The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IC Insights has released its rankings of the Q1 ‘14 top 25 semiconductor suppliers. Outside of the top five spots, there were numerous changes. MediaTek jumped up four positions. Also, last year’s Micron/Elpida merger created a new giant semiconductor company with Micron’s sales expected to be over $17 billion this year. Toshiba will demolish the No. 2 semiconductor fabrication facilit... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Worldwide semiconductor capital equipment spending is projected to total $37.5 billion in 2014, an increase of 12.2% from 2013 spending of $33.5 billion, according to Gartner. Capital spending will increase 5.5% in 2014 as the industry begins to recover from the recent economic downturn. The 3D NAND market will take longer to develop. Samsung has shipped a 3D NAND device. Micron and SK Hynix... » read more

Improving Yield Of 2.5D Designs


While progress is being made on the packaging side of 2.5D design, more needs to be resolved when it comes to improving yields. Proponents of 2.5D present compelling benefits. Arif Rahman, a product architect at Altera, noted that the industry trend of silicon convergence is leading to multiple technologies being integrated into single-chip solutions. “2.5D/3D integration has multiple adva... » read more

Time To Revisit 2.5D And 3D


Chipmakers are reaching various and challenging inflection points. In logic, many IC makers face a daunting transition from planar transistors at 20nm to finFETs at 14nm. And on another front, the industry is nearing the memory bandwidth wall. So perhaps it’s time to look at new alternatives. In fact, chipmakers are taking a hard look, or re-examining, one alternative—stacked 2.5D/3D chi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


RBC Capital Markets has raised its iPhone unit forecast for 2014 to 159.1 million from 156.7 million. The iPhone estimates reflect better-than-expected growth in the September quarter, according to RBC. So which chipmakers will benefit? In order, the companies with the most exposure into Apple are Cirrus Logic, Dialog Semiconductor, Triquint, Skyworks, Audience, Avago, Broadcom, Qualcomm, SanDi... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Design, Test


Prosecutors have charged the CEO of chipmaker Entropic Communications with assaulting a model who appeared on the reality television show "Beverly Hills Nannies," according to the L.A. Times. Molecular Imprints Inc. (MII) has signed an agreement to sell its semiconductor imprint lithography equipment business to Canon. The agreement also allows for the creation of a new company that will ke... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Design, Test


Look for a nasty political campaign in Idaho, according to Bloomberg. Business leaders from Micron Technology and others in Idaho are endorsing the incumbent Republican candidate over a Tea Party challenger. The challenger, Bryan Smith, is a conservative Republican running for Idaho’s second congressional district. He is running against 16-year incumbent Mike Simpson. Simpson is supposedly pr... » read more

The Bumpy Road To 3D NAND


The NAND flash memory market is dynamic, but it’s also sometimes predictable. Suppliers tend to roll out identical NAND flash chips and then scale them to smaller geometries. And NAND chip prices rise and fall, depending on the supply/demand equation at a given point. Going forward, though, the NAND market is expected to become less predictable, if not chaotic, amid a new and major technol... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing And Design


Crucial.com reveals a surprising way to gain more time for improving one's personal health: fix a slow computer. A nationwide survey revealed that U.S. adults think they waste an average of 16 minutes per day waiting for their computer to load or boot up. Equating to two hours each week and four days per year lost to the wiles of a slow computer, it's no surprise that 66% of Americans say that ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing & Design


Tensions between the U.S. and China are growing. In a research report, Gus Richard, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “The technology sector is being impacted by U.S./Chinese tensions over cybersecurity. The combination of Huawei being blocked from doing business in the United States and the Snowden affair are impacting U.S. tech companies' prospects in China. China’s state-run media ident... » read more

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