Japan: Finding Leadership In New Technology Areas


By Osamu Nakamura The semiconductor industry is a technology-driven industry — and technology invention and innovation are the engines that drive industry growth. Japan has seen the global landscape for semiconductor manufacturing change, and in turn, Japan’s semiconductor industry has been changing, finding technology leadership opportunities in emerging technology areas that lead to grow... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Tools Cadence unveiled Genus, their next-generation RTL synthesis and physical synthesis engine incorporating a multi-level massively parallel architecture and physically aware context-generation capability. Using it for their recent PowerVR GE7800 GPU, Imagination reported a 5X improvement in turnaround time versus the previous Cadence synthesis solution with no impact on power, performance... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions Synopsys' list of security acquisitions grew with a definitive agreement to buy certain assets of Quotium, including the interactive application security testing product Seeker and its R&D team. The acquisition builds on static analysis technology from Coverity and Codenomicon's fuzz testing and software vulnerability assessment tools. Terms of the deal have no... » read more

Week 49: Are We There Yet?


When I was a little kid my parents would pack me and my sister into the car and drive to the Mediterranean for our summer camping vacation. It was quite a haul from our home on the west side of Germany near the border with Belgium to the south of France, and as is true of any long car trip, the last stretch was the hardest. After hours in the backseat, my sister and I would be craning our necks... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


After several delays due to a myriad of complex regulatory issues, Applied Materials’ proposed deal to buy Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL) has been scrapped. Now, Applied Materials and TEL are separately re-grouping, and are back to where they originally started as competitors in the fab tool market. Applied Materials held a conference call to explain the situation with TEL. Applied Materials... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


It could be a long year for the equipment industry. First, Intel reduced its 2015 capital expenditure budget to $8.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million. This is down from the previous mid-point guidance of $10.1 billion. As a result of Intel’s announcement, Pacific Crest Securities cut its worldwide 2015 semiconductor CapEx forecast. The new CapEx forecast is now $62.5 billion in 2015. Th... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Intel is in talks to buy Altera, according to The Wall Street Journal. If a deal is reached, Intel would enter the FPGA market amid a slowdown in its core processors business. Intel would also secure its largest foundry customer in Altera. For years, Altera’s sole foundry was TSMC. Then, not long ago, Altera selected Intel as its foundry partner for 14nm. TSMC still handles 20nm and above wor... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions NXP added to its list of recent acquisitions with Athena SCS, a UK-based provider of embedded software and cryptography for smart cards and NFC. Lattice Semiconductor closed its all-cash $606.6 million acquisition of Silicon Image. Tools Cadence unveiled the Innovus Implementation System. The physical implementation tool sports massively parallel architect... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IBM continues to cut jobs, according to IEEE Spectrum and an IBM employee organization. Meanwhile, IBM and SUNY Polytechnic Institute announced that more than 220 engineers and scientists who lead IBM's advanced chip R&D efforts at SUNY Poly's Albany Nanotech campus will become part of IBM Research. While military applications continue to experience strong growth in RF gallium-nitride (GaN)... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


This week, IBM began to cut jobs amid lackluster results. Big Blue is also in the process of selling its chip unit to GlobalFoundries. GlobalFoundries said the jobs are safe at IBM Micro, at least for now, according to a report the Press and Sun-Bulletin. What’s the latest with Applied Materials’ proposed acquisition with Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL)? “Germany, Israel and Singapore approv... » read more

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