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →