Rise Of The Old Fab


Growth in the [getkc id="260" comment="Internet of Everything"], along with the beginning of a shift toward systems in package, are creating buzz in a rather unlikely place—established and well-worn process nodes where equipment is scarce, semi-functional, and difficult to maintain. In the past, moving to the next node was a sign of progress, leaving behind the trailing edge of designs to ... » read more

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


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


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

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


In 2015, Korea outspent all other countries ($9 billion) on front-end semiconductor fab equipment, according to SEMI. But Korea is expected to drop to second place in 2016, as Taiwan takes over with the largest CapEx spending at $8.3 billion, according to SEMI. In 2015, Americas ranked third in overall regional CapEx spending with about $5.6 billion and is forecast to increase only slightly to ... » read more

MEMS: Flexible, Reusable Platforms Facilitate Innovation


As the game-changing enabler for whatever the emerging market of widespread fragmented intelligence turns out to look like, the MEMS sector is in some ways the bellwether for much of the greater semiconductor/components supply chain looking to rethink how to serve a wider range of fragmented applications with lower costs and faster time to market. Leaders from Cisco, InvenSense, Nasiri Ventures... » read more

Healthy Growth Predictions For MEMS


To figure out what’s actually happening in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) market, there’s no better place to look than MEMS and sensors, which are enabling this revolution in embedded intelligence in ever more places. The MEMS market is seeing continued steady growth, but components suppliers also are seeing brutal price declines and low margins, while the data analysis side captures... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Is Moore’s Law alive or dead? That’s still a topic for debate. In any case, chipmakers continue to move to advanced nodes, but the transitions are taking longer. Even mighty Intel is struggling, based on what the company said about its 14nm finFET process during an investors meeting this week. In fact, Intel continues to struggle with its yields. “14nm yield is maturing; 14nm is still not... » read more

Why Packaging Matters


The semiconductor package is changing. What was until very recently considered an afterthought is now becoming a key part of the design process at all major chipmakers, and a critical factor in the extension of Moore's Law. This is a sharp reversal of what was almost universally an afterthought in planar silicon design and manufacturing. Rarely was the package an integral part of the archite... » read more

The Growing Role Of Extended Supply Chain Collaboration


At the executive keynote panel held at Semicon West 2015, one of the key industry challenges discussed was the growing need for closer collaboration between supply chain partners in order to support the fast time to market and shortened product lifecycles of today’s consumer electronics. Traditionally, the yield ramp phase has been a critical time to resolve manufacturing issues, enable high ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IC Insights released its preliminary top IC rankings in terms of sales for 2015. In the rankings, Intel remains in first place in terms of chip sales in 2015, followed by Samsung and TSMC. GlobalFoundries and UMC also moved up in the rankings. Beyond that, the market is in flux. “The pending mergers of Avago and Broadcom and NXP and Freescale will have a significant impact on future top-20 ra... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →