MCU Sales Up in 2017 And 2018


Microcontroller (MCU) sales are expected to grow over 9% this year while units increase over 16%. IoT and automotive are the major reason for the growth in general MCUs; however, the product group has been transitioning into several distinct segments that are being buried within the data of the broad MCU market. Over the past five years total MCU revenues have essentially remained flat; however... » read more

How To Build A Trillion Connected Things


A trillion is a big number. A broadcaster reads about 1,000 words in a five-minute newscast. At that rate, it would take 6,000 years at that rate to finish a trillion-word newscast. We’re on a path in the technology industry to build and connect a trillion devices in the coming years. How are we going to do that, given the scale and sheer size of the task? Is it achievable in the time f... » read more

The Great Skills Race


The next phase of the technology race will be fought with qualified people—but not necessarily the same people in the same markets or with the same skill sets. For the past half century, technology wars have been won and lost with inexpensive labor and increasing amounts of automation. This can be traced from the United States in the 1960s to Japan in the 1970s, Korea starting in the mid-... » read more

The Future Of Human/Machine Interaction Is Personal


What comes to mind when you think of a human/machine interface? Something close at hand like your smartphone’s GPS and the ATMs at your bank? Something futuristic like flying cars and jetpacks? Something dangerous like menacing cyborgs? As technology becomes more pervasive in our everyday activities, there are a growing number of human/machine interfaces. They also are becoming more personal.... » read more

True Costs Of Process Node Migration


Deciding when and how to make a process node transition is critical to business success. The solution that requires the least amount of total change—in the form of license configurations, required hardware resources, necessary tool qualifications, and adequate support infrastructure—will always be the most “inexpensive” option. Do you have all the information you need to make the right ... » read more

Get Ready For The Uber-Like Economy


The shift to autonomous cars will have far-reaching effects that go well beyond the loss of a steering wheel. In fact, it could completely shake up the automotive ecosystem and broad swaths of the economy that were largely built around and in cars. Carmakers are now trying squeeze every penny out of the cost of electronics for assisted and ultimately autonomous vehicles to get that price som... » read more

Executive Insight: Lip-Bu Tan


Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Lip-Bu Tan, president and CEO of [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"], to discuss disruptions and changes in the semiconductor industry, from machine learning and advance packaging to tools and business. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What do you see as the next big thing? Tan: Unlike mobility or cell phones, or PCs before th... » read more

Explosive Growth Ahead


Over the next five years, sales across the semiconductor supply chain will double from $2 trillion to $4 trillion, said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, during the opening presentation at Semicon West this month. These are gigantic numbers, and they reflect some massive shifts now underway across the semiconductor industry. Many chipmakers have been trying to figure out the next big ... » read more

IoT’s Success Will Be About The ‘Information Profit Margin’


Almost 20 years ago, on a clear, chilly spring day in Massachusetts, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan spoke at the Boston College Finance Conference 2000. What he said would mark a pivotal moment in our thinking about the impact of technology: “When historians look back at the latter half of the 1990s a decade or two hence, I suspect that they will conclude we are now living through... » read more

Will Higher Production Costs Hamper IoT Growth?


No question, 2017 is expected to be a good year for the semiconductor industry. Semiconductor revenues for 2017 are expected to increase more than 9% this year. A 6% increase in unit sales, as well as higher average selling prices for memory products, will help drive the revenue growth rate to its highest level since 2010. Wafer demand is forecast to grow by almost 8%. The higher revenue growth... » read more

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