The Trouble With MEMS


The advent of the Internet of Things will open up a slew of new opportunities for MEMS-based sensors, but chipmakers are proceeding cautiously. There are a number of reasons for that restraint. Microelectromechanical systems are difficult to design, manufacture and test, which initially fueled optimism in the MEMS ecosystem that this market would command the same kinds of premiums that analo... » read more

Toward Better Acoustic Resonators


After some lively conversations with the top researchers in MEMS acoustic resonators during the 2014 Sensors and Actuators Workshop (familiarly known to the MEMS community as “Hilton Head”), we set to work on a simulation solution to better serve researchers and commercial designers. Acoustic resonators for RF filtering have received a lot of attention in the past few years as the number... » read more

Wafer Shortage? Reality Versus Perception


The promise of explosive growth associated with IoT has semiconductor unit forecasts growing at double-digit rates for key product categories. Anything with the word ‘sensors’ seems to be in vogue today. Sensors, image sensors, sensor hubs are all expected to benefit from the billions of connected devices that are forecasted to be in place by 2020. Semico agrees. Unit growth for key product... » read more

Power Management Heats Up


Power management has been talked about a lot recently, especially when it comes to mobile devices. But power is only a part of the issue—and perhaps not even the most important part. Heat is the ultimate limiter. If you cannot comfortably place the device on your face or wrist, then you will not have a successful product. Controlling heat, at the micro and macro levels, is an important asp... » read more

After Smartphones…Less?


As the rate of growth for smartphone sales slow, questions arise regarding the impact that slower growth will have throughout the semiconductor supply chain. Over the past decade, the 1 billion-plus smartphone market has driven the need for more advanced manufacturing process technologies, new input materials and the need for more fab capacity. It has even legitimized new players into the suppl... » read more

M2M Vs. IoE


For some time now, there has been discussion that the IoE is really nothing more than the M2M infrastructure with a new coat of paint. Are M2M and the [getkc id="260" comment="Internet of Everything"] really just different generations of the same family, or are they completely different? This is more than just a philosophical question. The answer affects everything from technology investmen... » read more

Predictions For 2016: Markets


Seventeen companies sent in their predictions for this year with some of them sending predictions from several people. This is in addition to the CEO predictions that were recently published. That is a fine crop of views for the coming year, especially since they know that they will be held accountable for their views and this year, just like the last, they will have to answer for them. We beli... » read more

Equipment Sales Were Mixed Bag In 2015


Semiconductor equipment billings were up in Q3 of 2015, the most recent statistics available from SEMI, compared with Q3 of 2014. The strongest growth was reported in China, which grew 63%, and Taiwan, which was up 22%. Billings in North America were down 23%, while in Korea they were down 22%. Europe was down 36%. Japan was up 2%, which is consistent with the growth seen in recent EDA C... » read more

Sensors Enable ADAS


Under the hood, cars of today look nothing like those of a few decades ago. There are sophisticated safety and drivetrain monitoring features, software for interpreting and interacting with the outside world and modifying the inside environment, and a host of features that might have seemed impossible or even ridiculous in the past. And there's much more to come. Advanced driver assistance s... » read more

China’s Demand Slowdown


It is well known that China is the largest consumer of semiconductors on a regional basis, and as China’s economic growth slows, it is interesting to take a look at where they have the most impact from a product perspective. There are a few surprises. Although the overall semiconductor average selling price in China is a fraction of the total worldwide ASP, China does not always have the lowe... » read more

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