Here are my collection of trends and predictions for electronics industry for 2015:
The computer market, once the IC growth driver per se, apparently is approaching saturation status. Communications industry is still growing (6.8%.). Automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner.
Car electronics will be hot in 2015. New cars will have more security features, smart infotainment and connectivity in them. It is an are where smart phone companies are pushing to. Automotive Industry Drives Chip Demand article says that until 2018, the IC demand from automotive customers is expected to exhibit the strongest average annual growth — 10.8% on average. This is significantly higher than the communications industry, at second place with 6.8%. Demand drivers include safety features that increasingly are becoming mandatory, such as backup cameras or eCall. But driver-assistance systems are also becoming ubiquitous. Future drivers will include connectivity, such as vehicle-to-vehicle communications, as well as sensors and controllers necessary for various degrees of autonomous driving.
Power electronics is a $90 billion-per-year market. The market for discrete power electronics is predicted to grow to $23 billion by 2024 from $13 billion today. Silicon rules power electronics industry, but new materials are pushing to headlines quickly. In the power electronics community, compound semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) are drawing more attention as they try to displace silicon based power devices, which have been doing the heavy lifting for the past 30 years or so. While silicon-based devices are predicted to remain predominant with an 87% share of the market, it is expected that SiC- and GaN-based components to grow at annual rates of 30% and 32%, respectively. There’s no denying the cost advantages that silicon possesses.
Chip designs that enable everything from a 6 Gbit/s smartphone interface to the world’s smallest SRAM cell will be described at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2015. Intel will describe a Xeon processor packing 5.56 billion transistors, and AMD will disclose an integrated processor sporting a new x86 core, according to a just-released preview of the event. The annual ISSCC covers the waterfront of chip designs that enable faster speeds, longer battery life, more performance, more memory, and interesting new capabilities. There will be many presentations on first designs made in 16 and 14 nm FinFET processes at IBM, Samsung, and TSMC.
There is push to go to even smaller processes, and it seems that next generation of lithography equipment are started to being used. Earlier expectation was for chipmakers to use traditional immersion lithography for production of 10 nm chip, but it seems that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) scanners that allows allow scaling to 10 nm or even smaller is being used. TSMC to Use EUV for 7nm, Says ASML. Intel and TSMC have been injecting money in ASML to push process technology.
2015 promises to see initial FPGA product releases and (no doubt) a deluge of marketing claims and counter-claims. One thing is certain: 2015 will not be boring. There will be FPGA products that use processes beyond 20nm, for example Altera and Xilinx have committed to use the TSMC 16nm FinFET technology. There is publicized (and rumored) race to get to production at 14nm has seen time frames for initial samples move into 2015. However, with both FPGA companies reporting gross margins of close to 70 percent, it would be possible for either company to take an initial hit on margin to gain key socket wins.
It seems that the hardware becomes hot again as Wearables make hardware the new software. Apple invest its time when it released the Apple Watch last quarter, going up against the likes of Google’s Android Wear and others in the burgeoning wearables area of design. Once Apple’s bitten into a market, it’s somewhat a given that there’s good growth ahead and that the market is, indeed, stable enough. As we turn to 2015 and beyond wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity — one that is closely tied to both consumer and healthcare markets. It could pick up steam in the way software did during the smartphone app explosion.
There will be more start-up activity within hardware sector. For recent years, the software has been on the main focus on the start-ups, and the hardware sector activity has been lower. Hardware sector has seem some start-up activity with many easy to use open hardware platforms became available (make development of complex devices easier and reachable for smaller companies). The group financing (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc.) have made it possible to test of new hardware ideas are market-worthy and get finance to get them to production.
EEs embrace hackathons aand accelerators. Design 2.0 is bubbling up in the engineering community, injecting new energy into the profession. In many ways, it’s the new Moore’s Law. Easy to use open hardware development platforms have made it possible to design working hardware device prototypes within hackathons.
Silicon Startups Get Incubator article tells that there will be new IC start-up activity as semiconductor veterans announced plans for an incubator dedicated to helping chip startups design their first prototypes. Keysight, Synopsys, and TSMC have signed exclusive deals to provide tools and services to the incubator. Silicon Catalyst aims to select its first batch of about 10 chip startups before April.
MEMS mics are taking over. Almost every mobile device has ditched its old-fashioned electret microphone invented way back in 1962 at Bell Labs. Expect new piezoelectric MEMS microphones, which promise unheard of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of up to 80 dB (versus 65 dB in the best current capacitive microphones) in 2015. MEMS microphones are growing like gangbusters.Also engineers have found a whole bunch of applications that can use MEMS microphone as a substitute for more specialized sensors starting in 2015.
There will be advancements in eco-design. There will be activity within Europe’s Ecodesign directive. The EC’s Ecodesign Working Plan for 2015-2017 is currently in its final study stages – the plan is expected to be completed by January 2015. The chargers will be designed for lower zero load power consumption in 2015, as on February 2016, after the 5-watt chargers are no longer at no load connected consume more than 0.1 watts of power. Socket for power supplies values are defined in the new Energy Star standard VI.
LED light market growing in 2015. Strategies Unlimited estimates that in 2014 the LED lamps were sold $ 7 billion, or about 5.7 billion euros. In 2019 the LED lamps will already sold just over 12 billion euros. LED technology will replace other lighting technologies quickly. For those who do not go to the LED Strategies Unlimited permission difficult times – all other lamp technologies, the market will shrink 14 percent per year. The current lighting market growth is based on LED proliferation of all the different application areas.
IoT market is growing fast in 2015. Gartner is predicting a 30 percent compound annual growth rate for the IoT chip market for the period 2013 to 2020. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. Gartner expects chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015 (IoT IC marker value in 2014 was from $3.9 billion to $9 billion depending how you calculate it). The sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $48.3 billion in 2014 and grow 19 percent in 2015 to $57.7 billion. IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020.
With the increased use of IoT, the security is becoming more and more important to embedded systems and chip designers. Embedded systems face ongoing threats of penetration by persistent individuals and organizations armed with increasingly sophisticated tools. There is push for IC makers to add on-chip security features to serve as fundamental enablers for secure systems, but it is just one part of the IoT security puzzle. The trend toward enterprise-level security lifecycle management emerges as the most promising solution for hardened security in embedded systems underlying the explosive growth of interconnected applications. The trend continues in 2015 for inclusion of even more comprehensive hardware support for security: More and more MCUs and specialized processors now include on-chip hardware accelerators for crypto operations.
Electronics is getting smaller and smaller. Component manufacturers are continually developing new and smaller packages for components that are mere fractions of a millimeter and have board to component clearances of less than a mil. Components are placed extremely close together. No-lead solder is a relatively recent legislated fact of life that necessitated new solder, new fluxes, higher temperatures, and new solder processing equipment. Tin whisker problems also increased dramatically. You should Improve device reliability via PCB cleanliness, especially if you are designing something that should last more then few years.
Photonics will get to the circuit board levels. Progress in computer technology (and the continuation of Moore’s Law) is becoming increasingly dependent on faster data transfer between and within microchips. We keep hearing that copper has reached its speed limit, and that optics will replace copper for high-speed signals. Photonics now can run through cables, ICs, backplanes, and circuit boards. Silicon chips can now have some optical components in them using silicon photonics technologies. For more than 10 years, “silicon photonics” has attracted significant research efforts due to the potential benefits of optoelectronics integration. Using silicon as an optical medium and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor fabrication processing technology, silicon photonics allows tighter monolithic integration of many optical functions within a single device.
Enter electro-optical printed circuits, which combine copper and optical paths on the same board. Electro-optical PCBs use copper for distributing power and low-speed data, and optical paths for high-speed signals. Optical backplane connectors have been developed, as well as a technique to align the small waveguides to transceivers on the board. The next challenge is to develop waveguides on to boards where the tight bends don’t degrade performance to unacceptable levels.
3D printing will bring structural electronics. With 3D printing hot in the news, and conformable, flexible, or even printed electronics fitting any shape, it is only a matter of time before electronic circuits can be laid-out as part of the 3D-printing process, the electronic framework becoming an integral supporting part of any object’s mechanical structure. For example “structural batteries” have already been implemented in electric cars, in racing-car aerofoils, and in the Tesla pure electric car.
Superconductors are heating up again. Superconductivity will be talked again in 2015 as there were some advancements in the end of 2014. A group of international scientists working with the National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., have discovered lasers that can create conditions for superconductivity at temperatures as high at 140°F. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has discovered a law governing thin-film superconductors, eliminating much of the trial and error for companies that manufacture superconducting photodetector. With MIT’s new mathematical law, new superconducting chips can be designed with the correct parameters determined ahead of time.
Frost and Sullivan forecast that “PXI to disrupt automated test” between 2015 and 2018. They predict PXI to achieve $1.75B in annual sales by 2020, up from $563M in 2013. That’s an aggregate growth rate of over 17%. Not bad for an industry that has an overall secular growth rate of 3 percent.
1,206 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reverse bias techniques for high-end automotive microcontrollers & low leakage
http://www.edn.com/design/integrated-circuit-design/4439490/Reverse-bias-techniques-for-high-end-automotive-microcontrollers—low-leakage
Modern MCUs’ computational cores usually employ digital gates with different flavors of threshold voltages Vt (e.g., high Vt, standard Vt, and low Vt), and libraries with different gate channel lengths in order to optimize the performance/power ratio.
Using shorter channels/low threshold will increase maximum performance at the expense of higher leakage, and vice versa, using longer channels/high threshold will lower leakage at the expense of lower performance. In a high-end automotive MCU based on a standard CMOS process, leakage can account for as much as 50% of the total power budget at 150°C.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nextgen PCB Design Made Easier (or Less Painful)
Cadence goes for usability in its high end PCB design tool
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326631&
OrCAD is 30 years old and still extremely useful. The 30th anniversary edition include a variety of new features and significant upgrades to existing features relating to manufacturing/fabrication checks, electrical rules checks, and constraint definition and management.
Back in the stone age of electronics in the mid-1980s, when I was a junior member of a board design team, the first printed circuit board design tool I became familiar with was OrCAD. What I remember is that even then, in an early version, OrCAD enormously simplified how we could deal with a bewildering array of tough problems.
Then, as now, most time and attention was focused on getting the best IC solutions to problems: pushing their speed and reducing their geometries, which had the unfortunate side effect of making making signals harder to detect and noise more difficult to mask at the board level. New as they were I thought tools like OrCAD would keep PCB developers from drowning in a sea of design complexity.
On the 30th anniversary of OrCAD’s first introduction, the same problems are still there, but now they are tougher and even more complex, and Cadence Design Systems, which now owns the tool, sees no reason to change the original strategy.
In a world where low-cost, barely adequate PCB design tools are a dime a dozen or free, in its newest Version 16.6-2015 of its OrCAD tool suite the company has focused on meeting the needs of high-end board designs, where the tolerances, signal characteristics, and geometries are far tougher to deal with than those faced even a few years ago.
Constraining PCBs to common design rules
The new version has considerably enhanced design rules constraint management, especially in relation to such things as differential pairs and propagation delays. “As PCB data rates inch up to 10 gigabits/second and beyond, such rigorous enforcement of design rules is necessary,” he said. “Traditional high-speed board design challenges such as delay, timing, crosstalk, and overshoot have been joined with a set of new ones relating to jitter, lossy signal lines and traces and troublesome bit errors.”
In this sort of environment, the traditional ad hoc rules-of-thumb approach to routing and verification is no longer viable. It has been replaced with a formal rules-based methodology in which constraint management tools enforce a common set of definitions across all aspects of a board design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM, UMC to Roll 55nm Ultra-Low Power IoT Chips
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326628&
TAIPEI — ARM and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), the world’s second-largest chip foundry, announced Monday (May 18) what they say is the first availability of a new ARM Artisan physical IP platform on 55nm to accelerate embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT) device development.
UMC is targeting its 55nm ultra-low-power (ULP) technology for energy-efficient IoT applications. The new physical IP offering will help chip design teams accelerate and simplify the implementation of ARM-based SoC designs for IoT and other embedded applications, the companies said in a press statement.
The technology is targeted at wearable devices, UMC spokesman Richard Yu told EE Times. Wearables need ULP technology to prolong battery life because wearable products and sensors are in an “always on” status, Yu said.
The Artisan physical IP platform is expected to help enhance UMC’s ULP technology to maximize power efficiency and reduce leakage, the companies said. Features such as thick gate oxide support and long, multi-channel library options are expected to give SoC designers multiple tools to help optimize IoT applications.
ARM and UMC Target New 55nm ULP Physical IP Solution for Energy-Efficient Applications
http://www.umc.com/English/news/2015/20150518.asp
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Preps GPU, DRAM Stack
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326630&
SAN FRANCISCO – AMD plans to combine on a single device one its graphics processors and the SK Hynix high bandwidth memory (HBM) DRAM stack. The company described the technology but not the specifics of the product it claims will beat to market similar devices described by its rival Nvidia.
The approach will deliver more than 100 Gbytes/second of memory bandwidth, up from 28 GB/s using external GDDR5 DRAMs in today’s boards. The GPU die and DRAM stack will sit side-by-side on a silicon interposer in a so-called 2.5-D stack, a technique first pioneered in FPGAs by Xilinx.
Although the HBM stack runs at a slower clock rate than GDDR5 chips (500 compared to 1,750 MHz), the HBM chips sit on a 1,024-bit link compared to a 32-bit interface for GDDR5. The HBM stack also runs at a lower voltage than GDDR5 (1.3 versus 1.5V).
As a result, HBM can deliver 35 GBytes/s of bandwidth per watt, more than three times the 10.66 GB/s/W of GDDR5. In addition, the HBM stack fits into a 35mm 2 area, 94 percent smaller than the GDDR5 chips required to deliver as much capacity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Festo’s Smart Robotics Aimed at SMC
German craftsmanship taking on Japanese
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326632&
STUTTGART, Germany. — A decades or so ago there were over a dozen makers of programmable control systems (PLCs), directional control valves, actuators, air-line equipment and all the other odds and ends you need to make a smooth, high yielding factory assembly line. Today there are only a handful of factory automation companies, led by the two giants left standing: Festo Didati GmbH & Co KG (Denkendorf, Germany) and SMC Corp. (Tokyo, Japan). For years SMC led Festo with higher volumes due to lower pricing. However, now Festo claims to be catching up by outperforming SMC with “smarter” robotics, programmable logic controllers, and associated assembly line gear, which Festo claims will revolutionize factories by allowing them to constantly reconfigure with the latest gadgetry plus upgrade the factory workforce from semi-skilled operators to highly-skilled mechatronics and information technology (IT) experts.
“The difference between SMC and Festo is like the difference between black and white,” Daniel Boese, chief executive officer (CEO) and general manager at Festo told EE Times. “SMC has a good price and reasonable quality even at massive volumes, but we are changing the equation by offering smarter components, at admittedly a slightly higher price, but which can reconfigure to solve today’s complex manufacturing problems better and be upgraded and expanded without obsoleting existing equipment.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Security Takes a MIPS Twist
Imagination OmniShield clashes with ARM
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326654&
Imagination Technologies announced a new security architecture that will cover its MIPS, graphics and radio cores. OmniShield aims to enable multiple secure domains on any virtualized hardware block using open software interfaces.
The technology could help Imagination differentiate its cores in an industry increasingly dominated by ARM and the x86. It already has helped fuel participation in a working group in its prpl Foundation developing open APIs for OmniShield.
Imagination will release a reference platform by the end of the year that implements its approach which includes a hardware root of trust and secure boot capability. The APIs will take longer given they are being defined by an industry group that includes representatives of Broadcom, Qualcomm, Lantiq and others.
OmniShield will be able to create up to 255 separate secure domains. Existing PowerVR graphics and MIPS series 5 and 6 cores have the hardware virtualization support it requires. Future PowerVR video and vision and Enigma radio cores will be designed to support it, too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4-Port Broadband Vector Analyzer
http://www.eeweb.com/news/4-port-broadband-vector-analyzer
Anritsu Company announced the release of its VectorStar® ME7838A4 4-port broadband vector network analyzer (VNA) system that features the world’s widest differential broadband sweep from 70 kHz to 110/125 GHz and utilizes the smallest mmWave modules to conduct highly stable and fast measurements when characterizing differential devices. The new ME7838A4 provides on-wafer and signal integrity engineers with a new level of performance when conducting differential measurements so they have greater confidence in their next-generation communications system designs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What is a Transmission Gate?
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/maxim/what-is-a-transmission-gate/
A transmission gate is an analog switch that can selectively block signals from being transmitted.
A transmission gate, or analog switch, is defined as an electronic element that will selectively block or pass a signal level from the input to the output. This solid-state switch is comprised of a pMOS transistor and nMOS transistor. The control gates are biased in a complementary manner so that both transistors are either on or off.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power Components has long sought new materials alongside traditional silicon and was replaced. Silicon carbide has been promising, but unfortunately, an expensive solution. Gallium nitride is now responsible for many needs. Area pioneering GaN Systems has presented the GaN power transistor, which reaches up to 60 amps.
GaN material brings orders of magnitude better performance switching and thermal conductivity, and the prepared silicon substrate (GaN-on-Silicon) it can reduce the power system cost. GaN Systems’ new galliumnitridipiirien significantly expand the field of application.
New GS65516T switch based on GaN Systems for your architecture. chips produced by varying the drain and source materials of the islets as a matrix in which the gratings form a network of islets – or islands – between.
Also, the district housing is based on the company’s own development of GaNpx technology. Housing size 9 x 7.6 x 0.45 millimeters.
The component is suitable for high frequency, high efficiency power conversion applications. These include, for example, 400 volt DC-DC conversion
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2849:gan-tehotransistori-ylsi-jo-60-ampeeriin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
The world’s smallest antenna
English Antenova has announced the first consumer electronics devices referred to its antenna. Ceramic Weii antenna is probably the world according to the company’s small antenna.
Weii has dimensions of just 1 x 0.5 x 0.5 millimeters. It intercepts the signals on the 2.4 GHz antenna that is suitable, for example, bluetooth, WiFi is, zigbeetä and other 2.4 gigs of radios supporting M2M and IoT applications.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2855:maailman-pienin-antenni&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
News & Analysis
Software Secure? Good! But What About the Hardware (FPGAs & SoCs)?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326659&
As we all know, more and more devices are being designed to be Internet-enabled. It’s also common knowledge that Cisco predicts that 50-billion devices, such as automobiles, home automation devices, consumer electronics, medical devices, and wearables, will be connected to the Internet by 2020.
The sad fact of life, however, is that the creators of these devices often neglect the security aspects of their designs, thereby leaving them potentially susceptible to cyberattacks. Every day, we hear about new examples of things like hacking cars, hacking medical devices, and even a creep hacking a baby monitor to scream abuse at an infant and its parents.
One problem is that current security analysis software is targeted toward testing the embedded software, assuming the hardware is secure when it may not be. As more and more devices are designed to be Internet-enabled, the more we need to be concerned about hardware security, because hackers are starting to focus their attention on the underlying hardware.
Tortuga Logic’s goal is to solve security-specific problems and minimize security breaches in chips and systems by automating the process of verifying their security properties.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Constant Power Mode AC/DC Supply
http://www.eeweb.com/news/constant-power-mode-acdc-supply
MicroPower Direct announced the release of the MCP-02x series, a family of 2W AC/DC power supplies that include a constant power mode output. Unlike conventional “current limit” designs these power supplies cannot be overloaded and can be short circuited indefi nitely. They are especially suitable for applications where current limited designs require “oversizing” the power source to avoid start up failures.
Seven standard models operate from a universal input of 85 to 264 VAC, providing tightly regulated single and dual outputs. Output 1 (VO) is voltage regulated until it reaches the current limit level. At this point it transitions to constant power mode, and will continue to supply power to the load. Output 2 (VR) is voltage regulated and derived internally from output 1. Standard features include EN 55022 class B emissions, 3,000 VAC I/O isolation and 30 mW no load power consumption.
The MCP-02x has a Class II input (IEC 61140). This means it can be used without an earth ground connection. The MTBF (per MIL HDBK 217F) is greater than 500 khours. All models are approved to EN 60950. The series is RoHS compliant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Component Trade growth in the Nordic countries
Dmass organization (Distributors ‘and Manufacturers’ Association of Semiconductor Specialists), the distributors of semiconductor components sold in the first quarter of 1.82 billion euros, which is 13.3 percent more than the year before.
From the perspective of the Finnish good is that trade in the Nordic countries increased by 23 per cent. Dmass not, however, disclose country-specific figures for the Nordic countries.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2866:komponenttikauppa-kasvussa-pohjoismaissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung 10 nanometers next year
According to the latest generation of integrated circuits move as early as 10 nanometers next year. In this race are included in TSMC, Intel and now, most recently, Samsung. Korean company has confirmed that the 10-nanometer process is in full swing in production by the end of next year.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2863:samsung-10-nanometriin-ensi-vuonna&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Imagination renewed the system of circuit protection
Imagination Technologies is primarily known PowerVR GPU. Now the company has introduced a new technology that will revolutionize the different system circuits, protection and security. The technology it calls Omnishield.
Omnishieldin enables engineers to software IP-finished iron and lets design a system circle, so that all the protection you require applications are isolated from each other. In addition, they are protected from unsafe applications.
Omnishiled be scaled freely, so protected block can be implemented in all the different departments: central processor, GPU, as well as a variety of application processors.
In many current architectures, CPU and other processors share the application data, memory, and other resources, so they all have to give the same high safety.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2862:imagination-uudisti-jarjestelmapiirien-suojauksen&catid=13&Itemid=101
More info: http://www.imgtec.com/platforms/omnishield.asp
Tomi Engdahl says:
Touchless Gesture Lightswitch
A new way to control your lighting.
https://hackaday.io/project/1173-touchless-gesture-lightswitch
For a while now I’ve been toying with the idea of using the proximity effect of capacitive touch buttons to track motion, which can be used to create a intuitive “touch-less” lightswitch/controller. Turns out microchip thought about this type of tech too and released the MGC3130 3D gesture chip. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I have used this. A touch-less gesture lightswitch can be used in hospitals where the spread of germs is a major concern.
A wireless module (Z-wave, ZigBEE, or WiFi) *might* be placed inside the device to have the option of connecting to your home network or a SmartThings home automation hub.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YoctoBob – a BOB for an ultra tiny Cortex M0 proc.
https://hackaday.io/project/5827-yoctobob-a-bob-for-an-ultra-tiny-cortex-m0-proc
NXP has released a Cortex M0 processor in a tiny BGA 16 package. Why not design a cool break out board for this device.
The NXP LPC1102 is perfectly suited for small wearable sensors and data loggers. I
ain features of the LPC1102
ARM Cortex-M0 based processor
32-bit MCU
CPU frequency up to 50 MHz
32 kB on-chip flash memory
8 kB SRAM
11 General purpose input output pins
10 bit ADC
1 UART
1 SPI controller
Internal 12 MHz RC oscillator
Consumption: approx 2 mA @ 12 MHz
Package: Wafer level chip-size package, 16 bumps, 2.17 X 2.32 X 0.6 mm
This device is currently one of the smallest Cortex M0 based processors available on the market
Tomi Engdahl says:
RF SOI process design kit leverages PSP-SOI model
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439517/RF-SOI-process-design-kit-leverages-PSP-SOI-model?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150525&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150525&elq=4f156c356cf044328a3f6154b47c6abb&elqCampaignId=23138&elqaid=26059&elqat=1&elqTrackId=833887c03a774d02aa0a6659787b7435
Targeting both advanced wireless and wired applications, pure-play 200-mm foundry Shanghai Huahong Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing (HHGrace) and Gildenblat Consulting, a semiconductor modeling service and consulting company, jointly announced a 0.2-µm RF SOI (silicon-on-insulator) PDK (process design kit) containing Gildenblat’s PSP-SOI model. The kit complements HHGrace’s design support and tape-out of RF front-end components for smart phones, tablets, wearables, and IoT devices.
Challenging GaAs, SOI technology has emerged as a strong contender in the high-performance RF switch market, offering lower insertion loss, higher noise isolation characteristics, and better linearity.
HHGrace, http://www.hhgrace.com
Tomi Engdahl says:
Transient recorder streams 400 Mbytes/s to external PC
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439532/Transient-recorder-moves-400-Mbytes-s-to-external-PC?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150525&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150525&elq=4f156c356cf044328a3f6154b47c6abb&elqCampaignId=23138&elqaid=26059&elqat=1&elqTrackId=894281ebda924940b60d56f4b568664e
One of the fastest systems in the industry, the GEN7tA transient recorder and data-acquisition system from HBM acquires and streams data at a rate of up to 400 Mbytes/s to serve applications that require hundreds of channels and high sample rates. The system provides slots for seven Genesis input cards and accommodates up to 224 individually configurable channels per unit. A higher channel count can be achieved by synchronizing the GEN7tA with other Genesis data-acquisition systems via a master-slave option or with other systems using PTP (precision time protocol).
When outfitted with a 1-Gbps Ethernet interface, the GEN7tA streams recorded data directly to a PC at 100 Mbytes/s.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dual-input ORing switch conserves board space
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439515/Dual-input-ORing-switch-conserves-board-space
Housed in a small 2×2-mm thin QFN package for use in handheld devices and systems powered from multiple sources, the MIC1344 hot-swappable power multiplexer from Micrel provides a power ORing for two power sources from 2.8 V to 5.5 V. The device offers both automatic and manual input selection, and the current limit for each input channel can be individually set to handle up to 3 A.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Test Equipment Changes With Moore’s Law
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326667&
New technologies continue to forge new types of test equipment. After all, everything must be tested.
Desjardin takes us through the last 50 years of electronics and how test equipment went along for the ride.
Moore’s law enabled the processor and memory revolution. With it came the semiconductor test industry, with giants like Teradyne and Advantest duking it out in this new product category. The pin-electronics feature of “big-iron” testers proved essential for high-speed digital semiconductor test. A whole new industry was born.
He argues that 5G and Internet of Things will being on new classes of test equipment. I think he’s right. 5G will certainly require new types of test equipment and the major companies are trying to develop that equipment almost in parallel with 5G development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Parasitic Extraction of FinFET-based Memory Cells
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326677&
Memory chips must meet strict specifications for fast data transfer, reliability, and power consumption, so accurate characterization is required at every stage of design.
The introduction of FinFETs at 16 and 14 nm nodes enables higher density and performance, and reduced power usage, but it also increases challenges in design and validation. Memory designers need a tool that can help them analyze parasitics quickly and accurately throughout the design cycle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Force Sensors Make Medical Devices Smarter
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326675&
The practice of medicine has always been an art as well as a science. But, in the age of value-based care, the balance between those two is shifting in favor of the latter. Sensor-enabled medical devices are playing an important role in the trend.
In healthcare in the 21st century, data is king.
But healthcare needs more than hawking medical products at discounted rates; it needs a way to gauge their efficacy. It needs smarter medical devices.
A growing number of sensor-enabled medical devices are hitting the market, providing metrics for diagnoses and helping systematize how doctors deliver treatments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Time to Stop Kicking the EDA Dog
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326679&
It’s incumbent on IP vendors to deliver higher quality designs that enable a smoother back-end process.
As SoC designers, we are usually insulated from the back-end of the chip design process. We don’t encounter the place and route and timing closure problems that must be resolved by others to turn our front-end logic designs into real chips. Those problems often create challenges that delay our project schedules and prevent us from bringing our chip to market in a timely fashion. To reverse these delays, the industry needs to do a better job of improving the front-end design so it can avoid problems in the back end.
We often develop a floorplan for our SoC design and throw our RTL and net list files over the wall to the back-end integrators who must turn it into real placed gates and macros. Our designs may seem logical, conceptually, but when problems arise in the back end, the common practice is to blame the inadequacy of EDA tools and their users.
As an IP vendor, I say it’s time to stop kicking the EDA dog.
It’s incumbent on IP vendors to deliver higher quality designs that enable a smoother back-end process, and avoid the problems that cause chips to be late to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphones move to faster memory
Mobile Devices DRAMs sold in the first quarter of 3.58 billion dollars, or nearly the pace of the previous quarter. DramExchangen by trade fueled by now, especially new LPDDR4 circuits. Smartphones rapid transition to a faster memory.
Among the new models of Samsung Galaxy S6 comes with a 3-gigabyte LPDDR4 memory. The next-generation iPhone models is becoming a two-gigabyte LPDDR4 memory.
This transition to a little more expensive memory means that the memories average prices will be hardly dropped.
Mobile memories of Samsung’s market share is 52.1 per cent. In January-March, Samsung sold its mobile memories more than 1.8 billion dollars.
Another Korean market, ie Hynix was runner-up
Micron is the third big manufacturer of US $ 809 million in sales
Other manufacturers will remain only traces of the market
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2881:alypuhelimet-siirtyvat-nopeampaan-muistiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Small Plastic Chip in Body Can Ease Chronic Pain
http://www.techbriefs.tv/video/Small-Plastic-Chip-in-Body-Can;Electronics-Computers
Two researchers from Sweden’s Linköping University – Magnus Berggren, professor of organic electronics, and Klas Tybrandt, postdoctoral student at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics – have developed chemical chips that can control the signals of cells. The technology could be life-changing for people with Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and chronic pain. The researchers have built integrated chips that contain several chemical transistors, and believe that in the future they can create a thousand transistors on one chip.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Calibration means different things in different professions
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/all-things-measured/4439511/Calibration-means-different-things-in-different-professions?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150526&elq=528975af22ce49969a88457f7d125da8&elqCampaignId=23151&elqaid=26072&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e0d4ab09f5cc4402aea28f2018a9fcbe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Waving the Flag
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326682&
Economic espionage in the electronics industry is really the issue?
The U.S. is once again raising the flag against China for economic espionage in the electronics industry.
Several blips appeared on the radar last week. First, there is the case against six Chinese citizens on a charge by the U.S. Department of Justice that they stole trade secrets from U.S. companies Avago Technologies and Skyworks Solutions. In addition, the U.S. Navy has said it aims to replace IBM servers that are made by China’s Lenovo.
Concerns are growing within the U.S. government that China aims to grab American technology, yet Washington appears at times to be working at cross purposes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SK Hynix, Sharp Move Up Chip Vendor Ranking
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326689&
SK Hynix, MediaTek and Sharp are three companies that showed strong sales growth year-on-year in the first quarter of 2015 and climbed up the top 20 chip vendor ranking produced by IC Insights.
Of these Japanese company Sharp was the most notable with a 62 percent increase first quarter sales.
There were two new entrants into the top 20 ranking in 1Q15 — Sharp and pure-play foundry UMC, which replaced AMD and Nvidia. AMD’s sales dropped 26 percent year-over-year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartening up Power Monitoring
Power monitoring is a market ripe with niches for 8/16-bit MCUs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326681&
A recent survey from Gartner Research reports that in 2014 Microchip Technology was ranked as the top 8-bit and 16-bit MCU vendor in sales of its PIC devices. One possible reason Microchip is retaking the lead may be that some of its competitors are abandoning 8/16-bit MCUs as a declining market. But it may also be because Microchip still views that market as being ripe with niches offering opportunities for significant growth.
A good example of Microchip’s ability to find niches where 8- and 16-bit MCUs can thrive is the company’s just released MCP39F511 single-phase power-monitoring IC. The company’s 16-bit PIC MCU is at the heart of the device, allowing it to be used in any application requiring real-time measurement of active, reactive, and apparent AC power; RMS current and RMS voltage; line frequency; and power-factor correction.
If the company’s strategy is right, its MCP39F511 will find a niche in not just one new market but several: high performance commercial and industrial products such as lighting and heating systems, smart plugs, power meters, and AC/DC power supplies. While each of these niches is small compared to the kinds of volumes seen in the consumer markets such as mobile devices and wearables, collectively they add up.
For example, smart plugs to measure energy used by individual appliances help identify those that consume a lot of energy while active and those that consume excessive standby power.
The problem chip vendors have had in addressing this broad set of power measurement market applications is how to provide the basic measurement capabilities across a wide enough spectrum of applications to keep the cost of deployment low, but at the same allow developers to implement them with a minimum of additional software or hardware development costs.
In past years, IC vendors, including Microchip, have attempted to address these needs with multichip solutions, usually a chip with the analog building blocks and an MCU that the developer would program with the algorithms and operations appropriate to the power measurement task. Alternatively, they have used a combination of dedicated control logic and analog functions targeted at specific power monitoring needs.
To address this broad spectrum of power monitoring needs, the MCP39F511 includes two 24-bit delta-sigma ADCs with 94.5 decibels of SINAD (Signal-to-noise and distortion ratio) performance, a low-drift voltage reference, and an internal oscillator.
0.1 % error across a wide 4000:1 dynamic range
What makes the MCP39F511 more than just another dedicated power monitoring chip is the inclusion of a PIC-based 16-bit calculation engine at the core of the device. Rather than designing the chip to be programmed in the traditional sense by a developer, the calculation engine has been pre-programmed by Microchip engineers to provide access to a set of power management algorithms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spreadtrum Guns for Intel’s 14nm FinFET in 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326692&
Qualcomm and MediaTek, you better watch out. Here comes Spreadtrum, riding piggyback on Intel’s foundry business and gunning for 14nm FinFET, with sights set on 10nm.
China’s Spreadtrum Communications will use Intel Corp.’s 14nm FinFET process technology, for both the low- and high-end mobile chips the company plans to launch in 2016, Leo Li, chairman and CEO of Spreadtrum, told EE Times Tuesday (May 26).
For Spreadtrum, using Intel as its foundry has apparently superseded its potential adoption of Intel Architecture in future mobile chips.
Intel’s $1.5 billion investment in Tsinghua Unigroup last fall resulted in the U.S. chip giant owning 20 percent of China’s combined Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics. Spreadtrum’s quid pro quo for Intel, under the agreement, is a matter of intense speculation among semiconductor industry observers.
Nowhere in a series of agreements the two companies signed last fall is it stipulated that Spreadtrum must switch from ARM-based architecture to Intel Architecture in future chips.
“They can’t force us,”
Li sees Spreadtrum’s role as “an external force” to change Intel’s culture and mentality. He believes Spreadtrum can help commercialize a lot of technologies that haven’t gone beyond Intel’s R&D lab.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartening up Power Monitoring
Power monitoring is a market ripe with niches for 8/16-bit MCUs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326681&
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoC From Russia With MIPS
Chip targets Broadcom, Freescale in gateways
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326694&
A fabless semiconductor vendor in Russia announced its first SoC, the first chip to use the Warrior MIPS cores from Imagination Technologies. The Baikal-T1 from Baikal Electronics targets home WiFi routers and gateways with a sub-5W SoC that packs two MIPS P5600 cores.
Baikal will initially ride a trend in Russia to replacing foreign imports in the wake of European and U.S. sanctions over the conflict in the Ukraine. Long term, it aims to sell the T1 internationally, initially focusing on nearby markets in Asia and Africa.
The company was spun out of Russian supercomputer maker T-Platforms in January 2012, aiming to develop a range of MIPS- and ARM-based SoCs for global markets. However, the Ukraine sanctions created a near-term opportunity.
“There’s an internal movement in Russia to replace imports in every industry — it started with a ban on things like prosciutto from Italy, but eventually there were huge changes in the food market in Russia,” said a Baikal spokesman.
The T1 (right) aims to go head-to-head with similar chips from companies such as Broadcom, Freescale and Mediatek. It hopes its high performance-per-watt and low price give it an edge.
The SoC’s two 32-bit MIPS cores run at 1.2 GHz
The 25mm2 chip is now sampling with production expected in a couple months.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Satisfy the Appetite for “Instant On”
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326688&
Memory has emerged as a key differentiator in how embedded designers are achieving the user experience (UX) that today’s consumers expect: instant on.
We live in a world where instant gratification and multitasking are the norm. We want what we want, when we want it. Consumers have come to require and expect innovative solutions that provide instant access to increasing amounts of heterogeneous information types, regardless of time, location, or device used. And if this isn’t a big enough shoe to fill, consumers also want those devices to be as stylish, small, portable, and as low power as possible.
Due to this increased focus on intelligent devices—and the network of such devices, called the Internet of Things (IoT)—semiconductor vendors and embedded developers are feeling the pressure to develop innovative products swiftly. In turn, embedded designers are feeling the pressure to choose a solution to address this wide range of design requirements to meet end-user preferences. It can be overwhelming to say the least.
A key expectation for the user experience (UX) is “instant-on” operation, and boot time is the central challenge that plays into this instant-on trend. Automotive dashboard development is a good example of where this trend is very present. But we’re also seeing instant-on affecting many other industrial and consumer applications.
Memory is critical in instant-on operation. Using compressed root-file system images to save NV memory space, for instance, and unpacking it into RAM for execution will add additional seconds to the boot process. In fact, most systems that take more than 10 seconds to boot spend the majority of that time in MCU processing of the compressed code.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power transistor shrank by 50 per cent to less
Canadian GaN Systems has presented galliumnitridipohjaiset power transistors that are 50 percent smaller in size competitors. 650-volt and 15-ampeeristen novelties size of only 5 x 6.5 mils. GaN Systems is responsible for an information bulletin last week’s news of power electronics PCIM trade fair in Frankfurt, which was presented to the “world’s smallest” acclaimed 8×8-millimeter galliumnitride component.
GaN Systems has galliumnitride based family 7-200 amp area. The newest member is GS66504B, whose dimensions are, therefore, 50 per cent smaller than the previous record.
GaN material brings orders of magnitude better performance switching and thermal conductivity, and the prepared silicon substrate (GaN-on-Silicon) it can reduce the power system cost.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2890:tehotransistori-kutistui-50-prosenttia-pienemmaksi&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
GaN Systems power transistors are 50% smaller
‘GaN power transistor market accelerating quickly’ says CEO reconfirming lead position
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150526005801/en/GaN-Systems-power-transistors-50-smaller
OTTAWA, Ontario–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GaN Systems, the leading developer of gallium nitride power switching semiconductors, today confirmed the world’s smallest 650V, 15A gallium nitride transistor. With a footprint of just 5.0 x 6.5mm, the GS66504B – one of a family of 650V devices that spans 7A to 200A – is 50% smaller than competing devices.
“Our message to designers in applications as diverse as flat screen TVs, games consoles, washing machines, inverters, electric vehicles, motors and wider is the same: if you are not on-board with GaN, you will be left behind by your competitors.”
GaN Systems is the first company to have developed and brought a comprehensive product range of devices with current ratings from 7A to 250A to the global market – its Island Technology® die design, combined with its extremely low inductance and thermally efficient GaNPX™ packaging and Drive Assist technology means the company’s GaN transistors offer a 40-fold improvement in switching and conduction performance over traditional silicon MOSFETs and IGBTs. Devices are available now through its worldwide distribution network.
GS66504B
GS66508P
650 V E-HEMT
GaNPX™ packaging
Current 15 A
Rds(on) 110 mΩ
Dimensions: 5.0 x 6.5 x 0.45 mm
Bottom-side cooled
Island Technology™ Transistor
http://www.gansystems.com/gs66504b.php
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computer Chips Made of Wood Promise Greener Electronics
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/05/27/224257/computer-chips-made-of-wood-promise-greener-electronics
Researchers in the U.S. and China have developed semiconductor chips that are almost entirely made out of a wood-derived material. In addition to being biodegradable, the cost of production is much less than conventional semiconductors
“The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer.”
Computer chips made of wood promise greener electronics
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2927114/servers/computer-chips-made-of-wood-promise-greener-electronics.html#tk.rss_all
U.S. and Chinese researchers have developed semiconductor chips that are nearly entirely made out of wood-derived material.
Aside from being biodegradable, the chips could be produced for only a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductors, according to the group of 17 researchers, mostly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with others from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer. Taken from cellulose, a naturally abundant substance used to make paper, cellulose nanofibril (CNF) is a flexible, transparent and sturdy material with suitable electrical properties.
That makes CNF better than alternative chip designs using natural materials such as paper and silk, they argue in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications
The researchers coated the CNF with epoxy to make its surface smooth and to prevent it from expanding as it heated. They also developed methods to fabricate gallium arsenide-based microwave devices, which are widely used in mobile devices such as phones and tablets, on the CNF substrate.
The CNF chip features “high-performance electronics that are comparable to existing state-of-the-art electronics,” they wrote.
In a conventional chip, the support substrate is made of the same material as the active layer, but in the CNF chip, only the active layer is semiconductor materia
Fungi and moisture that exist in the wild are needed for the chips to begin to decompose, a controllable process that can take anywhere from days to months, Ma added.
WOODEN computer chips reveal humanity’s cyber elf future
Biodegradable semiconductors will allow an Avatar lifestyle with all mod cons
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/28/wooden_computer_chips_invented_er_really/
Boffins have developed a biodegradable semiconductor chip made almost entirely of wood in an effort to alleviate the environmental burden of electronic devices.
Technicians from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), have demonstrated the feasibility of replacing the substrate of a computer chip with cellulose nanofibril (CNF), a flexible, biodegradable material made from wood.
In the abstract to the article, titled High-performance green flexible electronics based on biodegradable cellulose nanofibril paper, and published in Nature Communications, the researchers claim to “report high-performance flexible microwave and digital electronics that consume the smallest amount of potentially toxic materials on biobased, biodegradable and flexible cellulose nanofibril papers”.
Portable electronics are typically made of non-renewable, non-biodegradable and potentially toxic materials and are discarded at a very high rate due to corporations’ plans for obsolescence and consumers’ pursuits of new blahware. This means that they are expensive to dispose of without causing environmental damage.
The UN and Interpol have estimated that criminals make up to £19bn annually in improperly disposing of the ever-increasing surplus of electronics waste.
The group’s work also demonstrated performance levels similar to existing chips.
High-performance green flexible electronics based on biodegradable cellulose nanofibril paper
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150526/ncomms8170/full/ncomms8170.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can You Trust a DR-Check Without a DR-Spec?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326700&
Designers may find the flow from the design rule specification tool to the design rule check tool to be surprising (spoiler: there is no design rule specification tool).
The cornerstone of physical verification is DRC (design rule checking): checking that the design adheres to the technology design rules. As we all know, DRC has become very challenging in advanced technologies, as there are thousands of rules and their complexity grows exponentially. As a result, programming and verifying the DRC check code becomes a very hard and challenging task.
Designers are very familiar with DRC tools. These tools have been around for more than 30 years, and each major EDA company offers one. What designers are less familiar with is how these checks are being constructed — the flow from the design rule specification tool to the design rule check tool. What they may find to be really surprising is that actually there is no design rule specification tool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Did Analog Steal Digital’s Mojo?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326716&
Name two semiconductor companies whose names begin with the letter T that used to mainly make digital ICs but now think analog electronics is more exciting and remunerative!
It used to be that the ability to scale digital transistors provided a seemingly unlimited upside to working in the digital domain. And there’s no doubt that students thought the simpler maths and logic of digital looked preferable to the differential functions used to describe some analog properties. That was the 1970s and 1980s when the twin Ms of monolithic memories and microprocessors grabbed the headlines, ruled the world and converted almost all academic and commercial electronics to the digital way.
It also lead to the rise of digital signal processing,
That’s the idea that everything analog should be converted to digital as soon as possible and processed in the digital domain for as long as possible before being converted back to analog to drive some sort of display, speaker or actuator.
Well in those days power consumption wasn’t usually the first thing you thought about. Now it often is. And that can mean it is no longer acceptable to be profligate with digital transistor twiddling – and a return to the use of more analog circuitry or a move to neuromorphic-style computation. And now with global competition the financial margins in digital electronics, especially where it applies to the consumer, can make it a less attractive sand pit to play in.
So some companies say analog, MEMS and sensors is the place to be.
The cult of DSPism
http://analog-eetimes.com/en/the-cult-of-dspism.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222907148
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avago-Broadcom Deal: What’s in It for You?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326714&
Where is the affinity – or any apparent good vibe – connecting Avago to Broadcom?
One of the fascinating features of capitalism is that money talks.
Of course, “little overlap” in products and “synergy” in business are two key words every company often uses to justify a proposed M&A.
Avago’s Broadcom acquisition obviously fits the cliché.
Combining the two businesses will make the merged entity big. That’s for sure.
If you remember, Avago was in pursuit of Freescale until late February this year. But a rise in Freescale’s share price made the acquisition too expensive.
Avago’s big appetite for acquisitions is well known.
I don’t think I’m alone in viewing Broadcom as the best of the best among U.S. fabless chip companies.
But this merger begs a big question: Where will Broadcom integration vision turn? Will Broadcom’s team be allowed to sustain its discipline in execution? Most important, will Henry Samueli stay?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rohm Buys Renesas Wafer Fab
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326703&
Rohm Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan) has moved to acquire a 200mm wafer fab from Renesas Electronics Corp. for 450 million yen (about $3.7 million).
The acquisition of Renesas’ Shiga factory is scheduled to complete in February 2016 and to be used as a manufacturing line to produce to IGBT and MOSFET power devices and piezoelectric MEMS devices.
Under Renesas the fab is capable of 150nm CMOS production.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NXP Agrees to RF Power Business Sell-Off
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326641&
NXP Semiconductors N.V. has struck a deal that will facilitate the sale of the company’s RF power business to Jianguang Asset Management Co. Ltd (JAC Capital) which will pay $1.8 billion for the business.
The NXP RF Power business is one of the market leaders in high performance RF power amplifiers primarily focused on the cellular basestation market, but with potential future growth applications in the areas of industrial lighting, next generation cooking and automotive electronic ignition systems.
“The creation of a new company focused on the RF power amplifier market is a ground breaking transaction for JAC Capital and a great deal for our customers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avago, Broadcom Combo Praised
Deal would create $13B mobile/cloud giant
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326711&
If Avago bids to buy Broadcom as reported it would be the largest of an escalating set of deals for the company and the consolidating semiconductor industry. The combination would have little product overlap, a few areas of synergy and would no doubt squeeze out plenty of savings in layoffs and spin-outs.
Ironically, Avago is the smaller of the two companies at about $4.3 billion in revenues in its last fiscal year, making it the 14th largest semiconductor company in the rankings of IC Insights. By comparison, Broadcom reported $8.4 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year and is ranked the ninth largest chip company.
A combined company would have nearly $13 billion in revenues, edging it up to about seventh place, ahead of Texas Instruments and below Qualcomm at $19 billion. Avago has its quarterly call with financial analysts later today at which point it will likely confirm or quash the reports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reduce diode losses in redundant systems with integrated power MUXes
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4439547/Reduce-diode-losses-in-redundant-systems-with-integrated-power-MUXes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150528&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150528&elq=b7be39deb32c43259ec1d60958f154d7&elqCampaignId=23195&elqaid=26128&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a5f9a81be7594d5db6ec0260cdfedb84
Many power management applications use Schottky diodes for the parallel operation of multiple power sources. This type of power redundancy is often found in systems with solid-state drives (SSDs), hard disk drives (HDDs), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) cards, network and graphic cards, and some others used in automotive, industrial, personal electronics and telecommunications infrastructure applications. The diodes do a great job of isolating redundant power sources to keep the system operational in the event that any one power source fails, while also preventing current flow from one supply to the other.
The diode power-muxing configuration gives a seamless transition from one voltage rail to the other
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emulation reveals a cellular phone circuit power consumption
Operating time on battery power is an issue that is of interest and often annoy us all. Mentor Graphics has now developed a technology that allows mobile phone circuit power consumption is easier to optimize. This should lead to longer battery use.
- Functional testing or simulation does not get caught, for example, the launch of the operating system or the real situations in which smart phone applications are normally used.
Imported Veloce emulator Power Application tool rather than reveals the true power surges. The tool to use the new DRW-interface (Dynamic Read Waveform API) to take the information circuit activity and transfer this data directly to the power analyysityökalulle. This analysis is used to Ansysin Power Artist-tool.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2894:emulointi-paljastaa-kannykkapiirin-tehonkulutuksen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung announced recently it will adopt ICproduction of 10-nanometer line wodth as early as next year. Intel is expected to do the same. However, this trend does not stop there, as the FPGA manufacturer Xilinx and its manufacturing partner TSMC are working on circuits already made 7-nanometer process.
Xilinx promises to introduce a seven-nanometer circuits of the 2017 season. The process is TSMC’s fourth-generation finfet process.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2906:fpga-piiri-7-nanometriin-jo-2017&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Pierce / Wired:
With Project Jacquard, Google aims to bring touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more to fabric used for everything from jeans to car seats, partners with Levi’s
Google Is Hacking Our Clothes to Work Like Touchscreens
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-wants-turn-everything-wearable/
If you want to understand a key piece of Google’s vision for the future of the fashion, furniture, and automotive industries, look no further than Lady Gaga. Specifically, at a dress she wore to a 2013 iTunes Festival in London.
Poupyrev is a technical program lead inside Google’s ATAP division, the top-secret lab run by former DARPA director Regina Dugan that is responsible for some of Google’s most insane and ambitious ideas. One of the most ambitious ideas to date: smart pants.
OK, technically Poupyrev’s idea is called Project Jacquard.
It aims to bring conductive yarns to every garment and fabric on earth, and then to integrate touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more right into your jeans, car seats, curtains, everything. “If you can weave the sensor into the textile, as a material,” Poupyrev says, “you’re moving away from the electronics. You’re making the basic materials of the world around us interactive.”
Conductive fabric is nothing new, but conductive fabric at scale is. And the Jacquard team created a way to produce this conductive yarn with the same looms and machinery the textiles industry already uses. They also figured out how to integrate tiny electronics into textiles, which Poupyrev hopes will soon live inside every item of clothing you buy. Google is working on an ecosystem of apps and services that will let you interact with your phone and other gadgets just by grabbing, tapping, swiping, and touching your clothes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
Source: Intel close to buying Altera for about $54 a share, $15B+ deal may be announced early next week
Intel Takeover of Altera Is Expected
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/business/dealbook/intel-takeover-of-altera-is-expected.html?_r=0
SAN FRANCISCO — Intel is close to clinching a takeover of fellow chip maker Altera for more than $15 billion, a person briefed on the matter said on Friday, the latest sign of consolidation in the semiconductor industry.
An agreement could be announced as early next week, though this person cautioned that talks are continuing and might still collapse.
The two sides had been in talks already this year, though the discussions were eventually delayed when Altera rejected an offer in the ballpark of $54 a shar
Intel may be seeking Altera to create computers that combine the power of a standard semiconductor with the flexibility of an F.P.G.A., by means of a board with both types of chip.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Pressure from Wall Street to increase profit margins driving consolidation in semiconductor industry
Behind the Wave of Semiconductor Deals: Margin Pressures
Investors seeking fatter profit have driven the latest wave of consolidation
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/behind-the-wave-of-semiconductor-deals-margin-pressures-1432940411-lMyQjAxMTE1MjI5OTUyNzk5Wj
Chip makers are facing many pressures pushing them to combine. The biggest, though, comes from Wall Street.
The stock market lately has penalized semiconductor companies that don’t show they can improve profit margins, a tough task in a mature industry subject to fierce price pressure. Some chief executives of publicly held silicon companies also are concluding that the only way to boost share prices is to sell out.
The pressure has led to a wave of consolidation in the industry that reached a peak—perhaps momentary—with Wednesday’s announcement that Avago Technologies Ltd. offered a rich $37 billion for rival wireless-chip maker Broadcom Corp.
The pressures facing chip makers are paradoxical. Microprocessors are the engines of the digital transformation that is remaking business and cultural life world-wide. Small squares of silicon are at the center of trends that are expected to generate major growth well into the future, especially mobile computing but also the Internet of Things
Some companies that haven’t found a buyer are feeling the heat.
On Thursday, Broadcom said rewarding its shareholders was the prime motivation for accepting the cash-and-stock offer from Avago, a company that has pursued acquisitions and whose shares have outpaced its peers.
The push to consolidate isn’t a positive trend for employees.
“To reduce costs, you have to get rid of people,”
Besides cutting jobs, chip makers find they can cut costs by pushing more products using a sales force that remains roughly the same size.
“We are in the middle of a wave right now,” he said in a March interview. “The new theme is, you have to integrate to get scale to survive.”
The semiconductor industry’s consolidation coincides with declines in some chip businesses, notably for PCs, said Jon Erensen, a Gartner Inc. analyst. Meanwhile sales of tablets, which helped draw consumer dollars from PCs, have been slowing since 2013; Gartner predicts sales to grow just 4% this year. Smartphone sales outside of China are also softer than in recent years, he added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avago-Broadcom Deal: What’s in It for You?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326714&
Where is the affinity – or any apparent good vibe – connecting Avago to Broadcom?
One of the fascinating features of capitalism is that money talks.
For example, I can’t help but see Avago’s eye-popping $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom as an outspoken case of Wall Street winning huge over the engineering community.
The deal was done on behalf of the two companies’ shareholders. Nothing wrong with that. It’s textbook (well, Milton Friedman’s textbook) capitalism.
But here’s the rub. I can’t see any imperative reason that Broadcom had to be gobbled up by a smaller company. Avago had about $4.3 billion in revenues in the last fiscal year, while Broadcom made almost double that amount. Picture a salmon swallowing a shark.