Monetizing Semiconductors From Silicon To Services


In 2016, Rambus published a think piece titled “Charting a New Course for Semiconductors.” The paper explored a diverse range of challenges faced by the industry, including increasing development costs, shrinking margins, market saturation and accelerating M&A activity. These challenges have only become more pronounced in 2018, as the newly consolidated semiconductor industry actively seeks... » read more

Testing Analog Chips


The world of analog components is broad and diverse, and while testing analog chips may not take as long as running tests on complex SoCs, there are different requirements for analog devices. One type of chip that's seeing more application these days is analog microelectromechanical system devices. Automotive electronics call for a number of [getkc id="37" kc_name="analog"] chips, along with... » read more

Supporting Academic Institutions – A Corporate Responsibility?


Innovation is rooted in collaboration, and there’s no better example—when done correctly—than the partnership between the various academic institutes or between the industry and academia. It’s a symbiotic relationship: Companies get access to leading research, ideas and creativity, while universities and research consortia get access to proven technologies, methodologies and experienced... » read more

Dawn Of The Data-Centric Era


A recurring theme of the recent Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) in Half Moon Bay, California, was how the explosion of new applications such as autonomous vehicles, digital healthcare, quantum computing, and crytocurrency mining are driving the need for more industry-wide collaboration to enable companies to compete in the “Data Centric” era. The resulting digital economy is creating unpr... » read more

Giant Auto Industry Disruption Ahead


The move to self-driving vehicles over the next decade or so will result in a massive restructuring of entire segments of the global economy that have evolved to create and support automobiles and the people who drive them. The shift will create many new jobs-particularly for semiconductors and electronic systems-and conservatively it will eliminate hundreds of thousands of existing ones. It... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Barco Silex, now named Silex Inside, split from parent company Barco in a management buyout in partnership with a group of private investors lead by Dutch investment company Vehold BV. The company will continue its focus on security, video compression, and interface IP, along with design services. Tools & IP Mentor is making a version of its HyperLynx design rule checking tool ... » read more

Follow The Moving Money


Semiconductor economics are changing by market, by region, and by product node and packaging type, adding new complexity into decisions about which technology to use for which products and why. Money is the common denominator in all of these decisions, whether it's measured by return on invested capital, quarterly profits, or long-term investments that can include acquisitions, organic growt... » read more

EDA, IP Sales Up 8%


The EDA sector continues to exhibit solid growth, increasing 8% to $2.2262 billion in Q3, up from $2.0937 billion in the same period in 2016, according to the most recent stats from the ESD Alliance Market Statistics Service. The four-quarter moving average was up 11.5%, year over year. While all of the numbers were up, two areas showed extraordinary growth. One involved Japan, which showed ... » read more

Preparing For Bigger Changes Ahead


The semiconductor industry has undergone a fundamental shift over the past year, and it's one that will redefine chipmaking over the next decade or more. While the focus is still on building the fastest, lowest-power devices, whether that's by shrinking features or packaging them into blazing-fast 2.5D or fan-out configurations, these devices are being customized for specific use cases much ... » read more

And The Winner Is…


Finding out what resonates with our readers is important, so each year I look back through the list of the best-read articles for the channels that I write for. While this simple strategy does favor articles published during the early part of the year, the fact that our readership continues to grow, partially offsets this bias. For example, in Low Power/High Performance (LPHP) a quarter of the ... » read more

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