CEO Outlook: 2016

By Ed Sperling - 04 Jan, 2016 - Comments: 1

Semiconductor Engineering talked with 10 CEOs from all sides of the Semiconductor Industry for a high-level view of what to expect this year—good and bad. What follows are excerpts of those conversations, which were compiled over the past month. Scott McGregor, president and CEO of Broadcom "We're going to see more M&A. In the past, you only did deals that made sense strategically or ... » read more

Behind The Intel-Altera Deal

By Ed Sperling - 31 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 3

Intel completed its $16.7 billion acquisition of Altera this week, wrapping up what is arguably the semiconductor industry's most important M&A transaction of 2015. Time and numbers will tell exactly how important. There are two big challenges to making this deal work. One involves a big shift in direction away from simply shrinking features to include new architectures and packaging approac... » read more

Who’s Profiting From Complexity

By Ed Sperling - 21 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Tool vendors' profits increasingly are coming from segments that performed relatively poorly in the past, reflecting both a rise in complexity in designing chips and big improvements in the tools themselves. The impacts of power, memory congestion, advanced-node effects such as process variation, [getkc id="160" kc_name="electromigration"] and RC delay in [getkc id="36" kc_name="interconnect... » read more

Fab Tool Biz Looks Cloudy

By Mark LaPedus - 17 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 1

Amid a slowdown in the foundry and DRAM sectors, the outlook for the semiconductor equipment industry looks somewhat cloudy, if not challenging, in 2016. In fact, for equipment vendors, 2016 could resemble the lackluster year in 2015. In 2015, for example, capital spending in the foundry sector fell during the year, although NAND flash began to pick up steam. In 2015, though, the big stor... » read more

Case Study: A CEO’s Journey And Learning In M&A

By Jonathan Davis - 17 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Executives at this year’s SEMI International Technology Partners Conference (ITPC) assessed a number of forces currently shaping the semiconductor industry, including such topics as Internet of Things (IoT) investment, mounting technology complexity, the ascent of China, and pervasive industry consolidation. Participants particularly valued ITPC as a thought-leadership platform for sharing st... » read more

The Urge To Merge

By Jonathan Davis - 14 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

The electronics supply chain will remember 2015 as a year of unprecedented consolidation due to relentless acquisition activity, mega mergers and a rampant restructuring of the industry. Almost every other week brought a momentous announcement. Seemingly, before one could appreciate the current status, the industry reverberated with yet another new deal. To better understand the scope of M&A... » read more

Consolidation’s Aftermath

By Ed Sperling - 02 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 4

The recent spate of industry consolidation continues to have repercussions across the semiconductor industry. Some of those effects will subside once the deals are either approved or nixed by regulatory agencies. Others will raise questions for months or years to come. Consolidation is not a new trend in the semiconductor industry, but the pace and size of the acquisitions in the past year a... » read more

The Silicon Foundry Market Is Alive And Well

By Rich Wawrzyniak - 19 Nov, 2015 - Comments: 0

I attended the ARM TechCon conference in Santa Clara last week and met with the GlobalFoundries team to discuss their new 14nm finFET technology. GlobalFoundries’ 14LPP technology offering was qualified in the third quarter of 2015 and is on track for volume production in 2016. FX-14 design kits are available to customers now. This announcement was the culmination of an extensive body of... » read more

The Great IoE Race Begins

By Ed Sperling - 05 Nov, 2015 - Comments: 0

Nobody knows how many tens of billions of semiconductors will be used in the IoE, but it's a sure bet it won't be a few chips replicated billions of times. Most IoE devices will need to be customized for specific applications. Many will need to be highly reliable for many years. And all of them will need to be secure and power-efficient. Yet they also will need to connect to heterogeneous ne... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

tag: M&A