Tag: semiconductor

Semiconductor supply crunch could stop sales growth

Posted on June 9, 2021 by - News

The Network Security and Data Centre Appliance market experienced robust growth as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to loosen its grip, but the ongoing semiconductor supply crunch has also ensnared the Network Security and Data Center Appliance market, according to a new report.

According to a recently published report from Dell’Oro while the worst of the pandemic appears behind us, the world is now tracking the effects of the chip crunch

Dell’Oro Network Security and Data Center Appliances Research Director Mauricio Sanchez said this quarter’s growth reflects increasing enterprise confidence and the need to invest in critical network-based security technologies.

“We estimate an impact of $300 million in 1Q 2021 caused by some product lead times tripling to eighteen weeks.”

 

IBM pays Globalfoundries $1.5 billion to cut losses

Posted on October 20, 2014 by - News

IBM Not Servers Not SemisUpdate: IBM advised late Sunday that it will be making “a major business announcement” Monday morning along with its’ third-quarter results according to Bloomberg News.

This comes as no surprise to industry watchers. Sanjay Jah, CEO of Globalfoundries Inc. is well known as a shrewd negotiator – fees for taking over IBM’s semi ops were reported as high as $2 Billion.

IBM is shedding the company’s brick and mortar structure piece by piece to facilitate what the company sees as its new destiny. Commoditisation of semiconductor and hardware server content is seen as the motivation.

Margins in both businesses have decreased to the point where economies of scale must come into play – requiring ever-larger investments with ever decreasing margins draining capital away from the company’s core business strategy.

IBM announced that it is investing $3 Billion over five years on semiconductor research in a move to reassure its customer base that the company is continuing basic research to advance hardware and software technology indicating that the company will still be supporting high end research.

What’s not clear at this time:

  • Number of people affected
  • Timeframe
  • Whether all semiconductor operations are included
  • Power PC
  • Intellectual Property
  • Operating charges

We’ll be following up on details as they become available.

Update:

In a statement made this morning IBM will pay Globalfoundries Inc. $1.5 billion over the next three years to take over the company’s loss ridden semiconductor operation.

Globalfoundries will become IBM’s exclusive server processor foundry for 22nm, 14nm and 10 nm server and Power processors for the next decade.

IBM will take a third-quarter pretax charge of $4.7 billion.

 Job Retention

Globalfoundries will offer jobs to those affected in East Fishkill, New York and Essex Junction, Vermont. Workers at IBM’s commercial microelectronics business are also included in the offer.

Globalfoundries will gain access to IBM intellectual property and technologies related to IBM Microelectronics under the 10 year partnership agreement – making the foundry one of the largest semiconductor IP portfolios holders in the world.

 Trusted Foundry

The U.S. Government has used IBM as a supplier as a “trusted foundry” supplier for decades. Globalfoundries is privately owned by United Arab Emirates company called Advanced Technology Investment Company, or ATIC, a subsidiary of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

There’s speculative agreement that Intel is the most likely candidate to take over the “trusted foundry” business from IBM.

Semiconductor market to grow three percent

Posted on September 13, 2013 by - News

silicon-waferThe worldwide semiconductor market is expected to grow 3 percent this year. The market has been seeing sequential growth for several consecutive quarters and most vendors believe they will end the year on a positive note, just barely.

“It has been a tough few years for the semiconductor industry. While we haven’t seen a dramatic decline in overall revenues since the 2008/2009 period the market has been pretty stagnant since 2010,” comments Peter Cooney, practice director. “We will see some growth in 2013 as the wider economic environment improves but major market growth is not expected until later in 2014, early 2015.”

The year will be remembered for several major mergers and acquisitions rather than record growth. Fujitsu and Panasonic semicon divisions are merging and Micron has scooped up Elpida. Intel has strengthened its portfolio with the ST-Ericsson GPU unit merger, while Broadcom bought Renesas Mobile’s LTE assets.

ABI Research noted that consolidation in the industry should come as no surprise, as chipmakers are forced to deal with far stiffer competition and lower margins.

“Margins are falling and the competitive environment is tough—especially in the mobile device market—this is driving vendors to re-evaluate their overall strategy and pull out of some of their once major markets. We have seen a number of major vendors exit the mobile device market – Freescale, TI, STMicroelectronics, and Renesas and we expect there are more to come,” said Cooney.

 

Semicon market shows signs of life

Posted on August 30, 2013 by - News

silicon-waferThe global semiconductor market appears to be recovering. According to Semiconductor Intelligence, the market was up 6 percent sequentially in the second quarter, which was the best result in two years. What’s more, the firm now expects to see six percent growth on an annual basis.

However, forecasts for 2014 are a mixed bag. Semiconductor Intelligence expects 15 percent of growth, while IDC sees only 2.9 percent and there are a few other outfits in the middle. The average forecast is 9.4 percent, reports Digitimes.

Guidance greatly varies from vendor to vendor. AMD is expecting 22 percent growth thanks to new design wins, we are guessing console custom chips. STMicroelectronics hopes to stay flat, but excluding wireless ST expects 3.5 percent growth. Samsung is not saying much, although it expects growth for DRAM, NAND and image sensors. Micron has not provided guidance either.

Semiconductor Intelligence expects much of the growth in the semiconductor market next year will be generated as a result of the improving global economy. However, the economy is still volatile and the same is true of the tech industry.

The real problem is that much of the growth appears to be coming from SoCs and memory, rather than big processors which tend to carry the highest margins.

Chip sales rebound in May

Posted on June 28, 2013 by - News

nand-chipsChip sales in May are expected to amount to $23.9 billion, up from 23.5 billion in April, according to a note from the Carnegie Investment Bank.

Although PC sales remain weak, the launch of several new smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, helped chip sales bounce back. Prices for memory chips have also gone up, contributing to the overall figures.

However, looking at the whole year, Carnegie expects semicon sales to fall one percent. May seems to have been an exception, as sales were boosted by external factors and seasonal trends. Korean and Taiwanese chip exports jumped in May, but much of the rise in Korea was attributed to rising prices for memory chips.

Smartphone exports were also up, although Apple’s numbers did not improve as the iPhone 5 is ageing and it’s due to be replaced soon. The Chinese handset market was up as well, and the Q2 guidance is looking strong as well.

However, US imports were weak in March and April, indicating that the PC market will remain volatile. There were some exceptions. Imports of US telecom equipment were up, while imports of computer accessories were down.

As a result, US retail sales in tech categories did not show much growth and they appear to have been hit by internet sales. The same pattern is visible in parts of Europe.

Avnet and Macronix sign pan European deal

Posted on May 28, 2013 by - News

avnettsAvnet Memec has signed a pan-European agreement with Macronix.

The distie has agreed to help Macronix bring NOR, NAND and ROM technology to its customers across Europe at the earliest stage of their design.

According to Avnet, adding Macronix’ Flash memory products its portfolio will add depth to its line-card and service offering, while the semiconductor company said that the support by its new pal would help it reach those customers early in their design cycle.

Macronix Flash memory devices are available now from Avnet Memec and to help customers select the correct device for their application datasheets and support documentation is available from Macronix.com.

EC and FH talk 450mm production

Posted on May 1, 2013 by - News

georgiefameNot having a 450mm production infrastructure in Europe will “threaten the competitiveness of the current European SC manufacturing base” a study has found.

The report commissioned by the European Commission and prepared in partnership with Future Horizons focused on the impact of 450mm manufacturing. It found that European suppliers contribute nearly 25 percent of the equipment used in chip manufacturing today and the transition to 450mm wafer processing may have a significant impact on their competitiveness.

European research consortiums are developing 450mm funding and development plans.  In July at SEMICON West, imec announced, the Flemish government’s plans to invest in the building of imec’s 450mm clean room facilities. However the report said how much of this further investment was targeted for 450mm remained unclear.

It warned that with G450C developed based in New York and funded partly by the government, there was a currently limited role of European consortia in 450 R&D, and with high volume manufacturing targeted by US and Asia-based manufacturers, a move to 450 could negatively impact EU-based suppliers.

It said in a bid to maximise impact and benefits for the industry, a shared programme coordinating the leading European R&D institutes activities could be envisaged to secure the equipment and material industry in Europe.

The pair also put forward a master plan, which they said would show both a strong industrial commitment and a coordinated position to leverage the required funding, avoid duplication and concentrate the funding where needed.

The master plan would also be charged with coordination with the Global 450 Consortium (G450C) and be open international participation.

“Failure to support a strong European role in next generation chip manufacturing would lead to a continuous decline in SC production activities in Europe and a progressive shift of the equipment  and  material industry outside Europe”, it warned.

The report also highlighted that a creation of a 450 pilot line in Europe would benefit the industry. It claimed that it could start in the short term with a five-year programme to urgently set up the 450E pilot line in Europe to support the transition of the European equipment and material suppliers to 450mm and coordinate with the US-led G450C initiative in Albany.

“Every effort must be expended by the European Commission and national PAs to ensure that …advanced manufacturing centres in Europe remain favourable places for chip companies to operate in. High tech industries can only close competitive gaps during technological shifts. The 450mm shift is one of them and most likely the last one for the semiconductor industry,” the report claimed.

Face to face interviews in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the USA with senior industry executives across the full industry eco-system, from advance research institutes, equipment and materials firms, IP providers, IDM, fabless and foundry semiconductor manufacturers, end users and public authorities, were conducted to draw conclusions from the report.

Semiconductor industry rakes in dosh in 2012

Posted on April 25, 2013 by - News

gartnerThe global semi foundry market raked in $34.6 billion in 2012, an increase of 16.2 percent from 2011, according to Gartner.

The analyst house said that 2012 was also the year that semiconductor revenue for mobile devices surpassed that of PCs and notebooks, as well as marking the first year that advanced technology for mobile applications drove the foundry revenue.

And 2012 continued to please the industry with major foundries improving the yield of 28 nanometer (nm) technology, but also many foundries fine-tuned the device performance of legacy nodes.

TSMC continued its reign as the number one semiconductor company as a result of its success in the advanced technology nodes sector. Strong performance on 32 nm yields and the availability of sub-45-nm wafer capacity at the Dresden, Germany, fabs allowed Globalfoundries to advance to second place, while UMC’s market share decreased due to reduced wafer shipments.

Driven by the wafers consumed by Apple’s A6 and A6X chips, Samsung moved up four spots to tfifth position with 175.5 percent growth in 2012.

The increase in the foundry business was attributed to the restocking of inventory by customers, along with the increased demand of smartphones, in which wafers for advanced technology are required.

Gartner also pointed out that in the second half of 2012, foundries performed better than the seasonal norm due to the need of 40 nm wafers as a result of the unexpected fast rise of low-cost smartphones in China and other emerging countries.

It said those foundries with sufficient wafer capacity and a good yield of 40 nm and 28 nm technologies have achieved solid revenue growth.

Worldwide semi revenue falls

Posted on April 3, 2013 by - News

gartnerWorldwide semiconductor revenue declined in 2012, figures from Gartner have shown.

According to the analyst company revenues hit $299.9 billion in 2012, down 2.6 percent from 2011. It added that the overall semiconductor market decline also had a knock on effect on semiconductor vendors with the top 25 seeing a faster decline at 2.8 percent, than the industry as a whole.

The reason for the industry decline was put down to the disruption of  the computing, wireless, consumer electronics and automotive electronics sectors, which the semiconductor industry relies on, Gartner said.

Steve Ohr, research director at Gartner pointed out that in addition the industrial/medical, wired communications and military/aerospace sectors, “ordinarily less affected by changes in consumer sentiment” suffered severe declines in semiconductor consumption.

Excess inventory levels were also blamed for the profit declines.

Intel recorded a 3.1 percent revenue decline, due to falls in PC shipments. However, it held the top market share position for the 21st year in a row. Intel’s share was 16.4 percent in 2012, down from 16.5 percent in 2011.

Samsung, the second vendor, was held back by weak DRAM growth in 2012, as well as a dilution of the NAND flash market, although its overall revenue increased from smartphone application-specific integrated circuits and application-specific standard products.

Qualcomm’s semiconductor revenue increased 31.8 percent in 2012 to $13.2 billion. The company climbed from sixth place in 2011 to third in 2012 and now trails only Intel and Samsung. Qualcomm was the fastest-growing semiconductor company in the top 25 and continues to benefit from its leading position in wireless semiconductors.

Texas Instruments retained its fourth-place ranking, although Toshiba slipped to fifth place in semiconductor shipments.