The Week In Review: Manufacturing

Chipmakers
Intel has announced the resignation of Brian Krzanich as chief executive and a member of the board. The board has named Chief Financial Officer Robert Swan as interim chief executive, effective immediately.

Intel was recently informed that Krzanich had a “past consensual relationship” with an Intel employee. This is a violation of Intel’s non-fraternization policy, which applies to all managers.

Analysts said Krzanich’s departure isn’t a surprise due to several missteps, according to a report from the Silicon Valley Business Journal. As reported, Intel is struggling with its 10nm process. It has pushed out the volume ramp of 10nm.

The board has a succession planning process in place and has begun a search for a permanent CEO, including both internal and external candidates. “The board believes strongly in Intel’s strategy and we are confident in Bob Swan’s ability to lead the company as we conduct a robust search for our next CEO. Bob has been instrumental to the development and execution of Intel’s strategy, and we know the company will continue to smoothly execute. We appreciate Brian’s many contributions to Intel,” said Intel Chairman Andy Bryant, in a statement.

As interim CEO, Swan will manage operations in close collaboration with Intel’s senior leadership team. Swan has been Intel’s CFO since October 2016 and leads the global finance, IT and corporate strategy organizations.

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Dialog Semiconductor is proceeding with due diligence and detailed discussions in connection with a potential acquisition of Synaptics. The deal would accelerate Dialog’s growth in IoT.

Manufacturing
Lam Research has disclosed that it received an unsolicited mini-tender offer by TRC Capital for the purchase of up to 1 million shares of Lam’s common stock at $170.63 per share in cash. TRC’s offer price is approximately 4.36% below the closing share price of Lam common stock on June 15. “Lam does not endorse TRC Capital’s offer and furthermore, recommends that stockholders reject the offer and not tender their shares in response because the offer is at a price below the current market price for Lam shares and is subject to many conditions,” according to Lam.

FlexTech, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, is now soliciting proposals for projects that advance flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) for sensors, power and other key electronic components. Proposals are due July 9. In partnership with the U.S Army Research Laboratories (ARL), SEMI-FlexTech is seeking proposals for projects that advance heterogeneous packaging for FHE, including integrated systems, system architecture and design, and integrated power management components such as batteries, supercapacitors, and energy harvesting.

Taiyo Nippon Sanso and the Carlyle Group “have emerged as frontrunners to buy assets that gases groups Linde and Praxair need to divest to seal their planned merger,” according to a report from Reuters.

IEEE has announced the release of the 2017 edition of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS), building upon 15 years of projecting technology needs for evolving the semiconductor and computer industries. The IRDS is an IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Industry Connections Program sponsored by the IEEE Rebooting Computing (IEEE RC) Initiative.

Test
National Instruments (NI) is coordinating with Skyworks Solutions to test products from their Sky5 platform for 5G applications. In addition, NI has announced the NI-RFmx NB-IoT/eMTC measurement software, which complements NI’s existing RF test capabilities for wireless technologies ranging from 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax to Bluetooth to 2G/3G/4G/5G standards.

Market research
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.70 billion in billings worldwide in May 2018, according to SEMI. The billings figure is 0.6% higher than the final April 2018 level of $2.69 billion, and is 19.2% higher than the May 2017 billings level of $2.27 billion.

Micron posted strong results for the quarter. Based on the results, analysts see a mixed outlook in the memory arena. “For DRAM, we expect pricing to continue to rise moderately through at least the 3Q this year as supply remains limited. For NAND, we anticipate price declines to continue through the end of the year, though likely moderating from 1H levels,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst at KeyBanc.

“We project NAND industry contract pricing to decline roughly 8% sequentially in the C2Q, yet Micron noted a mid- to upper single-digit percentage increase in its F3Q NAND ASP. Supporting the uptick was the shift to higher-valued products, such as SSDs and mobile managed NAND. We view this as a positive trend, which should help support both revenue and margins in the face of likely industry NAND price declines through the end of the year,” Twigg said in a research note. “DRAM remains the main driver for MU. DRAM accounted for 71% of revenue in the F3Q, with DRAM non-GAAP GM hitting 69%, the highest we can ever remember. We project DRAM industry bit supply growth of just 21% in both 2018 and 2019; if annual demand growth remains in the 20-25% range, pricing should remain relatively robust (though moderate overcapacity in 1H19 could result in price declines). Any delays by competitors in ramping new DRAM capacity should only further help MU and improve the outlook.”