The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Historically, there has been a good correlation between oil prices and worldwide GDP growth, with lower prices correlating to stronger future growth. Given the current forecast for the price of oil in 2015, IC Insights expects oil prices to once again be a “tailwind” for worldwide GDP growth. Intel posted its sales and earnings for the fourth quarter. In 2015, Intel projects that its cap... » read more

Industry Scorecard For 2014


At the end of last year, Semiconductor Engineering asked the industry about the developments they expected to see in 2014. If you care to refresh your memory, they were categorized under markets, semiconductors and development tools. Now it is time to look back and see how accurate those predictions were and where they fell short. Markets The obvious trend, at the beginning of the year, wa... » read more

Fab Tool Biz Faces Challenges In 2015


After a slight downturn in 2013, the semiconductor equipment industry rebounded and experienced a solid upturn in 2014. The recovery was primarily driven by tool spending in the foundry and [getkc id="93" kc_name="DRAM"]sectors. Another big and ongoing story continued to unfold in 2014. In late 2013, [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"] announced a definitive agreement to acquir... » read more

What You Don’t Know About Consumer Memory


I hear a lot of chatter about the memory markets and their fast growth. The question I like to pose to people is, "Which memory (DRAM) segment has grown faster over the last three years, servers or consumer?" The answer may surprise you. The correct answer, according to the latest IHS DRAM Market Tracker Database, is consumer. Since the beginning of 2012, the consumer DRAM market has grow... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

Will There Be A DDR5?


DDR4 rollouts have begun. And in the DRAM world that begs the question, 'What comes next?' The answer isn't so obvious. While there have been suggestions inside of JEDEC — the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, which has overseen the standards for double-data-rate synchronous DRAM — to develop a DDR5 standard, it's not the only solution being considered. And in the minds of some... » read more

Memory Directions Uncertain


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with a panel of experts to find out what is happening in world of memories. Taking part in the discussion are [getperson id="11073" comment="Charlie Cheng"], chief executive officer at [getentity id="22135" e_name="Kilopass Technology"]; Navraj Nandra, senior director of marketing for Analog/Mixed signal IP, embedded memories and logic libraries at [getentity ... » read more

How Reliable Is Your IP?


Almost everyone who has bought a new smartphone, car, home electronics device or appliance either has experienced technical glitches that require a replacement or repair, or they know someone who has experienced these problems. The good news is that only a very small fraction of the electronic glitches or failures can be contributed to hardware design. Most of it is due to manufacturing vari... » read more

Making Chips Run Faster


For all the talk about low power, the real focus of most chipmakers is still performance. The reality is that OEMs might be willing to sacrifice increasing performance for longer battery life, but they will rarely lower performance to reach that goal. This is more obvious for some applications than others. A machine monitor probably isn’t the place where performance will make much of a dif... » read more

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