The foundry market players continue to provide almost as much nail-biting suspense as a  TV reality program.  Drawing most of the media attention is the battle for large volume IDM and advanced technology customers.  Companies such as TSMC and the members of the Common Platform are developing strategies which involve unique advanced technologies.  The competition […]

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 fifth year in a row if I remember correctly which we attended.  As I say every year, there were more geeks than you can shake a light […]

Why is it critical to look at DRAM and NAND memories together?  As the target application for memory technologies continues to shift away from desktop personal computing, the value propositions of memory technologies have also changed.  In this report, we examine the strategic issues of the total memory market where manufacturing and technology decisions decide […]

Several Semico analysts attended Semicon West this year.  Although the forecast for 2008 capital expenditures is for less spending, there was still a lot to get excited about at the show this year.�
We talked to a few companies with innovative improvements to image sensor technology.  Sarnoff has developed a back illumination technology that utilizes SOI […]

During the week of June 16th, 2008 at the VLSI Technology Symposium, there were a lot of compelling papers presented.  One in particular caught my attention because the findings had a very subtle underlying message.  I’m referring to the Intel paper on floating body cell (FBC).  The floating body cell is not new.  Intel talked […]

So far in 2008, the NAND market has not experienced the “Apple effect” seen in previous years, despite the upcoming 3G iPhone (with up to 16GB of storage) and the SSD option for the MacBook Air.  Consumer confidence is low due to the repercussions of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and consumer disposable income is […]

The legal issues between Rambus and the DRAM manufacturers continues to move through the US court systems. Rambus won a patent infringement lawsuit three months ago against Hynix for the sale of Jedec-standard DRAM.  While Hynix is the first DRAM manufacturer to be addressed, Rambus is also pursuing patent infringement claims against most of the […]

There is no such thing as too thin, too rich, too much horsepower or too much data transmission speed.  That is why semiconductor companies spend millions of dollars developing faster ICs, network processors and countless other ways of increasing transmission speed.  But, there might be a less expensive alternative.�
 On June 23, 2008 NetExÒ, announced […]

The holy grail in wireless ICs is a cost-effective one chip solution.  The challenge has been the integration of all digital and analog functions, including RF, on a single SoC.  To date, this has only been accomplished for relatively low-power, short-range networks.  As the range increases, the amount of transmission power required also increases, requiring […]

An Amicus Brief was filed by three major OEMs this week in the ongoing legal activities between Rambus and the memory manufacturers.  What would concern these OEM about events that occurred almost 10 years ago?
Semico has neither the legal expertise nor the desire to comment on these ongoing cases.  However some aspects of the settlements […]