The Week In Review: Manufacturing


2016 is starting off on the wrong foot. Samsung disclosed its preliminary results for the forth quarter. Samsung expects a difficult business environment in 2016, according to reports. Plus, Apple is seeing lower than expected demand. “We are lowering our March quarter iPhone units to 45M units (prior 54M) to reflect incremental softness and recent production cuts. Our sense is that iPhones a... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Samsung plans to make a major entry into the drone market, according to reports. “Samsung is not alone in focusing on the drone market,” said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, in a research note. “At CES next month in Las Vegas, one can expect new products from drone market leader DJI, but dozens of new drone models from Parrot and many other companies. Even GoPro chip maker A... » read more

Inside The SRC


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk with Ken Hansen, the new president and chief executive of the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), a U.S.-based technology research consortium. Prior to joining the SRC in May, Hansen was vice president and chief technology officer at Freescale. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: My impression is that the SRC allocates funding for va... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


For years, China has been trying to get a domestic IC equipment industry off the ground, but it has experienced modest success in the arena. Now, China may take a new strategy—acquire fab tool makers. In what could be a sign of things to come, China’s Beijing E-Town Dragon Semiconductor Industry Investment Center has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire U.S.-based fab tool vendor ... » read more

Fan-Out Packaging Gains Steam


Fan-outs are creating a buzz and gaining steam in the market at a pace far beyond what anyone would have expected even at the start of the year. The approach, which has been around for several years, is a wafer-level packaging process that enables ultra-thin, high-density packages. So why the buzz? Apple is apparently moving to [getkc id="202" kc_name="fan-out"] packaging, according to an... » read more

Placing Bets On Future Technology


Marie Semeria, CEO of Leti, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about where the French research and technology organization is placing its future technology bets and what's behind those decisions. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: It's becoming more difficult and expensive to shrink features, so where do we go next? Semeria: We see several areas that we believe... » read more

Security Improvements Ahead


After nearly two years of talking about how security is one of the biggest problems facing the IoE, progress is being made on a number of fronts. The changes involve many companies, both individually and collaboratively through standards groups. And while none of this will stop the kind of high-profile breaches that affected Target or Home Depot or JPMorgan Chase or a long list of other gian... » read more

What China Is Planning


Over the years, China has unveiled several initiatives to advance its domestic semiconductor industry. China has made some progress at each turn, although every plan has fallen short of expectations. But now, the nation is embarking on several new and bold initiatives that could alter the IC landscape. China’s new initiatives address at least three key challenges for its IC industry: 1. C... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Looking to propel the next wave of OLED displays, Applied Materials has rolled out two new systems. The tools enable the volume production of OLED displays for both mobile products and TVs. In addition, Applied Materials has shipped an Applied TopMet roll-to-roll metal deposition system to Jindal Poly Films, a leader in PET and BOPP films for flexible packaging and labeling applications. In... » read more

Analog Meets Power In Standards Groups


While the topic of language [getkc id="13" comment="Standards"] might be cringe-worthy for some, there is some noteworthy work underway in this area—particularly where power and analog meet paths. There are four main standards here: Verilog-A and Verilog-AMS VHDL-AMS SystemC-AMS SystemVerilog-AMS SystemVerilog-AMS is the newcomer, and while the standard won't be available for ... » read more

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