Blog Review: Mar. 20
Cadence’s Paul McLellan argues that rapid improvements in the performance of general-purpose computing led to a lack of innovation in domain-specific architectures, but as scaling slows, they’re...
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Slow And Cautious Start To 2019 For Memory Manufacturers
Both NAND and DRAM prices began dropping in the second half of 2018 after a couple years at record highs. Product oversupply and excess inventories are signaling a bleak outlook for the memory market...
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Q1 2019 Unit Drop Impacts Wafer Demand For 2019
The Semico Wafer Demand Model update for Q1 2019 now results in a 5.9% decline in wafer demand for 2019. Along with process technology and productivity, Semico’s Wafer Demand Model is highly dependent...
View ArticleImpact Of U.S.-China Trade War
The trade war between the United States and China is escalating and it is here to stay. Last year, the Trump administration started the trade war with China for basically two reasons. First, China has...
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Automotive Semiconductors Boost MCU, Analog Markets
Auto sales are expected to experience a slowdown in 2019, and even with the continued increase in electronics per vehicle, automotive semiconductor sales are also expected to experience a slowdown....
View ArticleFalling Chip Forecasts
It’s time to take a pulse of the semiconductor market amid the memory downturn and trade frictions with China. For some time, the DRAM and NAND markets have been hit hard with falling prices and...
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Recent Earthquakes Highlight Risk To Semiconductor Manufacturing Sites
On July 4, 2019, southern California experienced a 6.4 magnitude earthquake followed by a 7.1 earthquake the next day. Both earthquakes occurred near the town of Ridgecrest, but they were not related...
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Scaling Battery Technology
Batteries are an essential ingredient for the growth of electronics from small devices used for IoT as well as large batteries for electric cars. Historically, battery energy density improves 5%-8% per...
View ArticleML, Edge Drive IP To Outperform Broader Chip Market
The market for third-party semiconductor IP is surging, spurred by the need for more specific capabilities across a wide variety of markets. While the IP industry is not immune to steep market declines...
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A Different Foundry Model
As the pursuit to produce advanced semiconductors that keep up with the Moore’s Law treadmill becomes more and more challenging, many companies are seeking other ways to provide the next ‘must-have’...
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A Promising Future For Interconnect IP
Complexity of SoC designs continues to increase primarily due to increased demand for functionality and performance in all electronic devices. Studies that Semico Research has conducted on the SoC...
View ArticleMaking Sure RISC-V Designs Work As Expected
The RISC-V instruction set architecture is attracting attention across a wide swath of markets, but making sure devices based on the RISC-V ISA work as expected is proving as hard, if not harder, than...
View ArticleWhat’s Next For Semis?
It’s been a turbulent year in the semiconductor industry. 2020 was supposed to be a strong year. Then, the coronavirus outbreak hit. Suddenly, a large percentage of countries implemented various...
View ArticleBlog Review: Sept. 16
Cadence’s Paul McLellan checks out what’s new for TSMC’s advanced packaging solutions and the ultra-low power, RF, eNVM, and CMOS image sensor specialty processes. Mentor’s Ron Press points to an...
View ArticleThe Growing Market For Specialized Artificial Intelligence IP In SoCs
Over the past decade, designers have developed silicon technologies that run advanced deep learning mathematics fast enough to explore and implement artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as...
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Semiconductor CapEx To Grow 13.0% In 2021
Semiconductor capital expenditures grew 9.2% in 2020 to US$112.1 billion. This is $14.1 billion higher than our spring 2020 forecast, and $3.2 billion higher than our fall 2020 forecast. As shown in...
View ArticleBlog Review: May 5
Arm’s William Wang considers how to increase the performance and programmability of persistent applications through using battery to protect the on-chip volatile cache hierarchy. Cadence’s Paul...
View ArticleAutomotive IC Shortage Drags On
The current automotive semiconductor shortages won’t end anytime soon. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, it wreaked havoc on the worldwide supply chain, but it especially caught automakers...
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Chip Shortages Grow For Mature Nodes
The current wave of chip shortages is expected to last for the foreseeable future, particularly for a growing list of critical devices produced in mature process nodes. Chips manufactured at mature...
View ArticleBlog Review: Feb. 16
Arm’s Mark Nicholson explains the software side of the Morello project to implement a prototype security-focused architecture, presenting a high-level view of the software stacks and discussing the...
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