tag: Apple

Quality Issues Widen
By Ed Sperling - 06 Mar, 2017 - Comments: 0

As the amount of semiconductor content in cars, medical and industrial applications increases, so does the concern about how long these devices will function properly—and what exactly that means. Quality is frequently a fuzzy concept. In mobile phones, problems have ranged from bad antenna placement, which resulted in batteries draining too quickly, to features that take too long to load. ... » read more

What Next For OSATs
By Mark LaPedus - 06 Mar, 2017 - Comments: 0

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

AI Storm Brewing
By Ed Sperling - 23 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

AI is coming. Now what? The answer isn't clear, because after decades of research and development, AI is finally starting to become a force to reckon with. The proof is in the M&A activity underway right now. Big companies are willing to pay huge sums to get out in front of this shift. Here is a list of just some of the AI acquisitions announced or completed over the past few years: ... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT
By Jeff Dorsch - 10 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

Market Research There will be 8.4 billion connected things in use this year, a 31% gain from 2016, and leading up to 20.4 billion connected devices in 2020, according to Gartner. The market research firm estimates worldwide spending on endpoints and services will hit nearly $2 trillion in 2017. Greater China, North America, and Western Europe account for two-thirds of the IoT installed base th... » read more

Fix Processes, Then Silos
By Ed Sperling - 09 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, was a big proponent of what he called a "boundaryless corporation." It was a good sound bite, but it pales in comparison to former Intel CEO Andy Grove's philosophy of working out of a cubicle, just like the rest of his staff. While it's great to have corporate buy-in for breaking down silos, which are vertically integrated, the real problem for semiconductor c... » read more

OSAT Biz: Growth And Challenges
By Mark LaPedus - 08 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

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

More Degrees Of Freedom
By Ed Sperling - 06 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

Ever since the publication of Gordon Moore's famous observation in 1965, the semiconductor industry has been laser-focused on shrinking devices to their practical, and more recently, impractical limit. Increasing transistor density has encountered a number of problems along the way, but it also has enabled us to put computers—which once filled specially built rooms—onto the desktop firs... » read more

Betting On Wafer-Level Fan-Outs
By Ed Sperling - 06 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 2

Advanced packaging is starting to gain traction as a commercially viable business model rather than just one more possible option, propelled by the technical difficulties in routing signals at 10nm and 7nm and skyrocketing costs of device scaling on a single die. The inclusion of a [getkc id="202" kc_name="fan-out"] package for logic in Apple's iPhone 7, based on TSMC's Integrated Fan-Out (... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus - 03 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

Manufacturing Veeco Instruments has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ultratech. With the deal, Veeco will enter into the lithography market for chip-packaging as well as the laser spike anneal business. Veeco is a supplier of MOCVD tools. The implied total transaction value is approximately $815 million and the implied enterprise value is approximately $550 million. FlexTech, a SE... » read more

Bidding War On H-1B Visas?
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 3

Good help is hard to find. It's about to get harder—and more expensive. The U.S. tech industry's solution until now has been to leverage expertise from around the world, drawing top graduates and entry-level professionals under the H-1B visa program. Last year, there were 85,000 H-1B visas issued, of which 20,000 are required to hold a U.S. master's degree or higher. There are some exce... » read more

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