It seems everywhere we turn, there is hype about how low 2011 will go. Our own opinion is that 2011 will be an above average growth year, rising 9.5% over 2010. Considering an average growth year for the semiconductor industry is 8% growth, 9.5% is pretty good.
Our forecast is based on our IPI [...]

October has been a big month for China announcements. Texas Instruments announced the purchase of Cension Semiconductor, a 200mm fab previously operated by SMIC in Chengdu, China. This week Intel announced the grand opening of their first 300mm fab in Dalian.
China is becoming a more powerful force in [...]

Right now we have two different segments for e-readers, Electronic Paper Displays, and Liquid Crystal Displays. Mainly, we can consider the two powerhouses to be the iPad with LCD and the Kindle with EPD. Personally, I’m anxiously waiting for the combo platter: the low-power color display.
The low-power screen segment has the potential [...]

Over the past two years the semiconductor industry experienced one of the most dramatic business cycle swings in the history of the industry. Through the ups and downs, semiconductor technology continued to advance on a two-year cycle. But it’s more than just the electronics. We are changing the way we work, [...]

MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) are perceived as being simple mechanical devices manufactured on 6-inch wafers or smaller, utilizing mature semiconductor fab technology.  Recently MEMS devices have experienced high growth rates as they revolutionized the smart phone screen orientation and game controllers for motion detection. Now the foundries and EDA/IP vendors are salivating over the [...]

On September 15th, 2010 Panasonic Corp. quietly announced they would begin shipping 32nm gate-first HKMG LSI parts for use in their consumer line of Blu-ray DiscTM players.  This announcement is notable for several reasons.  First, this is another endorsement for the gate-first HKMG team.  IBM and the Common Platform foundries are going with gate-first.  Intel [...]

The WSTS/SIA released the August monthly semiconductor sales statistics Friday. Worldwide revenue was right in line with Semico’s forecast for the month of August. Worldwide sales were 0.4% higher than our forecast adding to our confidence that the market will top $298 billion or 31.8% growth for the year.
This is [...]