Chip Market Brightens in 2017. The semiconductor industry may yet have been flat in 2016, but expects it is expected that the electronics industry rebounds in 2017, probably in the first half. Wall Streeter predicts return to 5% growth. Total IC business growth is expected to be around five percents for few years to come.There seems to several promises to this direction, especially in memory business. Chips Execs See Maturing Industry article says that pessimism about immediate revenue and R&D growth is a sign of a maturing industry.
Thanks to both rising prices and volume sales, the memory sector is expected to lead overall semiconductor sales growth. Sales of memory chips will increase 10% next year to a new record high of $85.3 billion, according to the latest report from IC Insights. NAND flash will grow almost as fast at 10% next year. The average annual growth rate for the memory market is forecast to be 7.3% from 2016-2021. Every year we need 5.6% more bits than previous year, and the unit prices are increasing on both DRAM and Flash.
There will be also other growth sectors. The data center will be the fastest growth segment next year, rising 10%, followed by automotive at 9% and communications at 7%. Consumer and industrial markets growing at about 4% in line with the overall industry. PCs will be the big drag on 2017, declining 2%.
China Dominates Planned Chip Fabs as more than 40% of front end semiconductor fabs scheduled to begin operation between 2017 and 2020 are in China, a clear indication that China’s long-stated ambition to build a significant domestic semiconductor industry is taking shape.
Trump Win Could Mean Big Questions for Manufacturing as while Trump vowed to keep American manufacturing jobs, he offered little in the way of stated policy other than the promise to punish companies that sent manufacturing job outside the US. Questions about trade also could directly affect US manufacturing. How that plays out is a big unknown.
Europe will try to advance chip manufacturing, but not much results in 2017 as currently there is almost no leading-edge digital chip manufacturing left in Europe as the local companies have embraced outsourcing of digital semiconductor manufacturing to foundries. The European Commission intends to reconvene a high-level group of European CEOs and executives to exchange views on Europe’s 10/100/20 nanoelectronics and chip manufacturing project and make adjustments as necessary for a wave of European Union investment supposedly starting in 2020. The two most advanced wafer fab locations left in Europe in terms of deep sub-micron miniaturization belong to Intel in Leixlip, Ireland and Globalfoundries in Dresden, Germany.
Smaller geometries are to be taken into use and researched in 2017. Several chipmakers ramp up their 10nm finFET processes, with 7nm just around the corner. As TSMC, GF/Samsung Battle at 7nm the net result is in the course of 18 months chip designers will see at least three variants of 7nm — separate immersion variants from TSMC and Globalfoundries and the EUV version from GF/Samsung. Intel has yet to detail its 7nm node.
At the same time R&D has begun for 5nm and beyond, but Uncertainty Grows For 5nm, 3nm as costs are skyrocketing. Both 5nm and 3nm present a multitude of unknowns and challenges. To put this in perspective, there are roughly two silicon atoms in 1nm of line width in a chip. Etching Technology Advances as atomic layer etch (ALE) moves to the forefront of chip-making technology—finally. TSMC recently announced plans to build a new fab in Taiwan at a cost of $15.7 billion targeted for TSMC’s 5nm and 3nm processes, which are due out in 2020 and 2022.
Moore’s Law continues to slow as process complexities and costs escalate at each node. Moore’s Law is dead, just not in the way everyone thinks. SiFive believes open source hardware is the way forward for the semiconductor industry. Technological advances keep allowing chips to scale, but the economics are another story – particularly for smaller companies that can’t afford chips in the volumes. The solution, according to San Francisco-based startup, SiFive, is open-source hardware, specifically an architecture developed by the company’s founders called RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”). Done right SiFive, which was awarded Startup of the Year at the 2016 Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards, believes that RISC-V will do for the hardware industry what Linux has done for software. For example 5th RISC-V Workshop Points to Growing Interest in the RISC-V Platform.
Sensors are hot in 2017. These tiny, powerful solutions are creating the interface between the analog and the digital world. Data is everywhere, and sensors are at the very heart of that. While no one really knows what technology’s next “killer application” will be, we are confident that any killer app will rely on sensors.Appliance autonomy promises to make life simpler, but this field has still lots of to improve even after year 2017.
Interface ICs will continue to help simplify high-bandwidth designs while making them more robust and reliable. Application areas that will benefit include automotive, communications, and industrial. Both wired and wireless interface solutions have plenty of applications.
Analog’s status is rising as more sensors and actuators are added into electronic devices, pressure is growing to more seamlessly move data seamlessly back and forth between analog and digital circuitry. IoT pushes up demand for analog content and need for communication between these two worlds will continue to grow. Analog and digital always have fit rather uncomfortably together, and that discomfort has grown as SoCs are built using smaller feature sizes. The demand for analog silicon has always existed in the embedded space, but the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing the demand for connected mixed-signal content. At 28nm and 16/14nm, standard “analog” IP includes a fair amount of digital content.
It seems that hardware designer is a disappearing resource and software is the king in 2017. It is becoming less and less relevant in what format the device is used in many applications. Card computers are standard products and are found in many different card formats that can be used in very many applications. Embedded development is changing to more and more coding. More software designers that understand some hardware are needed, but it is not easy to leap to move to the hardware to software.
The power electronics market is moving at very fast pace. Besides traditional industrial, renewable, and traction sectors, new applications such as energy-storage systems, micro-grids, and dc chargers are emerging. As the automotive world moves to electric vehicles, this creates challenges for IGBT and SiC-MOSFET ICs, and their associated gate drivers. New packages for high-voltage IGBTs and high-voltage SiC-MOSFETs are introduced.
More custom power distribution and higher voltages on data center computer systems in 2017. OpenRack and OpenCompute projects are increasing the distribution voltage inside the server itself. This approach, plus transitioning to new materials such as gallium nitride in the power-conversion systems, can reduce overall power consumption by 20% and increase server densities by 30-40%.”
Power Modules and Reference Designs will be looked at in 2017 even more than earlier in power electronics. The semiconductor and packaging technologies used in power modules have advanced considerably, and the industry is developing modules today that are denser, less expensive, and easier to use. Designers want to rely on power modules to speed up designs and optimize space using smaller, easy-to-use power modules. Module manufacturers hope that engineers will increasingly choose a module over a discrete design in many applications.
The bi-directional DC/DC converter has been around for a while, but new applications are quickly emerging which necessitate the use of this architecture in so many more systems. Battery back-up systems need bi-directional DC/DC converters. Applications today require better energy efficiency and such systems as green power with solar or wind generation, need storage so that when there is no wind or sun available the electricity flow is not interrupted.
Power supplies need to become more efficient. Both European Union’s (EU) Code of Conduct (CoC) Tier 1 and CoC Tier 2 efficiency standards are to be taken into use. The European Union’s CoC Tier 1 effectively harmonizes the EU with US DoE Level VI and became effective as a voluntary requirement from January 2014, two years ahead of Level VI. Its adoption as an EU Ecodesign rule is currently under review to become law with an implementation date of January 2017. The key difference between the CoC requirements and Level VI is the new 10% load measure, which imposes efficiency requirements under a low-load condition where historically most types of power supplies have been notoriously inefficient. CoC Tier 2 further tightens the no-load and active mode power consumption limits.
During 2016, wireless-power applications started to pick up across many fields in the semiconductor industry, and it will continue to do so. Wireless power will continue to gain traction with increased consumer demand. Hewlett Packard, Dell, jjPlus, and Witricity have already announced products based on Airfuel standards. And, products based upon the Qi standard will continue to grow at a rapid pace.
Other prediction articles:
In Power & Analog 2017 Forecast: What Experts Are Saying article representatives from major players in the semiconductor industry share their predictions for 2017 regarding power modules, wireless power, data converters, wireless sensing, and more.
Looking Ahead to 2017 article tells on to what SIA is focused on working with. “U.S. semiconductor technology should be viewed as a strategic national asset, and the Administration should take a holistic approach in adopting policies to strengthen this vital sector,” the letter says
Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2017 article collection has EDN and EE Times editors explore some of the hot technologies in 2017 that will shape next year’s technology trends and beyond.
1,115 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voltage-Divider IC Drops 48-V Input to 6 V for Power POL Regulators
http://www.powerelectronics.com/power-management/voltage-divider-ic-drops-48-v-input-6-v-power-pol-regulators?NL=ED-003&Issue=ED-003_20171025_ED-003_782&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=13718&utm_medium=email&elq2=4b58da4fbd804a62b1a995796ad18ec3
This high-efficiency IC with charge pumps and associated circuits reduces input voltage up to one-eighth while providing a 15-W drive for external point-of-load regulators.
Helix Semiconductors’ HS200 DC-DC MuxCapacitor Power IC is a new type of voltage divider that can play an integral role in a distributed power architecture (DPA) system. It provides a high-efficiency approach to reducing the input voltage while delivering a 15-W drive for external point-of-load (POL) converters. To see how the HS200 fits in a DPA system, we first need to look at a typical DPA system.
Current DPA systems use a bus converter to deliver an unregulated, stepped-down voltage of 9.6 to 14 V to power a POL (Fig. 1). This bus converter is ideal for a loosely regulated 12-V dc intermediate bus architecture that powers a variety of downstream non‑isolated, POL regulators. Both the bus converter and POL are well-suited for applications that use a 48-V (±10%) input bus.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Unveils New AI Group
No details on CPU, GPU, specialty cores
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332504&
A new machine learning group at ARM will create accelerator cores, blocks for its CPU and GPU cores and software to tie it all together. Exactly what the group will deliver and when remains under covers.
Analysts suggest ARM could be as much as three years behind products from rivals such as Cadence, Ceva and Synopsys. ARM counters it’s still early days for emerging markets where software is rapidly evolving, and lots of AI tasks are already running on its exiting cores.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin ASIC Maker Bets on AI
China chip designer targets neural nets
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332501&
A Beijing-based company that got its start designing ASICs for bitcoin mining announced it is sampling its first machine-learning accelerator. Bitmain Technologies’ BM1680 is optimized for both training and inference on deep neural networks.
The chip is sold in a fan-cooled module called the SC1. Bitman said it has been trained for Alexnet, Googlenet, VGG and Resnet neural networks and is compatible with Caffe, Darknet, Yolo and Yoto2 models as well.
Bitmain counts China’s big data center operators — Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent — among its top targets. It said it will also consider building its own machine-learning service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
With 450mm on Ice, 300mm Shoulders Heavier Load
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=40&doc_id=1332457&
With the semiconductor industry’s plans to transition to 450mm wafers on deep freeze, chipmakers are doubling down on 300mm fabs.
According to market research firm IC Insights, 300mm wafers represented about 64 percent of worldwide fab capacity at the end of last year. The firm expects that percentage to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8 percent between 2016 to 2021, rising to more than 71 percent.
There was a time when the industry was pushing for 450mm fabs to be in place by now, although many observers were skeptical. In recent years, momentum around 450mm has all but fizzled. The Global 450 Consortium (G450C) — a joint R&D program that involved Intel, TSMC, Globalfoundries, IBM, Samsung and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute — quietly finished the first phase of its work at the end of last year, with no date selected for beginning the next phase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple Talks About Sole Sourcing from TSMC
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332496
At its 30th anniversary celebration this week, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) hosted a forum of key customers including semiconductor CEOs and Apple chief operating officer Jeff Williams.
Williams provided a rare glimpse into TSMC’s role as the sole supplier of Apple’s A11 application processor and where he sees the electronics industry going in the next ten years.
From now to TSMC’s ramp up of 7nm process technology in 2018, TSMC will probably remain the sole source of application processors for Apple, according to independent analyst Andrew Lu, who writes reports for information provider Smartkarma.
At the 7nm+ node starting later in 2018, Samsung will be very competitive on technology and pricing, and TSMC may lose some of Apple’s business at that point, Lu said.
Samsung, TSMC’s main rival for Apple’s application processor business, probably walked away from the Apple A11 opportunity because it was unwilling to make the multibillion dollar capital investment needed to clinch the deal, according to another analyst with an investment bank who asked that his identity be withheld.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NXP to Bridge MCU & AP with ‘Crossovers’
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332492
To use an MCU or not (and to opt for an apps processor instead)? This is an eternal question for embedded system designers, and one that NXP Semiconductors hopes to answer by launching a new high-end MCU.
NXP believes that its ARM Cortex-M7-based processor, the i.MX RT series, will fill the cost and real-time deterministic operations gaps in applications processing. It will also solve issues microcontrollers have not yet been able to address — higher performance and richer user interfaces. NXP calls it a “crossover processor.”
Not everyone in the analyst community is entirely sold on this “crossover” idea, since the lines between MCUs and apps processors (AP) are already blurring.
But NXP is sticking by its concept.
More specifically, NXP’s crossover processor is “the highest performing ARM Cortex-M7 based device with real time operation and an applications processor-level of functionality,” according to the company. At 600MHz, it is 50 percent faster than any other Cortex-M7 product and more than twice as fast as existing Cortex-M4 products, the company said. The i.MX RT 1500 also offers an interrupt latency as low as 20 nanoseconds, which NXP claims as “the lowest among all ARM Cortex-based products in the world.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Car makers keep the cash flowing for the power semiconductors sector
https://www.electropages.com/2017/10/car-makers-keep-cash-flowing-power-semiconductors-sector/?utm_campaign=&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=article&utm_content=Car+makers+keep+the+cash+flowing+for+the+power+semiconductors+sector
Ask any manufacturer in the semiconductor business which market sector is their rock-solid banker, the one that not only ticks over year after year but steadily grows, and most will say automotive.
Back in the 1960s the value of electronics in cars represented a mere 3% of the total value of the vehicle. Today it’s just over 30% and is expected to hit approximately 47% in a dozen years. Not surprising then that chip makers love car makers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Investor Relations:
Intel beats Q3 estimates with $16.1B revenue, up 2% YoY, vs. $15.7B expected, as net income rises 34% YoY to $4.5B
http://s21.q4cdn.com/600692695/files/doc_events/Earnings/Q3-2017_EarningsRelease_Final.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toward System-Level Test
What’s working in test, what isn’t, and where the holes are.
https://semiengineering.com/toward-system-level-test/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Integrated Passives Market Gets Active
https://semiengineering.com/integrated-passive-devices-get-active-look/
IPDs take the place of discretes for mobile, IoT, wearables, and are gaining traction in advanced packaging.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evolution Of The MCU
https://semiengineering.com/evolution-of-the-mcu/
As selling prices plunge, microcontroller companies are looking for new ways to achieve economies of scale.
Rising complexity has been inducing MCU makers to move to the next process nodes, where more memory, connectivity and processing can be crammed into the same space. This is Moore’s Law applied to a different market, and for 32-bit MCUs the leading-edge node today is 40nm. Companies are working on 32/28nm versions, as well.
“The problem is that microcontroller companies develop dozens or even hundreds of SKUs (stock-keeping units), in part because the pins assigned to serial I/Os vary,” said Geoffrey Tate, CEO of Flex Logix. “Some are SPI (serial peripheral interface), some are UART (universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter). Or they provide all the hardware and bond out differently. But at 40nm, mask costs are going up, so dozens of variations cost a lot of money. It takes a certain number of look-up tables to program a serial I/O.”
One way around that is to add flexibility into the microcontroller itself with an embedded FPGA, so these devices can be programmed for a variety of markets rather than developing a new MCU for each application.
A third approach is to be more efficient with verification, reducing the amount of time needed on the back end of the MCU design flow.
“This is why Portable Stimulus is so interesting,” said Frank Schirrmeister, senior group director for product management and marketing for emulation, FPGA-based prototyping and hardware/software enablement at Cadence. “It makes it easier to understand. Some of these MCUs are growing up to be more system-like, so what some of the big microcontroller companies are doing is selling those designs with customized software development around it. That can be used to validate it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connectors: Not just schematic symbols
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/the-emc-blog/4458990/Connectors–Not-just-schematic-symbols
According to Brench, EMI is low on the priority list when it comes to high-speed system design. He listed typical design priorities:
Signal integrity
Manufacturing
Cost
EMI
Brench started by explaining that when data rates exceed 20 Gbps (10 GHz clocks), as they do at 28 Gbps NRZ and 56 Gbps PAM4 (14 GHz clocks), EMI became a problem because of the short wavelengths relative to connector size. Today’s backplane connectors designed to handle data rates of 56 Gbps have shields around each pair to minimize crosstalk. They are also made of lossy materials that absorb some radiated energy. “Plastics are not well behaved at high frequencies,” Brench noted. Thus, you can’t rely on them not to emit energy.
Connectors such as those in the SFP family have their own set of problems. They have active components such as transmitters and receivers. Their size can cover the wavelength of multiple bits. At frequencies over 5 GHz, a backplane connector can be one wavelength in size. Under those conditions, connectors become radiators
Even though the SFP family of connectors mount into shielded cages, they need EMI testing. “We have no control over what passes through the connectors,” said Brench. Unfortunately, frequencies in the range of 20 GHz to 30 GHz are in a transition area where enclosure shielding is no longer practical because of thermal issues. “When data rates exceed 30 Gbps,” noted Brench in a slide, “EMI must be considered in backplane connectors and measurement now go to 70 GHz. Connectors are no longer points on a schematic.”
Front-panel connectors such as SFP and its derivatives contain active components that are inherently radiators of RF energy. In addition, they generate heat that must be managed. To cool those components, connector designers add fins (Figure 2). Unfortunately, this kind of design also drives RF current that can result in radiated emissions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
STMicro Sees Growth Across the Board
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332523&
European chipmaker STMicroelectronics is on track to grow sales by 18 percent in 2017 after delivering third quarter results that included strong sales growth across all categories.
“All product groups recorded double-digit year-over-year revenue growth, driven by strong demand across all geographies in our focus application areas of Internet of Things, smartphones, industrial and smart driving,” said Carlo Bozotti, ST’s president and CEO.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automotive, IoT Continue to Boost Cypress
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332518&
Cypress Semiconductor continues its road trip away from low-margin, commoditized business with a third-quarter earnings report that it described as “stellar,” driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), the automotive market, and USB-C.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm’s NXP Buy May Slip to 2018
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332510&
Richard Clemmer, CEO of NXP Semiconductors, during the company’s third quarter financial results announcement, reversed a long-held position in conceding that Qualcomm’s $38 billion acquisition of NXP will not happen — as promised — this year.
The deal, Clemmer admitted, is likely to slip to “early 2018.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Lifts Sales Forecast After Strong Q3
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332511&
Intel raised its forecast for 2017 sales and profit after delivering third quarter results that topped Wall Street’s expectations.
Intel said it now expects sales for the year to total between $61.5 billion and $62.5 billion and earnings per share to be between $2.88 and $2.98 for the year. The company had earlier projected sales of between $60.8 billion and $61.8 billion with earnings per share of between $2.61 and $2.71.
Tomi Engdahl says:
19 Views of Arm Tech Con 2017
A look at the strange life beyond CMOS
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332527
ARM put software and security, out front at its annual conference here, but the event also was packed with hardware nuggets that ranged from talks by top foundries to demos of diverse customer SoCs.
ARM needs the fertilizer of its free Mbed software to grow its portfolio of processor IP into a big, safe marketplace. As a bonus, it hopes a paid-for servces business sprouts some day for delivering security patches and other updates over the Internet of Things.
Candidly, executives admit Mbed still lacks engagement from customers in vertical markets. So, it made sense the company to lead with that new foot at the event.
In silicon, ARM is an old hand. Fellow Greg Yeric painted a compelling picture in a closing keynote of semiconductors at a historic transition. It’s a good news/bad news story.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Handle Concurrency
https://semiengineering.com/how-to-handle-concurrency/
System complexity is skyrocketing, but tool support to handle concurrency and synchronization of heterogeneous systems remains limited.
The whole industry has been migrating to heterogeneous architectures over the past couple years because they are more efficient. They use less power, and there is less of an emphasis on putting blocks to sleep and waking them up.
“Homogeneous processing is not the answer,” says Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at ArterisIP. “That only does one thing well. You can have a chip with six or more different types of software acceleration and slice up the processing. But the key is what you do in hardware versus software.”
There are several levels to the problem. “We need to separate the true system architect from the SoC architect,” says Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. “The system architect is responsible for the whole thing including the software and has a wider pallet of choices than the chip architect. We see different choices being made from the chip people in system companies versus the chip people within semiconductor companies.”
This is because the semiconductor company has to build something that will service multiple customers and multiple system architects. “There is extra work to make the device more general purpose,” adds Wingard. “It may require a reduction in abstraction, a reduction in the pallet of choices that the chip architect has available to them so that they can look conventional to a larger group of people. The system architect in a systems company can target a very specific product or service. They can make more tradeoffs and they do not need to make it as general purpose.”
Each user is looking for different solutions. “In the beginning people needed simulation,” says Simon Davidmann, CEO of Imperas. “Then they needed support for heterogeneous systems, then they needed debug environments, and then they needed verification tools to help them improve the quality and get more confidence in its correctness. Today we are seeing them want tools that help confirm that a system is sort of secure.”
Execute and observe
The starting point for everything is an executable model. “One of the tools put in place to help system architects are virtual prototypes,”
The utility of the virtual prototype is to provide a platform for simulation and debug. “Eclipse or GDB work fine for single processor but when there are multiple, they are each in a separate window and they are not well controlled,” says Davidmann. “With symmetric multi-processing, GDB allows you to see threads, but there was no good way to control and debug when heterogeneous processing was added.”
Debug needs to span both the hardware and software. “The user interface of the system debugger needs to be connected into the HW debugger,”
System-level verification
Once it’s possible to execute the system mode, that needs to be migrated into a verification task. There are several ways to do that.
“You can add assertions into the system so you get a feel for how the operating system is running,”
But there are other views. “With anything involving performance or these types of analysis you don’t want the actual software to run,” says Schirrmeister. “You need to be a lot more targeted. At some point you may need to run actual software, but not to begin with. It is about effectively creating stimulus to get you into a stress situation for the software partitioning. Portable Stimulus (PS) is advancing scenario-driven verification so that you can create tests that stimulate software tasks on certain processors causing specific transactions, and you will see if the hardware reacts appropriately.”
The Portable Stimulus Working Group has been discussing a range of alternatives between these two extremes. “The Hardware Software Interface (HSI) layer will enable various abstractions of software to be substituted within a test,”
Conclusions
Most aspects of system design and verification remain ad-hoc. While there may only be a few people who make the decisions about partitioning of software and hardware, scheduling, synchronization, and architecture, the effects of those decisions are felt by a lot of people with few tools available to help them.
Relief is on the way, but the EDA industry has been burned repeatedly in this area and investment is tentative. The predominant approach is to find ways to address the ‘effect’ that design teams are facing and provide small extensions for architects to better understand the ‘cause’. This means it may take a long time for good tools to become available. Until that happens, simulation of virtual prototypes remains the core of the toolbox.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung posts record Q3 profits driven by chips
http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-posts-record-q3-profits-driven-by-chips/
A record performance from its memory business and a boost from the Galaxy Note 8 have seen Samsung post record quarterly profits for Q3 2017.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Additive Manufacturing Yields Optimized Antennas
http://www.mwrf.com/components/additive-manufacturing-yields-optimized-antennas?NL=MWRF-001&Issue=MWRF-001_20171031_MWRF-001_175&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=13802&utm_medium=email&elq2=8a9d3554866a4d9a934078e7d794f2f3
By designing RF/microwave antennas for production using 3D laser printers, size, time, cost, and complexity can be saved while gaining many performance benefits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor Sales Hit $108 Billion in Q3
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332540&
Global semiconductor sales topped $100 million in a quarter for the first time in the third quarter, reaching $107.9 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) trade group.
Third quarter sales were up more than 10 percent from the second quarter, which set the previous high-water mark for chip sales in a quarter with $97.9 billion, according to the SIA, which reports sales figures compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization, a group made up of more than 55 leading chip makers worldwide.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Higher DRAM Bit Growth Seen For 2018
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332543&
Tight DRAM supply conditions that have persisted all year long — resulting in a significant boom for suppliers — may come to an end in 2018, as Samsung Electronics ratchets up capacity to extend its lead over competitors and freeze new entrants from China out of the market, according to one market research firm.
DRAMexchange, a Taiwan-based firm that tracks memory chip pricing, is projecting that DRAM bit supply will grow by 22.5 percent in 2018, up from about 19.5 percent in 2017. The firm had predicted as recently as September that DRAM bit supply would grow by 19.6 percent next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Architectures Battle for Deep Learning
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332538&
Chip vendors implement new applications in CPUs. If the application is suitable for GPUs and DSPs, it may move to them next. Over time, companies develop ASICs and ASSPs. Is Deep learning is moving through the same sequence?
In the brief history of deep neural networks (DNNs), users have tried several hardware architectures to increase their performance. General-purpose CPUs are the easiest to program but are the least efficient in performance per watt. GPUs are optimized for parallel floating-point computation and provide several times better performance than CPUs. As GPU vendors discovered a sizable new customer base, they began to enhance their designs to further improve DNN throughput. For example, Nvidia’s new Volta architecture adds dedicated matrix-multiply units, accelerating a common DNN operation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global Robot Sensor Market to Expand 50% by 2022
Growth in robotics is pumping up the sensor market.
https://www.designnews.com/iot/global-robot-sensor-market-expand-50-2022/5663698457730?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1837&elq_cid=876648
Tomi Engdahl says:
A more effective mosfet with diamond
The international research team has created the concept of a diamond sphere using a deep drainage line to enhance the mobility of positive carriers. More efficient power components are now being sought for the wideband gap semiconductors. As they are considerably more energy efficient, they have emerged as leading competitors in developing field effect transistor (FET) for the next-generation power electronics.
More efficient power components are now searched for the wide bandwidth (WBG) semiconductors. They are considerably more energy efficient than before. They have emerged as leading solutions for developing field effect transistor (FET) for the next-generation power electronics.
Diamond is known as the most ideal material in the development of a broad bandwidth due to its overwhelming physical properties that enable structures to work at higher temperatures, voltages and frequencies, and smaller semiconductor losses.
The international research team has created a competing diamond smith concept for FET electronics. It uses a deep drainage line to enhance the mobility of positive carriers. Scientists plan to create new structures in their start-up company.
Sources:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2017/11/01/timanteista-tehomosfetti/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Chip Sales Hit New High
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332536&
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics nearly tripled its third-quarter profit, largely on the strength of $17.8 billion in chip sales, a company record for any quarter.
Growth in semiconductor profit offset profit sequential declines in Samsung’s mobile handset and display businesses.
The semiconductor business accounted for $8.9 billion of Samsung’s $12.9 billion in profit, as sales of memory chips enjoyed widespread strength across all applications, especially high-performance memory chipsets for servers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Winbond Bolsters Flash Security
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332528&
The proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) has spawned numerous security and privacy challenges, prompting the development of more secure memories — particularly flash.
Winbond Electronics last week announced it was meeting these challenges with the expansion of its TrustME Secure Flash products portfolio based on the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Device Identifier Composition Engine (DICE) Architecture specification, which defines new security and privacy technologies applicable to systems and components. The goal is to provide new approaches to enhancing security and privacy with minimal silicon requirements.
The company also announced an expansion of its TrustMETM Secure Flash products portfolio aligned with Platform Security Architecture (PSA) from Arm. Winbond’s TrustMETMW75F Secure Flash provides designers with secure memory solution for IoT, mobile, artificial intelligence, and other demanding applications that call for a secure root of trust, privacy, authentication, code and data confidentiality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Graphene Biosensors are Extra Quiet
https://hackaday.com/2017/10/31/graphene-biosensors-are-extra-quiet/
Graphene has attracted enormous interest for electrically detecting chemical and biological materials. However, because the super material doesn’t act like a normal semiconductor, transistors require multiple layers of the material, and that’s bad for 1/f noise especially when the transistors operate at maximum transconductance. Researchers have found a way to operate graphene transistors at a neutral point, significantly reducing 1/f noise while not impacting the sensor’s response.
The team created a proof-of concept sensor that could detect an HIV-related DNA hybridization. The sensor was able to detect very tiny concentrations of the material.
Biosensing near the neutrality point of graphene
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/10/e1701247.full
Tomi Engdahl says:
Synopsys to Pay $565 Million for Security Software Firm
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332553&
EDA and IP vendor Synopsys said it would pay about $565 million to acquire Black Duck Software, a Massachusetts-based provider of technology for securing and managing open source software.
Synopsys (Mountain View, Calif.) said the move would broaden its product offering and expand its customer reach in the software security market.
“Development processes continue to evolve and accelerate, and the addition of Black Duck will strengthen our ability to push security and quality testing throughout the software development lifecycle, reducing risk for our customers,” said Andreas Kuehlmann, senior vice president and general manager of Synopsys’ Software Integrity Group, in a press statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Calif. Fires Destroy HP Archive Documents
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332537&
The California Wine Country fires that have destroyed many homes and taken lives have left their mark on the test industry and electrical engineering, having destroyed many of Bill Hewlett’s and Dave Packard’s documents. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported the loss on October 30. Keysight Technologies, the heir to Bill and Dave’s test-and-measurement legacy and keeper of the HP archives, confirmed the loss in an e-mail to EE Times.
Tomi Engdahl says:
19 Views of Arm Tech Con 2017
A look at the strange life beyond CMOS
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332527
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mergers and Acquisitions: Broadcom, Qualcomm, and One Hundred Billion Dollars
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/05/mergers-and-acquisitions-broadcom-qualcomm-and-one-hundred-billion-dollars/
Rumors have been circulating this last weekend of the largest semiconductor acquisition ever. Broadcom might buy Qualcomm for the princely sum of one hundred Billion dollars.
You will most likely be familiar with both Qualcomm and Broadcom for their wireless and cellphone chipsets. As far as the Maker community is concerned, Broadcom makes the chipset for the Raspberry Pi, but in the context of a two hundred Billion dollar company, a ‘maker’ focused Linux dev board is the equivalent of a rounding error on a balance sheet.
This news comes a little more than a year after the announcement that Qualcomm is snatching up NXP
This proposed deal follows several other semiconductor mergers and acquisitions including NXP and Freescale, Intel and Altera, Avago and Broadcom, On Semiconductor and Fairchild, and the one we’re most befuddled with, Atmel and Microchip. Why are these companies merging? Because they’re sitting on mountains of cash.
Broadcom plans record tech deal with Qualcomm bid: sources
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-m-a-broadcom/broadcom-plans-record-tech-deal-with-qualcomm-bid-sources-idUKKBN1D324K
(Reuters) – Communications chipmaker Broadcom Ltd (AVGO.O) is planning to unveil a bid for smartphone chip supplier Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) by Monday, three sources familiar with the matter said on Friday, an attempt to create a roughly $200-billion company through the biggest technology acquisition ever.
A tie-up would combine two of the largest makers of wireless communications chips for mobile phones and raises the stakes for Intel Corp (INTC.O), which has been diversifying into smartphone technology from its stronghold in computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: Manufacturing
https://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-manufacturing-179/
Bloomberg has reported that Broadcom is in talks to acquire Qualcomm for $70 per share or about $90 billion. Qualcomm is attempting to acquire NXP, but Broadcom has its sights on Qualcomm, not NXP.
Samsung continues to reshuffle its management amid a plethora of changes at the company
United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) has announced that its 300mm fab in Xiamen, China has gained LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold recognition from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Andes Technology, a supplier of embedded processor intellectual property (IP), is the latest company to adopt GlobalFoundries’ 22nm FD-SOI technology.
What ever happened to the long-awaited smartphone or tablet that was supposed to incorporate a foldable display?
The technology was promised for years. Samsung, Apple and others have been developing folding-display smartphone designs. “The major stumbling block has been the durability of the display and its ability to fold and unfold thousands of times without damage,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom to Moves Headquarters to U.S.
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332552&
Chip maker Broadcom said it would initiate a structural change to shift the company’s location where it is based from Singapore to the U.S., pending shareholder approval.
Hock Tan, Broadcom’s president and CEO, credited a corporate tax reform plan being advanced by Republican lawmakers with making the U.S. a more competitive nation for multinationals to set up shop. But Broadcom said it would make the move even if no corporate tax reform comes to fruition.
“We expect the tax reform plan effectively to level the playing field for large multinational corporations headquartered in the United States and to allow us to go all in on U.S. redomiciliation,” Tan said, in a press statement.
Broadcom, Qualcomm Groked
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332555&
What would Hock Tan do with Qualcomm – and maybe even NXP – if the acquisition-prone CEO could gobble them both. Here are some thoughts.
The still-new Broadcom may strike a deal this weekend to acquire Qualcomm according to Reuters which cites three sources and the Wall Street Journal which cites one. There are plenty of good reasons why this may never happen, but for the sake of argument let’s say it does.
The first thing Hock Tan would do is put up for sale Qualcomm Technology Licensing, owner of the largest patent portfolio in wireless. That would not help recoup some the estimated $100 billion costs of the deal and could effectively end a slew of patent infringement cases with Apple as well as antitrust actions around the planet.
Think different. Apple might even buy those Qualcomm patents, or some of them, as part of burying the hatchet. Hungry activist shareholders who have been pressuring Qualcomm to divest its patent business would declare a holiday.
The next step is obvious. Peace declared with Apple could mean the beginning of the end of the fledgling cellular modem business for Intel and Mediatek. Meanwhile Tan’s pride over Avago’s strength in RF front ends might require the sale of RF360, the Qualcomm/TDK joint venture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor IPOs Back in Vogue
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332558&
Comms IC vendor Aquantia’s stock rose nearly 6 percent on the long-awaited day of its initial public offering, the latest in a string of resurgence for IPOs in the semiconductor sector.
Aquantia’s stock closed at $9.51 on its first day of trading Nov. 3, after opening at $9. Faraj Aalaei, Aquantia’s chairman, president and CEO, said the company views the IPO as a great success, though he added that it was early. “You really can’t judge an IPO by what happens on the first day, he told EE Times in an interview.
The path to an IPO, once considered the ideal end game for semiconductor startups, has been much difficult to navigate in the semiconductor industry in recent years, as stock markets and investors have generally been drawn to software firms that are less capital intensive and can offer a faster and larger return on investment.
However, startup activity has picked up in the semiconductor space. According to a Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) report, there were eight semiconductor IPOs in the second quarter of 2010, the most of any quarter since 2010. Of these eight chips IPOs, five were Chinese firms, according to the report.
Aquantia, which derives the bulk of its revenue from major customers Intel and Cisco Systems, has long been considered a promising candidate for IPO. Rumors of the company’s impending IPO have been circulating for years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Graphene enables high-speed electronics on flexible materials
http://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/mc2/news/Pages/Graphene-enables-high-speed-electronics-on-flexible-materials.aspx
A flexible detector for terahertz frequencies has been developed by Chalmers researchers using graphene transistors on plastic substrates. It is the first of its kind, and can extend the use of terahertz technology to applications that will require flexible electronics, such as wireless sensor networks and wearable technology. The results are published in the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters.
The detector has unique features. At room temperature, it detects signals in the frequency range 330 to 500 gigahertz. It is translucent and flexible, and opens to a variety of applications. The technique can be used for imaging in the terahertz area (THz camera), but also for identifying different substances (sensor). It may also be of potential benefit in health care, where terahertz waves can be used to detect cancer. Other areas where the detector could be used are imaging sensors for vehicles or for wireless communications.
FLEXIBLE TERAHERTZ DETECTOR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6gKWKUG5HU&feature=youtu.be
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ted Greenwald / Wall Street Journal:
Source: Intel and AMD are teaming up for a new laptop chip that combines an Intel processor and an AMD graphics unit, in a bid to compete with Nvidia
Rivals Intel and AMD Team Up on PC Chips to Battle Nvidia
New laptop-computer chip will combine an Intel processor and an AMD graphics unit
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rivals-intel-and-amd-team-up-on-pc-chips-to-battle-nvidia-1509966064
Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., archrivals for decades, are teaming up to thwart a common competitor, Nvidia Corp.
Intel planned to announce Monday a laptop-computer chip that combines an Intel processor and an AMD graphics unit
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Broadcom offers $105B to buy Qualcomm for $70/share, a 28% premium to Qualcomm’s closing price on Thursday, in deal valued at ~$130B including $25B of net debt — Broadcom is proposing to buy Qualcomm for $70 per share in a cash and stock deal valued at $130 billion, Bloomberg News reports.
Broadcom Offers $105 Billion for Qualcomm in Landmark Deal
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/broadcom-offers-130-billion-for-qualcomm-in-landmark-tech-deal
Offer stands regardless of outcome for Qualcomm’s NXP offer
Combination would make Broadcom the third-biggest chipmaker
Broadcom Ltd. offered about $105 billion for Qualcomm Inc., kicking off an ambitious attempt at the largest technology takeover ever in a deal that would rock the electronics industry.
Buying Qualcomm would make Broadcom the third-largest chipmaker, behind Intel Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. The combined business would instantly become the default provider of a set of components needed to build each of the more than a billion smartphones sold every year. The deal would dwarf Dell Inc.’s $67 billion acquisition of EMC in 2015 — then the biggest in the technology industry.
The bid values Qualcomm at about 21.2 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, compared with a median multiple of 22.5 for similar deals in the industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Qualcomm’s most profitable unit, which licenses mobile phone technology, is under assault from regulatory actions around the world and a legal challenge from Apple Inc.
“The deal makes a lot of sense,” Romit Shah, an analyst at Instinet, said on Bloomberg Television. “Broadcom would be getting $30 billion in revenue, and it would be very strategic. Both companies have a significant presence in smartphones.”
In a widely broadcast announcement Thursday with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Tan said he will move Broadcom’s headquarters to the U.S.
The move was largely symbolic: Broadcom already lists San Jose, California, as a corporate co-headquarters. But analysts said the domicile change would make it easier for Broadcom to launch deals from the U.S. and complete its $5.9 billion takeover of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. Announced last November
In the statement Monday, Broadcom said its offer stands whether Qualcomm’s pending acquisition of NXP is closed under the current terms of $110 per NXP share, or if the transaction is terminated.
Despite both chiefs’ political maneuvering, a Broadcom-Qualcomm tie-up may face intense regulatory scrutiny. The two companies are independently among the top 10 providers of chips in an industry that’s consolidating rapidly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semiconductor IPOs Back in Vogue
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332558&
Comms IC vendor Aquantia’s stock rose nearly 6 percent on the long-awaited day of its initial public offering, the latest in a string of resurgence for IPOs in the semiconductor sector.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chiplets Gaining Steam
https://semiengineering.com/chiplets-gaining-steam/
Hard IP could reduce time and cost for heterogeneous designs, but there are still challenges to solve.
Building chips from pre-verified chiplets is beginning to gain traction as a way of cutting costs and reducing time to market for heterogeneous designs.
The chiplet concept has been on the drawing board for some time, but it has been viewed more as a possible future direction than a necessary solution. That perception is beginning to change as complexity rises, particularly at advanced nodes, and as new markets open up that require semi-customized solutions.
This approach also could help re-populate the industry with startups, where mask costs at 10/7nm are well beyond the reach of small companies. Startups always have been a driver of innovation, but the number of new companies has dwindled as capitalization requirements rise. And with more chipmakers demanding that IP be silicon-proven, the number of startups has plummeted.
That could change in the near future, particularly as the U.S. Department of Defense’s DARPA branch rolls out its Common Heterogeneous Integration and IP Reuse Strategies (CHIPS) program. DARPA’s plan is to bring various IP blocks, subsystems, or even chips together on an interposer in a 2.5D-like package.
https://semiengineering.com/darpa-chips-program-pushes-for-chiplets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins tear into IEEE’s tissue-thin anti-hacker chip blueprint crypto
This kind of security should keep the likes of the NSA and pirates out, but doesn’t
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/07/ieee_p1735_chip_design_insecurity/
Several large gaps have been found in the IEEE’s P1735 cryptography standard that can be exploited to unlock or tamper with encrypted system-on-chip blueprints.
The P1735 scheme was designed so that chip designers could, ideally, shield their intellectual property from prying eyes.
When you’re creating a system-on-chip processor, you typically won’t want to craft it completely from scratch. You’ll most likely license various complex pieces – such as video encoders and decoders, wireless communications electronics, and USB controllers – and slot them onto your final die design alongside your own logic and CPU cores.
These licensed components are quite valuable to their designers, though. As such they’ll want to protect them from being reverse engineered and cloned to be used for free by pirates. As such, the IEEE developed P1735, a standard for encrypting hardware designs to keep them confidential throughout the manufacturing process. This requires you use P1735-compliant engineering software to import the ciphered blocks and integrate them with your own logic before taping out your chip.
However, according to a team at the University of Florida in the US this month, the standard is broken and potentially dangerous. It is possible to decrypt blueprints protected by P1735, and alter them to inject hidden malware.
“We find a surprising number of cryptographic mistakes in the standard,” the research crew said.
https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/11/06/ieeep1735.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Deal to Create Chip Giant Faces Long Odds
https://www.wired.com/story/qualcomm-deal-to-create-chip-giant-faces-long-odds/
Last week Hock Tan, CEO of the chipmaker Broadcom, joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office for a major announcement: the company would move its headquarters from Singapore to the US.
That turned out to be a prequel to an even bigger announcement Monday: Broadcom offered to pay $105 billion for fellow chip giant Qualcomm.
It’s not hard to see why Tan is trying to get chummy with Trump. He’s going to need help to get this longshot bid approved. The acquisition would be the biggest in tech history, dwarfing Dell’s $67 billion acquisition of EMC in 2015. Qualcomm will likely reject the offer, at least initially, though the company pledged Monday to “assess the proposal.” If the companies reach a deal, it is certain to face antitrust scrutiny not just in the US, but around the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Indictment: Capacitor Prices Kept Artificially High
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332565&
Eight capacitor manufacturers have been charged with fixing to increase and maintain high prices, reports EBN.
Earlier this year, I replaced two failed aluminum electrolytic capacitors in a computer monitor power supply. The caps cost $1.07 each at my local electronics store. Yes, I could have acquired the 1,000-µF, 16-V caps for less online, but we’re only talking pennies here, and I wanted to get the caps right away.
EBN reported that Nippon Chemi-Con of Japan has pleaded guilty to an indictment that the company conspired with others to raise prices and keep them high. Seven other companies, including Hitachi Chemical, NEC Tokin, Rubycon, Elna, Tomohide Date, and Holy Stone Holdings, have also been charged. According to EBN, the companies “conspired to suppress and eliminate competition for electrolytic capacitors from as early as September 1997 until January 2014.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ON Semi Joins MCU Benchmarking Consortium
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332569&
ON Semiconductor threw its weight behind a standards group developing benchmarks for ultra-low power microcontrollers and edge-node device for the Internet of Things (IoT).
ON Semi (Phoenix) announced Tuesday (Nov. 7) it joined the low-power subcommittee of EEMBC, the Embedded Microcontroller Benchmark Consortium. The committee is comprised of the IoTConnect work group and ULPMark work group.
IoTConnect has already produced its initial benchmark, IoTMark-BLE, which tests the efficiency of microcontrollers and Bluetooth radios, according to EEMBC. ULPMark has produced a combination of benchmarks that target the efficiency of microcontroller cores and peripherals, results of which can be found online, the organization said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stretchy Optical Fiber Captures Body Motion to Replace Sensors
https://www.designnews.com/materials-assembly/stretchy-optical-fiber-captures-body-motion-replace-sensors/180986203657759?ADTRK=UBM&elq_mid=1925&elq_cid=876648
Researchers in China have become the first to develop optical fiber that can sense a wide range of motion, paving the way for a strain-sensing fabric for sensing that can replace individual sensors in wearable tech and robots.
To stretch the fundamental limits of optical fiber—literally—Yang and the team fabricated a highly flexible and stretchable polymer optical fiber using PDMS, a soft and stretchable material commonly used for stretchable electronics. PDMS has a number of advantages for this application, in that it is thermally stable, chemically inert, and most importantly highly transparent in a wide spectral range, he said.
“In our previous work, we also demonstrated a highly stretchable and implantable hydrogel optical fiber that can hold strains up to 700 percent,” Yang explained. “However, as hydrogels are polymer networks infiltrated with water, the fiber can only be used in wet environments. When exposed to air, the drying of the fiber suffered from volume shrinkage and structural damage.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
China is gleaning know-how from US firms for its ambitious “Made in China 2025” program to dominate high-end tech, in an effort that is worrying Washington
China’s Technology Ambitions Could Upset the Global Trade Order
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/made-in-china-technology-trade.html
When President Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday, he will most likely complain about traditional areas of dispute like steel and cars. But Washington officials and major global companies increasingly worry about a new generation of deals that could give China a firmer grip on the technology of tomorrow.
Under an ambitious plan unveiled two years ago called Made in China 2025, Beijing has designs to dominate cutting-edge technologies like advanced microchips, artificial intelligence and electric cars, among many others, in a decade. And China is enlisting some of the world’s biggest technology players in its push.
Sometimes it demands partnerships or intellectual property as the price of admission to the world’s second-largest economy. Sometimes it woos foreign giants with money and market access in ways that elude American and global trade rules.
When concerned officials in Washington began blocking China’s ability to buy high-end technology last year, one American company found a way to help its Chinese partner around those limits. The company, Advanced Micro Devices, avoided scrutiny by licensing its exclusive microchip designs, rather than selling them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIPS: Underdog or Dead Horse?
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332351&
MIPS still has a revenue stream. It’s got multi-threading ARM doesn’t have. To think of the semiconductor industry losing the only legitimate alternative CPU IP to ARM would be “a real shame,” some say.
Imagination Technologies’ announcements last week — selling itself to Canyon Bridge while agreeing to sell its MIPS CPU business to Tallwood Venture Capital — have some industry observers scratching their heads.
Mike Demler, senior analyst at the Linley Group, summed up the general sentiment: MIPS “is an OLD CPU architecture.”
My colleague Rick Merritt also observed, “MIPS doesn’t have much of an ecosystem. These days, it’s all ARM and x86.”
First, I wondered if things might be a little different in China.
When I asked how MIPS is doing there lately, one of my colleagues at EE Times China in Shenzhen described MIPS cores as “not the mainstream.” She acknowledged that Chinese fabless chip vendors like BLX IC Design Corp. (Loongson), Action and Ingenic are still in MIPSers. But she sees the MIPS ecosystem in China as limited to a small circle of companies.
The proliferation of ARM-based reference designs has made it easy for Chinese design engineers to go with ARM. “There are too many success stories” starring ARM, she added.
MIPS lacks market momentum, to put it mildly.
In late 2012, when Ceva and Imagination Technologies were in a bidding war over MIPS, many industry types wondered what Imagination could possibly do with MIPS, a loss-making business worth maybe $60 million in annual revenue.
Whither MIPS?
So here we are, still wondering: “Whither MIPS?”
So I asked around: Does anyone even want MIPS anymore?
The Linley Group’s Demler noted that there’s “still a revenue stream, so that’s worth something.”
Indeed, some MIPS customers today include stalwarts like Mobileye (now owned by Intel) in automotive and Cavium and Broadcom in networking.
Apparently, MIPS is also going into high-volume smartphone modems. Just last month, Imagination revealed that MediaTek has adopted “multi-threaded MIPS I-class CPUs for smartphone LTE modems.” The first device from MediaTek featuring MIPS technology is the new flagship MT6799 Helio X30 processor, with MIPS in its Cat-10 LTE modem, it said.
While MIPS definitely has a “brand” problem and it’s clear the business has been mismanaged
In the future, though, Demler predicted, “Mobileye is likely to replace MIPS.” He is of an opinion that “the [MIPS] architecture has steadily lost market share to ARM and ARC.” But as Demler said, “There’s always a buyer somewhere, even in a fire sale.”
Asked about the value of MIPS today, one industry source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told us, “There’s still a team of 200+ engineers developing CPU technologies, some of which are even more advanced than what ARM can offer — e.g. multithreading.”
Citing Mediatek’s recent decision to use MIPS instead of ARM in its modem, he stressed, “ARM is in the modem by default, not for any particular suitability or technological advantage. The apps processor is where ARM has the real advantage, as all of Google Android is built on it, so you avoid this area completely.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA Newsroom:
Nvidia beats with Q3 revenue of $2.64B, up 32% YoY, vs $2.36B expected; net income of $838M, up 55% YoY; company expects ~$2.65B in Q4 revenue
NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter Fiscal 2018
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-third-quarter-fiscal-2018
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) today reported record revenue for the third quarter ended October 29, 2017, of $2.64 billion, up 32 percent from $2.00 billion a year earlier, and up 18 percent from $2.23 billion in the previous quarter, with growth across all its platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did Apple Make Intel and AMD Play Nice?
https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=40&doc_id=1332588&
Apple’s fingerprints may or may not be all over the collaboration between ancient rivals in the microprocessor market.
Hell has frozen over. Pigs have flown, and dogs and cats are living together. Broadcom is trying to buy Qualcomm, and Intel is marketing a multi-chip package that combines its processor and with a discrete graphics chip from AMD.
The Broadcom-Qualcomm thing can best be explained by Hock Tan’s quest for world domination. Tan told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week: “When a business in No. 1 in technology and No. 1 in market position, we acquire it and put it on our Broadcom platform and grow through that strategy.” Sounds reasonable. But it’s really hard to see this deal coming to pass for a number of reasons.
As for the Intel-AMD alliance, that might be even more interesting, particularly given that just days after the announcement came word that Intel had hired away AMD’s graphics chip head to give developing a discrete graphics competitor to AMD and Nvidia a third try. Intel may have shown that it’s willing to step away from the “not invented here” dogma, but when push comes to shove it would really prefer it to be invented there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mixed Messages For Mixed-Signal
https://semiengineering.com/mixed-messages-for-mixed-signal/
What does the future of analog mixed-signal design and verification look like? Can we expect to see any methodology changes?
There is no such thing as a purely digital design at advanced nodes today. Even designs that have no analog content are likely relying on mixed-signal components such as SerDes for communications, or voltage regulators for adaptive power control. But the days of purposely attempting to integrate everything including analog and RF onto a single die may be coming to an end for many segments of the industry.
At the latest nodes, transistors do not have very good operating characteristics because analog devices and scaling have had a negative impact on their performance. Scaling also has dramatically increased the difficulty of analog design. Alternatives are becoming available for designs with sufficient volume, or those which are price-insensitive, such as 2.5D assemblies.
But new markets are popping up that are not so concerned with the latest nodes, and within those markets mixed-signal users are emerging that may require different types of tooling.