The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions Cadence acquired [getentity id="22444" comment="Rocketick"], an Israel-based company focused on multicore parallel simulation. Founded in 2008, their original rise and claim to fame was acceleration on GPUs, having received significant funding from Nvidia. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, and terms were not disclosed. Tools &am... » read more

What’s Next For DRAM?


The DRAM business has always been challenging. Over the years, DRAM suppliers have experienced a number of boom and bust cycles in a competitive landscape. But now, the industry faces a cloudy, if not an uncertain, future. On one front, for example, [getkc id="93" kc_name="DRAM"] vendors face a downturn amid a capacity glut and falling product prices in 2016. But despite the business chal... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Events DAC is now accepting nominations for the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have visibly helped to advance the profile of women in the EDA industry. Nominations must be received by March 3rd. Tools Cadence unveiled its new Modus Test Solution, which the company says enables design engineers to achieve an up to 3X reduction in test ... » read more

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

Foundries Face Challenges in 2016


Generally, 2015 has been a challenging year in the foundry business. For one thing, the foundry industry will register modest growth in 2015. In addition, the foundry customer base is consolidating. And on the leading edge, foundries took longer than expected to ramp up their 16nm/14nm finFET processes. So, after an eventful year in 2015, what’s in store for the foundry business in 2016? I... » 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 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

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IC Insights released its top-20 chip rankings in terms of sales for the first half of 2015. Samsung’s growth rate in 2Q ‘15 put the company closer to catching Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker. IC Insights also showed how the top-20 rankings would have looked if the proposed Avago/Broadcom and NXP/Freescale mergers were in place. Avago/Broadcom would have been ranked 7th and NXP/Freesc... » read more

Equipment Market Drifts Downward


Most analysts covering the equipment market have dropped their forecasts, some by as much as half, since the start of the year. While there are a number of variables that could ultimately change those numbers—the Greek debt crisis, currency fluctuations, server sales, the delivery of a commercially viable EUV—the bottom line is that the market is looking more skittish. Dan Tracy, SEMI's ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Semicon West is always a busy week. Typically, there are a plethora of events going on during the week. It’s also a good week to get a pulse on the industry. The good news: Innovation is alive and well. Bad news: Intel cut its CapEx. And tool makers are in the midst of a lull right now, with a cloudy outlook projected for 2016. Some even see a dreaded downturn next year. Pacific Crest Secu... » read more

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