As we head into November, Semico’s forecast of a weak second half is showing to be accurate. June, July, and August all had poor performance and according to the IPI, we will see that trend continue into 1Q12. February of 2012 is still forecasted to be the bottom as OEMs are currently burning [...]

In the last few days, many articles have been written about Steve Job’s contributions.  They tend to focus on recent product introductions, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone and the iPad.  Those are sensational products; but, in my opinion the authors’ memories are too short.  The articles do not give proper recognition to Steve Job’s first [...]

Although news from Japan regarding the earthquake and tsunami recovery efforts comes less frequently than before, the ripple effects of the disaster can still be felt in the semiconductor industry’s operation strategies.
At the GSA Ecosystem Summit held in Santa Clara last week, Hugh Durdan from eSilicon moderated a panel on the best practices for successful [...]

The semiconductor market may be experiencing a downturn, but that doesn’t have to mean all news is bad news. Analog, within the Computing, Consumer, and Communications markets, will see some strong growth over the next few years, growing 13.8%, 8.6%, and 12.8% in 2011, 2012, and 2013 respectively.
These numbers are pulled from our MAP [...]

Last week Semico released its industry forecast outlook for the balance of 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, all the indicators have moved 2011 into the negative territory. Semiconductor sales will end the year 1.6% lower than 2010. That should not be too surprising as the Semico IPI began moving down in May of [...]

It’s an accepted fact these days that smart phones are rampaging through the handheld industry, wiping out single use products one after another.  Portable media players, GPS, satellite radio… are handheld games next?
Handheld gaming has had problems over the last few years because high start-up costs keep competition at a minimum.  Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, and [...]

Frequent readers of the Semico Spin know that I am a fan of ComicCon and attend it in San Diego, CA during my family vacation.  This is the eighth year in a row we attended.  As I say every year, there were more nerds than you can shake a light saber at.
For those unfamiliar [...]

Another SEMICON West has come and gone.  This was a good year.  Although there are signs that things have slowed a bit, the general outlook was positive.  In addition to the need for more semiconductor capacity due to continued growth in tablets, cell phones and a host of other electronic applications, the increased complexity of [...]

On the heels of a highly spirited SEMICON West covering all the challenges of TSV, 450mm and EUV, it’s great to hear how this industry can rally around a cause and accomplish what appears to be an impossible task. I’m referring to the monumental effort that was required to get the Renesas Naka facilities back [...]

The Freescale Technology Forum was held in San Antonio, TX recently, June 20 to 23, 2011.  Freescale is a leading chip vendor focused on embedded control.  Once again the event drew a large number of attendees, about 2,000.  This is roughly the same as last year, quite impressive considering the current economic conditions.  The exhibit [...]