Microchip Technology has announced a series of 11 new 8-bit PIC® microcontrollers, ranging from 8 to 64 pins, which use Microchip’s nanoWatt XLP Technology to attain active power consumption less than 50µA/Mhz. Low power, combined with the large number and variety of functions integrated onto these MCUs make them ideally suited for a wide range of applications. These functions include on-chip analog to digital conversion, timekeeping, UARTs, EEPROM, LCD control, a capacitive touch screen controller and others. In addition, there is up to 56KB of program memory and 4KB of storage memory. Low-operating power, of course, makes this MCU ideal for battery powered applications.

Semico believes that this series of PIC® MCUs will find homes in numerous applications. Their low power and high level of integration are very attractive benefits. In addition, Microchip, as always, is providing a comprehensive suite of design tools and evaluation platforms.

Morry Marshall
VP Strategic Technologies
Semico Research Corp.

Jay Cormier, VP and GM of Energy Measurement and Communications for Teridian, spoke at the Semico Outlook 2010 Event this morning.  The topic was “Sub-metering in the home & enterprise…The Next Wave.”  Some of the problems facing the energy industry today include higher demand than supply forecasted for the next twenty years, amid an aging electrical grid system in the U.S.  The solution is the smart grid, which could save up to $75 billion in capex costs in the US over the next twenty years, in addition to reduced electricity consumption and opex savings. 

Mr. Cormier talked about “demand smoothing” ideas such as time-of-use pricing to help reduce electricity demand at peak hours.  This will reduce energy prices and cut infrastructure spending, since utilities must build to support the highest peak demand.  Energy measurement and control will exist at the device level in the form of smart meters and thermostats, and at the building level with energy efficient lighting and automated local and remote control of major equipment.  Energy savings from more efficient industrial and commercial lighting represents another huge opportunity.  Potential smart appliances in the Smart Home include thermostats, clothes washers and dryers, refrigerators, microwave ovens, stoves, lighting, heaters, air conditioners, electric vehicles, and pool pumps.  Vampire power repesents up to 10% of the total power used in the home, and time-of-use power billing from the utility will drive interest in smart plugs and power strips.  Mr. Cormier believes that energy measurement ICs will become ubiquitous.

Dr. Tsugio Makimoto, Chairman of the Society of Semiconductor Industry Seniors, spoke this morning at the Semico Outlook event about “Chip Innovations Opening the Age of the Digital Nomad.”  He pointed out that devices from the Communications, Computing, and Consumer areas are converging into more intelligent portable digital products, driven by the digitalization of everything and with chip innovation.  He noted how PC companies are changing, just in the last few years.  Apple is becoming a consumer company with the iPod, Microsoft is now in the game business with the Xbox, and, most significantly, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo.  Our world has transitioned from analog to digital, and chip innovation has been the most important enabler of this transition.  Dr. Makimoto showed a slide of a $6 million Cray-1A supercomputer from 1976, based on 5 micron bipolar technology.  He said the Cray’s performance specs are comparable to the 2006 iPod Shuffle, which is based on 90nm CMOS technology.  Dr. Makimoto predicts that the “Digital Nomad” will change where and how we live, reducing or eliminating rush hour as more people telecommute and live in rural settings.  Remote health care and education will also fuel this trend, as will the desire to live a “low-carbon” lifestyle with solar power, an electric car, and LEDs for green lighting.  Dr. Makimotor predicts that the next big thing will be language translation and recognition.  The challenges include many dialects within a language, words that have different contextual meanings, differences in people’s voices and environmental noise.  When it is perfected, it will enable voice interaction with GPS devices, PCs, robots, and more.  Dr. Makimoto used the example of a little bird representing a device with voice recognition and cameras that could record his daily interactions and activities.  It would be a smart device, probably with a substantial amount of memory, but Dr. Makimoto acknowledged that the debut of such a device is probably well off from today.

Micron continues its tradition of innovative business strategies by buying distressed assets and creating highly productive joint ventures.  For DRAM, the company is projecting 160% bit growth per wafer from Q4 2009 – Q4 2011.  NAND is forecasted to achieve 114% bit growth per wafer over the same time.

Their copper and leading edge process drives lower voltages and higher reliability.  Micron’s goal is to be the lowest-cost manufacturer.

The ventures with Intel and Inotera provide 50% of both DRAM and NAND, which is a great strategic move.

Looking at fab tools, lead times for litho tools have extended to 10-12 months.  Micron claims that they have slots for the tools that they need; however, the overall industry may be limited.

One tool per month through 2011 at Inotera.  Inotera will ramp 50nm in 2010, with 42nm starting Q4 2010.  Moving to 42nm will bring a huge productivity improvement at Inotera, and will cost $2 billion.

On top of this, Micron is generating substantial cash.

– Posted from Micron’s winter analyst meeting

People want to be connected everywhere and all the time: at work, travelling, at home, in the grocery store, at sporting events, everywhere. They want telephone, Web and wireless networking connections for audio, video and data. Smart phones come close to satisfying this desire; but there are still dead spots, not enough bandwidth or the screen is too small. The available technology is being taxed. What’s next? What applications do people want? What kinds of devices. What new technologies will be needed? What are the economics at play? Is there a need for a new business model? Most of all, where are the semiconductor opportunities.

The speakers on this panel will be:

Derek Meyer
Executive Vice President
Quartics

Alex Shubat
President and CEO
Virage Logic

Bart Ladd
General Manager
NEC America

For more information go to: http://www.semico.com/eventoutlook/outlook.asp

Smart phones, Wide Area Networks and a host of future mobile devices are drivers for future semiconductor industry growth. So are virtualization, storage, cloud computing and anytime/anywhere computing applications. But, none of this will be possible without an often ignored factor, an adequate supporting infrastructure. A seemingly insatiable demand for bandwidth is being created. How will this demand be satisfied? This panel will discuss the infrastructure build out, the new technologies and the semiconductors that will be required to provide the capacity, performance reliability that will be required.

The speakers on this panel will be:

Brad Howe,
Vice President, IC Design
Altera Corporation

Lisa T. Su, Ph. D.
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Networking and Multimedia
Freescale Semiconductor

Young K. Sohn
President and CEO
Inphi Corporation

For more informatopm go to: http://www.semico.com/eventoutlook/outlook.asp

About this time last year not many people wanted to believe me when I said that the Micro Logic market (microprocessors, microcontrollers, and DSP) would bounce back in 2H 2009 and with a strong upward trend.  Fear, uncertainty and dread (FUD) due to the worldwide economic crisis was driving companies to make severe cutbacks on their manufacturing plans and consequently reduce inventory levels.  Some plans, like Dell and HP lowering production to unusually low levels for 1Q 2009 were self fulfilling prophecies.  It just appeared that the steps taken by most OEMs were extremely drastic.  Semiconductor inventory levels had not been that low in anyone’s recent memory. 

The automotive market had lots of problems of overcapacity and high inventory levels of vehicles.  This is the largest market for MCU sales.  Governments stepped in with programs to stimulate consumption.  The US passed the “Cash for Clunkers” program and Germany had a similar one.  As we approach the end of 2009, vehicle sales are improving in all global markets.  Semico’s discussions with key suppliers to the automotive market indicate a more positive outlook at this time.

In the PC market 2009 marked the dominance of portability.  Notebook PCs exceeded desktops on a quarterly basis mid-year.  Netbooks have emerged as its own distinct category.  Combining netbooks and notebook PCs, mobile PCs have surpassed desktops.  The launch of Windows 7 and new MPUs from both Intel and AMD has spurred renewed interest in PCs.  The delayed purchases of 1H 2009 are also contributing to the strong surge in 2H 2009.

The economies around the world have not fully recovered.  Governments around the world are continuing efforts to stimulate the economy.  Automotive is still down but on an upward trend.  Corporations will be going through a refresh cycle for PCs that are three or more years old.  Micrologic will end 2009 down 7.0% ($49.4B), but MPUs are flat relative to 2008.  Semico foresees pent up demand driving renewed growth in 2010 and is forecasting ML growth of 14.2% up to $56.5 B.

Since the beginning of the year, Semico has described the semiconductor inventory reduction as an overreaction and we forecasted the resulting the V-shaped recovery for 2009. This recovery started to occur in Q2 and has continued through Q4. It’s hard to say how many times I was asked if this recovery truly has legs. Will 2010 result in another down cycle? All of the indicators we see point to a strong 2010. Semico’s inflection point indicator, our analysis of capacity utilization, the low inventory situation at both the chip and box level and the continued demand for electronics are signaling a strong year for 2010.

I recently had my own anecdotal experience with the constraints surrounding the semiconductor industry. My main computing device is a notebook PC from 2007. The performance is certainly adequate while traveling and making presentations. However, this notebook is taxed when I am in the office working on my spreadsheets, statistical models, drawing packages and other programs. Contrary to the trends of moving to a netbook, my solution was to keep the notebook for traveling, and buy a high-performance desktop machine. On December 4th I ordered an HP quad core DDR3 machine. The scheduled ship date was December 11th. Seven days did not seem that unusual; however, on December 14th I received a delay notification. The e-mail informed me that due to product constraints HP will be unable to ship my order on the original estimated ship date. The revised estimated ship date is now December 18th.

Wow, desktop PCs are not supposed to be the hot item this year. Yet semiconductor components and possibly other components are in such tight supply for even the number one manufacturer that they can’t deliver a desktop machine in less than two weeks. Although this is just one data point, it does indicate that we will end the year with a very low inventory situation at both the box and component level.

Semico continues to expect that the first quarter of 2010 will experience its normal seasonal trends that will put the industry on track for a 20% growth.

Jim Feldhan
President
Semico Research

While the publishing industry has already made great strides in making content available, I believe there is more work to be done. For example, the DRM challenges related to the Kindle are off-putting to a lot of people, including me. It’s why I ended up with a Sony; I wanted to be able to download books from the public library rather than buying them. I will certainly end up buying some books that I know I will read multiple times, but the vast majority of books I would rather borrow than buy. Now that other models with wireless connections are becoming available, the Kindle loses some of its cachet. I believe that the book publishing world is headed in the same direction music has gone: switching to digital distribution, lower and standardized prices, and DRM-free content.

A happy side effect of the growth of e-readers is more people reading for enjoyment and rediscovering the classics, most of which are now available for free, thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Semico just published a study on e-readers; if you’re interested in this market you should check it out: E-readers: Reader Me This, Reader Me That.

Connectivity has been a driving force in electronics.  It is not just important for computing and consumer applications.  The industrial and medical markets show increasing need for connectivity.

Microchip Technology recently announced new members of its PIC32 32-bit MCU family to address this growing need.  Increasing connectivity for embedded control applications puts an increasing demand on memory requirements.  These communication protocols need more software stacks that must run simultaneously.  The new PIC32MX5/6/7 families are designed specifically for these data-intensive applications.

Microchip’s PIC32, a MIPS based product line, now offers memory sizes ranging starting at 256KB for Flash and 64KB for RAM, going up to a combination of 512KB and 128KB for Flash and RAM, respectively.  The company is integrating a wide variety of communication peripherals in different combinations: Ethernet, CAN and USB modules, along with UARTs, SPI, I2C and DMA channels.  The MCU is based on a high performance MIPS core at 80MHz.

Some of Microchip’s target markets are:

• Communications (point-of-sale terminals, Web servers, CAN-to-Ethernet-to-USB bridges);
• Industrial/Medical (automation, controllers, medical devices, security monitoring);
• Consumer/Appliance (audio, MP3 decoders, displays, small appliances, fitness equipment);
• Automotive (aftermarket, car alarms, GPS).

Semico Spin

Microchip is offering designers more in terms of memory and integrated features.  The pricing is competitive ranging from $4.73 to $6.55 (10Kunits).  Also notable is that Microchip is providing a large amount of free software and in source-code form.  The company is also offering a development platform with modules for both its 16-bit MCU and 32-bit MCU families.

Microchip is making a concerted push into the 32-bit MCU space.  One key element for the company’s success over the years has been customer support which includes development tools and cultivating third party support.

In 2009 MCUs have been hit badly by the current economic situation, especially automotive applications.  Industrial control has fared relatively better in these tough economic times.  The 32-bit MCU sales are projected to fall 9.9% this year.  However, demand is expected to rebound in 2010 driven by recovery in automotive and industrial control.  Semico forecasts 32-bit MCU sales will grow 30.6% to $5.4 billion.