2016 Year in Review

Industry consolidation continued to make headlines in 2016 with the record-setting £24.5 billion (GBP) offer by SoftBank (Japan) for ARM (UK) amongst major multinational deals that became public by mid-year. While growth seemed elusive throughout much of 2016, an unexpected spike in US PC sales joined other gains in non-PC segments to push the needle towards positive in third and fourth quarters. Not to be outdone on the M&A stage, Qualcomm targeted NXP in a late-year acquisition bid driven by desires for a manufacturing foothold in connected world tech. If approved, the deal will encompass a total enterprise value of about $47 billion (USD). But mergers don't always see approval. In 2015 regulators scuttled the Tokyo Electron/Applied Materials marriage. In 2016 they pushed-back against the Lam Research/KLA-Tencor merger; we'll see which deals close in 2017.

2016 was also the year that saw a plethora of new silicon devices entering the market, many targeting the Internet of things (IoT), a segment that most industry watchers believe will be the biggest opportunity for long-term semiconductor growth since smartphones burst onto the scene in 2007. Leading foundries debuted new 10nm and 7nm capabilities in 2016 while talking about their 5nm plans and processes. New solutions were also proposed as "˜More than Moore' ways for keeping transistor density and processing speed increasing once silicon reaches its theoretical limit. And power storage emerged as a cross-market product category, bridging silicon photovoltaic (PV) sales, power electronics and legacy electrical grid requirements.

No matter where one might turn in 2016, a nagging question kept rearing its head: when will growth validate the aspirations of so many across the semiconductor supply chain? Positive indicators materialized shortly before SEMICON Europa in late October. But it would take further evidence in November and December to point towards a positive finish for 2016 and an upbeat outlook for the year to come.

January 2016

Intel's Bumpy Ride

Market leading semiconductor maker Intel Corporation reported record fourth quarter revenue in line with consensus analysts' expectations, but said 2015 sales as a whole declined slightly amid a fourth consecutive year of declining PC sales. Intel executives said the company finished the year strongly, despite a weaker than expected macroeconomic environment and a weak PC market.

Helping "˜little' pharma

Professor Yufeng Jane Tseng at National Taiwan University (NTU) announced that NTU had developed a program that eliminates the need for animal testing in drug research and development, which is required today by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and other international drug safety agencies. Prof. Tseng said it is believed that NTU's modeling program will help "˜little pharm' compete against much larger international pharmaceutical companies, so long as drug monitoring agencies approve the new process.

TSMC forecasts $9.5B in 2016 Capex

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest foundry, said it will increase its capital expenditure in 2016 between $9 billion to $10 billion as it aims for greater share of small geometry chips. The company it planned to keep the spending high in order to retain its top spot after slashing capital plans several times in 2015. TSMC estimated that its 2016 revenue growth rate may double the company's expected 5 percent gain for the overall foundry segment this year.

The company also indicated that it has made significant progress on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, and after a series of setbacks in attempts to utilize it for 10nm and 7nm, it expects to insert the process for 5nm chips. The company noted it achieved output of 500 wafers per day using EUV during a sample period.

Samsung worker health

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. made a concession to worker families and former employees who have died of cancers over the last decade, agreeing to establish an independent committee able to inspect its semiconductor facilities. Families and former workers have argued for a decade that it was the unsafe use of dangerous chemicals in semiconductor wafer fabs that caused anomalous clusters of illnesses and deaths. Samsung has apologized to the families but has also denied responsibility for the deaths and illnesses. The company established a fund in 2015 ($83 million USD) to pay worker medical expenses; there have been 150 claims filed since then.

Global PC numbers fall in 2015

Global PC shipments declined again in 2015, the fourth consecutive year of contraction in what has traditionally been the most important market for the semiconductor industry, according to industry research firms. Just 276.2 million PC units shipped in 2015, the first time since 2008 that the personal computer market did not break the 300 million mark, said International Data Corporation (IDC). It was the fourth consecutive year of declining shipments for PCs.

Chip forecasts / market drivers diverge

Semiconductor revenue forecasts in 2016 and what will likely drive them long-term vary widely among analysts. China will be key factor, but one nearly impossible to predict, said the analysts meeting in a strategy session convened by the SEMI trade group. Bill McClean, IC Insights, was bullish, predicting four percent revenue growth in 2016. Handel Jones of International Business Strategies (IBS) was bearish, forecasting a 1.5 percent decline that could slide to a negative three percent. Gartner was in the middle, expecting 1.9 percent growth for the year. By product group, NAND flash is expected to be a bright spot with an 8.7 percent compound growth rate through 2019. Even faster growth is expected for IoT devices, but it will likely make up less than $30 billion in semiconductor sales by 2019, about 7.2 percent of the chip market, given average selling prices of a couple dollars per chip

.

Manufacturing is top cyber target

While cyber-attacks on networks at Sony, Target, and the US Government made headlines, the greatest cyber vulnerability is in manufacturing, said Chet Namboodri, senior director of Global Private Sector Industries at Cisco. "Financial services gets more press, but industrial networks get more attacks."

Imec melds flash with III/V performance

Researchers at nanoelectronics research group Imec (Leuven, Belgium) found a way to increase the speed and longevity of flash memories by arranging them vertically along with higher-performance III-V channels that employ indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). Most flash memories today use planar polysilicon channels controlled by a floating gate and a control gate used to read at low voltages and program at high voltages. Imec found that vertical 3-D NAND gates can be greatly accelerated by using III-V materials such as InGaAs in the channels.

Intel gets deeper into drones

Intel Corporation continued its march into the rapidly growing drone market, announcing it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Germany-based drone maker Ascending Technologies GmbH.
Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition was the latest in a series of investments that Intel has made in drone technology over the past year. Intel, other chip vendors and consumer electronics firms are increasingly looking at the drone market as another place where technologies developed mainly for smartphones can be leveraged

.

Apple hints at wireless charging future

In an effort to stay ahead of its rivals, and in the face of flagging iPhone and iPad sales, Apple is planning to introduce wireless charging on the two devices as early as 2017, according to a Bloomberg report,
which quotes unnamed sources familiar with the plans. Apple is working with partners both in the US and Asia to resolve issues inherent in wireless charging technologies including the present need to increase charging power when a smartphone or similar device is farther from the power source.  Apple currently offers wireless charging for its smartwatch, and smartphone rivals such as Samsung, Sony, and Google all offer handsets that boast wireless charging.

FCC wants to cancel cable TV set-top boxes

The era of the set-top box is over, according to officials at the US Federal Communications Commission, which announced a proposal to open up competition for delivering pay television services. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was released that aims to let any system or application access pay-TV streams, putting an end to the high cost of renting set top boxes currently defined and provided by cable television providers.

The proposal would require providers to choose open formats defined by industry standards groups to control access to their programming and content guides as well as maintain security. The FCC said all of this is within today's technological capabilities, but that cable TV companies have resisted this due to the loss of STB revenue that they have grown to depend upon.

ST exits the set top box market

STMicroelectronics NV said on the same day that the US FCC announced its new set top box rule making intent that the company will stop developing STB and home gateway products. It also plans to lay off up to 1,400 workers out of its 43,000 employees. In a 2016 that workforce "˜re-alignment,' about 1,000 employees (150 based in France), will be affected. Moving forward, ST intends to focus on automotive and industrial applications as well as Internet of Things devices including smart home and smart city applications.

Apple forecasts first decline since 2003

Despite another quarter of record sales and revenue, Apple Inc.'s stock traded lower after hours (Jan. 26) after the company reported lower than expected iPhone sales and forecast its first year-over-year decline in sales in 13 years. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, laid the blame for the lackluster quarterly forecast primarily on the strong US dollar and on "˜economic malaise' in China and other areas.

EUV Improves, but still not ready

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is making slow progress, re-kindling hopes it could be ready for production use in the 7nm node, while TSMC and other major foundries say they expect insertion at 5nm.  The semiconductor industry has placed multi-billion dollar bets the technology will enable smaller, cheaper chips; critics remain skeptical. So far, EUV lacks a powerful and reliable enough light source to produce the number of wafers that major semiconductor manufacturers need on a daily basis.

Intel claims hacker-proof design

Intel Corporation announced it 6th generation core processors at the Gamecon Congress 2015 (Aug. 5-9, Cologne, Germany); however they left out secret details about new vPro on-chip hardware important to business uses. Of the half dozen new hardware capabilities in the latest cores, the more important are "˜Authenticate' and "˜Unite,' both of which use on-chip hardware Intel claims is not hackable.

Early lung cancer detection

Early detection of lung cancer may become the norm, if the inexpensive table-top detector pioneered by National Taiwan University (NTU) is widely adopted by doctor's offices. The trick is that it can detect the malady when it is only five millimeters in size, which is typically in time for an easier cure by surgery. The product will be spun-off from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department at NTU) to be licensed and manufactured by a third party such as Delta Electronics International (Singapore) Pte Ltd., according to Lab Director Wei-Cheng Tian.

February 2016

Taiwan university pursues white LED

To make a white light emitting diode (LED) today, engineers either must use a white phosphor-coated package illuminated by a single color LED or mix red, green and blue LEDs together. However, if researchers at National Taiwan University (NTU) are successful, they will be able to produce white light from a single tiered-column LED at a single pixel. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images reveal a single uniform diameter column pixel will emit a single color (left) but by narrowing it at the top tier (right) two different colors can be emitted by the same pixel, and by adding a third even narrower tier a third color can be emitted, permitting a single pixel to emit red, green and blue (RGB) resulting in white light from a single pixel.

Toshiba expands memory factory

Toshiba Corporation said on 2 February that it will pay about $25 million (USD) to acquire land to expand its flash memory production in Japan's Mie prefecture. Toshiba (Tokyo) said it is acquiring 150,000 square meters (about 500,000 square feet) to expand production of its proprietary BiCS flash 3D memory. The company said it expects to break ground on construction by March 2017. Toshiba announced in January it would gut its semiconductor business, save for NAND flash. The company has decided to focus strictly on flash memory and nuclear energy as its core businesses. The move is considered a necessary step to return the Japanese giant to profitability.

Wearables to grow 48 percent

Wearables will achieve over 18 percent growth in 2016, with smartwatches taking the lead for earnings growth potential, reaching 274.6 million units in 2016, predicts Gartner. The group forecasts an 18.4 percent jump from 232 million units sold in 2015. The market is expected to drive $28.7 billion (USD) in revenue in 2016; of that total, $11.5 billion will come from smartwatch sales.

Are Windows phones going "˜Zombie'?

Windows Phone doesn't have much of a future, based on the numbers highlighted in Microsoft's fourth quarter (2015) results. Sales of new handsets crashed precipitously, leaving Microsoft with a tiny slice of the global smartphone market. Microsoft says it sold about 4.5 million Lumia smartphones during the fourth quarter of 2015. That's down a whopping 57 percent in volume from the 10.5 million it sold during the fourth quarter of 2014. Revenue for its handset division crashed almost as hard, down 49 percent year-over-year. During a similar period Samsung shipped about 86 million devices and Apple sold 74.8 million iPhones.

Presto expands into Asia

Presto Engineering Inc. announced that it has significantly expanded its turnkey capabilities with the opening of two new manufacturing hubs and a world-wide logistics center in Asia. The company now offers a complete and comprehensive solutions for ICs, from GDSII hand-off (design output) to finished ICs shipped directly to end customers. Presto is targeting the latest high-speed communication, Internet of Things (IoT) and secured elements markets.

2015 chip sale slide not as bad as predicted

Global semiconductor sales totaled $335.2 billion in 2015, a slight decrease of 0.2 percent from 2014, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Trade Group. The final 2015 total was dragged down by a relatively poor month of December, when chip sales dipped to $27.6 billion, a decrease of 4.4 percent compared to November 2015 and a decrease of 5.2 percent compared to December 2014.

Intel's Moore's Law insights

Moore's Law has had a long life, but "˜pure vanilla' CMOS process technology has run its course according to top Intel executive, William Holt, who spoke at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). Holt did assert that new techniques won't be in Intel's 10nm process that the company is now prototyping; engineers will stretch CMOS as far as possible. But new techniques such as tunneling FETs, ferroelectric FETs, spintronics, new III-V materials and processes not yet discussed publicly, or some combination, will take the industry below 5nm.

NXP reports autonomous driving progress

NXP Semiconductors has been working with Google on self-driving cars and had progress to report. Speaking in the plenary session of the 63rd ISSCC, officials said facsimiles of self-driving cars "” "robots with wheels" "” are already on the road. High-end vehicles can now speed down highways at up to 130 mph with minimal driver attention, said Lars Reger, chief technology officer of NXP's automotive group based in Hamburg, Germany. Technology that enables these previously impossible feats is actively working its way down-market, pointing to autonomous driving in the not-too-distant future.

Operators push narrowband IoT

Critics say that cellular network carriers, too preoccupied with 4G data-capacity issues, are neglecting their Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) opportunities. But despite some skepticism, the cellular industry is aware that non-cellular players such as the LoRa Alliance and Sigfox are ratcheting up their bids for IoT dominance, using unlicensed spectrum as an edge in the emerging IoT network battle. But in response,
cellular network operators will return to the Mobile World Congress next week to demonstrate a  renewed commitment to Cellular IoT, recently  agreed upon and designated as LTE Cat-M1 and  LTE Cat-M2.

Micron increases 3D NAND production

2016 may be shaping up to be the year memory makers commit to upping 3D NAND production in a bid to replace its planar predecessor. Micron announced its 3D NAND technology is now available in multi-level cell (MLC) and triple level cell (TLC) products, and expects by the second half of 2016 that the majority of its NAND flash output to be on 3D NAND because designers are creating laptops, tablets and servers that need its increased capacity, performance and power.

Qualcomm unveils new wearable SoC

Qualcomm announced a thinner and lower-power family of SoCs that it has dubbed Snapdragon Wear 2100 that targets the emerging wearables market. The Snapdragon Wear platform is a full suite of silicon, software, support tools and reference designs. The company had previously pushed its mobile chips, such as the Snapdragon 400, into the wearable segment. This represents the first time Qualcomm has created a wearable-specific platform.

US says IoT is emerging intelligence challenge

The US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, delivered chilling remarks regarding the Internet of Things, noting there may come a day when spy agencies may tap into IoT for surveillance, network access and more if security concerns are not addressed. Threats surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) may be looming larger than previously expected, with government spy agencies thrown into the mix along with cyber-criminals looking for new and faster ways to steal personal information.

DARPA puts itself on a diet

Some of the most world-changing technologies"”such as the Internet"”were spawned by the US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), but the pace of change has accelerated. Instead of concentrating on big, expensive, long-term projects, DARPA's new aim for its $2.9 billion budget will be smaller, more numerous and less expensive innovations that better address the crowd-sourced frontier facing manufacturers in a globalized economy.

EUV to get $500M research centre

Globalfoundries and SUNY Polytechnic Institute will spend a total of $500 million (USD) over five years to create a new R&D center to accelerate the introduction of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into the 7nm process node and beyond. The move is the latest sign EUV will at long last make its way into production fabs, albeit probably not until 2018 or later.

New battery tech promises 10x charging improvement

Scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have developed a method that makes silicon lithium-ion battery anodes a possibility. Such anodes could store 10 times more energy per charge than existing commercial anodes and make high-performance batteries smaller and lighter.  Silicon particles swell to three times its normal size during charging, then crack and shatter. They also react with the battery electrolyte to form a coating that saps their performance. To alleviate these issues, the Stanford-SLAC team wrapped each silicon anode particle in a custom-fit cage made of graphene.

Samsung describes its 10nm SRAM

Samsung provided a look "˜inside' its 10nm FinFET technology and an advanced 128 Mbit SRAM in a paper presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). A version of the new 6T SRAM bitcell optimized for size is 38 percent smaller than a similar part made utilizing Samsung's 14nm process. It measures 0.040mm² compared to 0.049mm² for a version optimized for high current.

Security expert discloses Nissan vehicle hack

The Nissan Connect EV interface designed to remotely read out condition data and control systems information such as air conditioning in Nissan vehicles can be easily accessed and abused by unauthorized persons, says an industry consultant that studied the systems and reported the deficiencies to Nissan. The vulnerability was reportedly addressed shortly after the researcher made his discoveries public after attempting to contact the company privately.

Samsung unveils new memory tech

Samsung has doubled the capacity and speed of its Universal Flash Storage (UFS) memory, announcing what it said is the industry's first 256GB UFS aimed for use in high-end mobile devices at the 2016 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Samsung is now mass-producing the embedded memory based on the UFS 2.0 standard, the company said in a news release. To put its capacity into perspective, one 256GB UFS chip can store about 47 full HD movies.

IoT Networks expand at MWC

Ingenu, the LoRa Alliance and Sigfox announced expanded partnerships for their competing low-power wide area networks at the Mobile World Congress. The low power wide area networks are in a race to connect Internet of Things devices and systems at a time when cellular backers are accelerating their efforts to finish competing IoT standards.

SMIC to increase Capex in 2016

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China's largest foundry, said it planned to increase capital expenditures for 2016 by a third to $2.1 billion as it aims to capture strong growth in the world's fastest growing chip market. SMIC is boosting capital expenditures from $1.57 billion in 2015 to increase its 2016 sales 20 percent from $2.24 billion in 2015, the company said on a conference call with analysts to announce results for the fourth quarter of 2015.

3 photonics pilot lines launch with EU funding

The Photonics Public Private Partnership has launched three pilot lines for the production of optoelectronic devices and circuits thanks to €35 million ($39 million USD) of European Union investment. The three manufacturing Pilot Lines are PIX4LIFE, MIRPHAB and PI-SCALE, which are aimed at health applications, mid-infrared imaging sensors for the detection of chemicals in gas and liquids and flexible OLED production respectively.

March 2016

Taiwan tops Korean fab capacity

Taiwan overtook South Korea in 2015 as the world leader in semiconductor fab capacity, according to market research firm IC Insights. Taiwan accounted for 21.7 percent of total capacity, edging out South Korea at 20.5 percent, according to the researchers. IC Insights counts capacity that chipmakers have overseas as belonging to the overseas location. The portion of fab capacity in other Asian locations, North America and Europe has dropped slightly while the rest of the world (ROW,) primarily Singapore, Israel and Malaysia, showed a small gain.

Analog Devices unveils IoT energy harvesting

To address the scarcity of energy in IoT applications, Analog Devices has unveiled a power management unit (PMU) for efficient energy harvesting called the ADP509x. The PMU converts harvested power down to the 16µW to 100mW range with sub-µW operation losses. Devices relying on energy harvesting often have to slowly accumulate enough energy to turn on, resulting in long delays before the device can start sensing, processing, and transmitting. This can result in missed data collection, slow operation, and poor user experience. The PMU solves these problems with a multiple-power-path design, which enables fast start-ups and smooth operation.

Chip sales off to slow start in 2016

Semiconductor sales started sluggishly across the board in 2016, due largely to softening demand and lingering economic headwinds, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) trade group. Chip sales declined on both a sequential and annual basis across all regions except China, where sales increased compared with January 2015. It marked the third straight month that China was the only region to post year-to-year growth in chip sales.  Global chip sales totaled $26.9 billion in January, down 3 percent from the previous month and down 6 percent compared with January 2015, according to the sales numbers, compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization.

Dell expands into IoT market

Personal computer giant Dell is applying its proven quality, reliability, and global reach to the industrial PC market with the introduction of two purpose-built industrial PC families: the Embedded Box PC 3000 and 5000 series. The ruggedized, fanless PCs are part of Dell's IoT product portfolio and target Industrial IoT edge computing and gateway applications. Dell made the announcement at Embedded World.

Flexible battery, electronics market expands

Today's tiny market for thin-film batteries will grow to $470 million by 2026, according to a new report from IDTechEx. The news comes as proponents of all sorts of flexible printed electronics are wrapping up an annual meeting that attracted a record 650 attendees, showing their latest work.

Tablet shipments fall, but future looks better

Shipments of tablets are projected to decline in 2016 for the second consecutive year, according to market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC.) The firm blames the decline in sales of slate styled tablets on the lack of a killer application to spur upgrades.

VR shipments to top 50M/year by 2020

Virtual reality (VR) device shipments will total more than 50 million units by 2020, according to market analyst firm ABI Research. This equates to a compound annual growth rate of almost 85 percent. The dramatic increase is in part due to the relatively small market for the emerging technology in
previous years.

Leti solves silicon resonator mystery

The mystery of why silicon resonators can never get close to their theoretical minimum frequency fluctuation has finally been solved by Leti, a division of CEA in Grenoble, France. Since the invention of the silicon resonator for MEMS devices, the source of frequency fluctuations has been a mystery attributed to a half-dozen or more causes by the same number of research organizations. While Jitter (phase noise) has long been attributed to thermal noise, no one previously identified the source of frequency variations, thus limiting the accuracy of the devices. By surveying the literature and designing experiments to discount all the other proposed sources of noise-related frequency fluctuation, Leti and colleagues have concluded that the only remaining possibility must be the answer: mechanical noise.

TSMC and ARM target 7nm at data centers

TSMC and ARM announced the next phase of their collaboration on leading-edge semiconductor process technology will be data center and networking chips that will drive their work on the 7nm FinFET node.

US spurs industrial chip market growth

The industrial semiconductor market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8 percent between 2014 and 2019, when it is projected to be worth $59.5 billion, according to a forecast from market research firm IHS Inc. The firm predicts that increased capital spending and continued economic growth, especially in the US, will spur demand for industrial semiconductors. The firm lists commercial aircraft, LED lighting, digital video surveillance, climate control, traction and medical devices as the drivers for most of the global demand for industrial ICs.

Taiwan to build its first 300mm fab in China

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest foundry, said today that it has signed an agreement with the municipal government of Nanjing to finalize plans for its first 300mm wafer fab in China. TSMC announced the plan for the $3 billion fab investment in December last year.

IHS says wireless charging market is maturing

According to market research firm IHS, the wireless charging receiver market grew more than 160 percent in 2015 compared to the previous year. Annual global shipments reached 144 million units. Annual shipment volume is expected to top one billion units by 2020 and two billion by 2025, according to IHS' latest "Wireless Power Receiver Market Report."

April 2016

Smartphone sales growth contracts

Smartphone sales will grow at the lowest rate on record and PC sales will decline again in 2016, according to market research firm Gartner Inc. The Stamford, Connecticut (USA) research firm said it expects smartphone sales to grow 7 percent this year to reach 1.5 billion units. It would mark the first time that smartphone sales grew at less than 10 percent in a year, Gartner said.

Microsoft backs Sigfox cloud on IoT --

IoT network infrastructure provider Sigfox announced it will integrate the Sigfox Cloud with Microsoft Azure IoT Hub, enabling its customers to use data for real-time analytics. Currently operating in 14 countries including the US with more than 7 million devices in its network, Sigfox provides subscription-based low-power, wide-area (LPWA) communications dedicated to the Internet of Things.

A different "˜flavor' of Intel CMOS

Intel's future processors at 10-nanometer and beyond will continue to use CMOS for cores, but the cores will be surrounded by novel circuit architectures using new materials that may extend Moore's Law indefinitely according to IEEE Fellow Kevin Zhang, vice president of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group.

"˜Internet of the Tire' now possible

Silent Sensors has moved to CPI's National Printable Electronics Centre in the UK to scale up the London-based company's patented tire sensor technology which has been developed to measure pressure and temperature. The technology is aiming to transform the way transport fleets currently track, monitor and manage tires, prompting some to call the new expansion of the technology across commercial fleets as the start of the "˜Internet of Tires.'

Synopsys says nanowires will be next transistors

Synopsys Inc. claims that the FinFET is dying, III-V on silicon is dead before its time, and that silicon nanowire transistors are the solution that will take Moore's Law scaling all the way to single atom transistors around 2043.

Samsung backs next-gen OLED Pioneer

The Samsung Venture Investment Corporation has taken the lead in a $13.5 million Series A round of venture funding of Kyulux, Inc., a Japanese advanced materials startup that is commercializing the next generation of OLED display and lighting technology. Kyulux is a leader in developing and delivering an advanced OLED material technology, called Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence or TADF.

The technology is recognized as the third generation of OLED emitting mechanisms; it enables 100 percent internal quantum efficiency in OLEDs without using rare metals such as iridium that are required for high efficient emission in phosphorescence.

Freescale buy-out makes NXP largest auto chip vendor

According to the latest analysis by market watcher Semicast Research, NXP was the leading vendor of semiconductors to the OE automotive sector in 2015. Infineon passed Renesas Electronics to become the second largest vendor, with STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments completing the top five. Semicast estimates that revenues for OE automotive semiconductors totaled $28.2 billion (USD) in 2015.

IBM details its plans for brian-like computing

IBM unveiled details about its future plans for TrueNorth, the company's neuromorphic mixed-signal chips that are based on the human brain. Its chip architecture, array of evaluation boards, reference systems and software ecosystem were described by their architect at the International Symposium on Physical Design 2016 (ISPD) in Santa Rosa, California (USA.) IBM expressed it aspirations for its brain-like computers, hoping they will become a household name for applications from ultra-smart Internet of Things (IoT) to similar chip based applications across industrial, commercial and consumer markets.

Chip market decline deepens

A chip market decline that began mid-2015 looks set to continue through the first quarter of 2016 at least, with falling markets on an annual basis in all geographies except China, according to figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association.

The global chip market was down on an annual basis in both Q3 and Q4 of 2015, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS.) Some forecasters see the chip market continuing to contract throughout 2016 and into 2017; however, others call for a positive bounce as early as fourth quarter 2016

.

Samsung says its 10nm DRAM could defy Moore

Rumors about the death of Moore's Law have been greatly exaggerated in recent years, and Samsung Electronics' mass production of what the company said is the industry's first 10nm 8Gb DDR4 DRAM chips shows scaling has yet to hit obstacles that cannot be overcome.

Samsung said it addressed DRAM scaling challenges using currently available argon fluoride immersion lithography without the use of extreme ultra violet equipment. The company began mass-producing 20nm 4Gb DDR3 DRAM in 2014, and said its 10nm class DRAM is in part the result of its process a step further.

TSMC Expects Surge in 2H 2016

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest foundry, expects that it will emerge from an industry slowdown sometime during the second half of this year. Foundries have led growth in the semiconductor industry, yet have faced slowing sales resulting from excess IC inventory, poor demand for mobile and computing products and slumping tablet demand. TSMC said its year-on-year sales growth will probably not rebound until the latter half of 2017, driven by demand for high-end smartphones.

Qorvo buys ZigBee IoT specialist Greenpeak Technologies

Qorvo Inc., the RF chip company formed when RF Micro Devices and TriQuint merged at the end of 2014, has agreed to acquire fabless short-range wireless chip company GreenPeak Technologies NV (Utrecht, The Netherlands). Qorvo did not disclose terms of sale. GreenPeak was formed by the merger of Dutch company Xanadu Wireless and the Belgian company Ubiwave in July 2007. The company has specialized in ZigBee and Bluetooth chips for domestic applications and the Internet of Things.  In 2015, GreenPeak celebrated the shipment of its 100 millionth ZigBee chip to the smart home market

Russia and the US inch toward "˜universal memory' materials

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the University of Nebraska (USA) and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) have collaborated to grow an ultra-thin ferroelectric film on silicon, which they believe could become the favored "˜universal' non-volatile memory material of the future while also serving as memristors in brain-line cognitive neuromorphic computers. The material is an ultra-thin (2.5-nanometer) polycrystalline ferroelectric film on silicon invented through a collaborative effort involving all three institutes.

Intel cuts 12,000, 11 percent of staff

In a sign that the PC is no longer a standard bearer of the silicon semiconductor industry, Intel Corporation announced its plan to cut up to 12,000 employees, 11 percent of its staff, amid a four-year decline in revenues and profits from PC chip sales. The news comes as Intel reported $13.7 billion revenues, down 8 percent from the previous quarter but up 7 percent from the same quarter last year. It made profits of $2 billion, a 43 percent plunge from the prior quarter but up 3 percent from the same quarter last year.

Harvest electricity from magnetism

With microwaves on the rise worldwide, generated by cell phone towers, mobile devices, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5G and on and on, it is natural that researchers would investigate ways to harness these waves to generate energy. Scientists at the University of Utah have discovered a novel way of converting microwave energy into electricity in organic semiconductors. In the lab, they have demonstrated a novel effect"”called the inverse spin Hall effect"”which can convert magnetic spin current into electrical current using microwaves as their source of magnetic spin.

Carriers clash over IoT

The Internet of Things is redrawing the competitive map when it comes to low-power wide area (LPWA) networks. Although under the surface of wider IoT talks, this is a looming battle for which operators, OEMs and chip makers are all gearing-up. A handful of service providers including Orange are rolling out IoT networks now based on the LoRa specification for unlicensed 800-900 MHz bands. Many other carriers are expected to start deploying IoT networks in 2017 using an emerging narrowband cellular standard based on LTE being developed by the 3GPP. Meanwhile, Sigfox, the first mover in this sector, is rolling out its own 800-900 MHz service worldwide. Several other players with their own technologies such as Ingenu are trying to deploy competing networks or license others to build them. The battle lines are just being drawn for a battle that will define how IoT data is transported, and who pays what for the privilege.

IoT security spending poised to skyrocket

Global enterprises and consumers will pump nearly $350 million into securing the Internet of Things (IoT) this year, a figure that is set to grow exponentially in coming years as networks of connected objects expand, according to market research firm Gartner Inc. The researchers say that IoT security spending is set grow from about $232 million in 2014 to nearly $550 million in 2018. Gartner predicts that IoT security spending will expand further after 2020 once improved skills, organizational change and more scalable service options improve execution.

Apple iPhone sales drop 16 percent

Sales of Apple iPhones fell 16 percent, its first decline since the product line was introduced in 2007. The company forecast that 2Q 2016 will be weaker than previously expected, but remained bullish about the iPhone's long-term future , which continues to attract Android users and first-time smartphone buyers, especially in emerging markets.

MediaTek expects growing sales of smartphone devices

MediaTek, Qualcomm's largest competitor in the smartphone silicon business, said it expects to increase shipments during 2Q 2016 compared to the first quarter even as global growth in the segment has stalled for the first time.

Intel to exit mobile SoC business

As it proceeds with a massive restructuring plan announced earlier this month, Intel will exit the smartphone and tablet mobile SoC business by ending its struggling Atom chip product line. The discontinued products include those code-named SoFIA, Broxton and Cherry Trail. As Intel CEO Brian Krzanich explained in his latest blog, the chip giant's focus is now squarely on "Cloud, IoT, memory/programmable solutions, 5G and Moore's Law."

Samsung counts on smartphone sales to boost bottom line

Samsung Electronics, South Korea's largest company, said an early release of its Galaxy S7 smartphone helped shore up first-quarter earnings while its semiconductor unit lulled and its flat-panel display business recorded a loss. Ironically, the phone would later be recalled (third quarter 2016) due to battery overheating, fires and property damage linked to the flagship Galaxy S7.

May 2016

Chip sales post slight increase

Global semiconductor sales ticked up slightly in March, showing sequential improvement for the first time in five months, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) trade group. March chip sales totaled $26.1 billion on a three-month average basis, up 0.3 percent compared with February said the SIA, reporting sales figures from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization. But total first quarter chip sales totaled just $78.3 billion, down 5.5 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2015 and down 5.8 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015, the SIA said.

Google and Fiat Chrysler join forces

Search giant Google's plans for self-driving vehicles took a new turn with the announcement of a partnership with Fiat Chrysler (FCA), which will integrate Google's self-driving technology into 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to expand Google's existing self-driving test program. This is the first time Google has worked directly with an automaker to integrate its self-driving system (sensors and software,) into a passenger vehicle.

Graphene patterned at room temperature

Graphene is easily grown with chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on copper foil, but a simple way of etching circuit patterns and transferring them to a non-metallic substrate has eluded engineers. Now researchers at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) claim to have a one-step room temperature process for quickly patterning and transferring graphene circuits to flexible substrates using a simple shadow mask.

NXP is top auto chip vendor

Following its takeover of Freescale, NXP Semiconductor has been declared the leading automotive chip vendor for 2015 by market research firm Strategy Analytics. Researchers said they combined the companies' auto chip sales at $3.9 billion and attributed 14.2 percent of a $27.4 billion automotive semiconductor market in 2015 to NXP.

Researchers magnetize graphene

By inserting hydrogen atoms into the lattice of a graphene sheet, researchers from Spain and Egypt say an array of electrons in nanoscale domains encoded with magnetic spin can transform the material into a spintronic successor to silicon by inserting (doping) hydrogen atoms into specific locations in the graphene lattice. By spreading out hydrogen atoms in an already tightly packed array of carbon atoms (graphene) spintronic circuits could be built at ultra-small nano- or even angstrom-scale (10 angstroms equals a nanometer), enabling a spintronic solution to replace silicon in transistor fabrication.

LEDs lead power electronics growth

Power semiconductor and supply vendors are poised to cash in on strong growth anticipated for LED lighting in coming years, according to the latest forecast from market research firm IHS Inc. The power semiconductor market for LED lighting is projected to grow to 24.3 million units in 2020, up from 7.3 million units in 2015, as LED lights command a larger proportion of the overall lighting market, according to IHS (Englewood, Colo.).

Suppliers feel heat from chip slowdown

Eight of the top 10 semiconductor suppliers saw declines in first quarter sales compared with the first quarter of 2015; several saw sales fall by 25 percent or more, according to a new ranking of chip vendors published by market research firm IC Insights Inc. The Semiconductor Industry Association trade group said overall first quarter chip sales were down by nearly 6 percent compared to the first quarter of 2015.

Lam/KLA-Tencor deal faces additional scrutiny

Analysts are divided over whether the proposed $10.6 billion merger of Lam Research and KLA-Tencor corporations will go forward after the companies announced late Friday that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had asked for more information about the deal. Analysts noted that a similar "˜second request' for information was made in the Applied Materials/Tokyo Electron merger deal that the DoJ eventually squashed.

Foundry Capex forecast to rise 3 percent

Capital expenditures in the semiconductor industry are forecast to rise by 3 percent this year, led by foundries that are expanding to grab more business according to a report by market research firm IC Insights. "Intense rivalry in the foundry business will push capital spending in this semiconductor manufacturing segment to nearly $23 billion, which will break the previous record high level of $22.1 billion set in 2014," according to IC Insights senior market research analyst Rob Lineback.

HP releases new super-fast 3D printer

Hewlett Packard (HP) launched its long-heralded Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) 3D-printing technology for commercial-scale end-production, plus a supporting ecosystem, at the RAPID show in Orlando, Florida (USA). HP claims, and analysts who have witnessed the machine work and tested its performance agree, that MJF is at least 10 times faster than other 3D printing methods. The system could change the entire industrial market for making end-products through additive manufacturing (AM).

New "˜Gigafactory' Opens in Germany

BMZ GmbH (Karlstein-Großwelzheim, Germany) has opened the first section of what will be Europe's biggest lithium-ion battery factory, called by some "˜Europe's Gigafactory' who allude to Elon Musk's Gigafactory for producing batteries in Utah for electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage. BMZ  plans to more than quadruple production areas in Germany by 2021.

Google may face EC fine

The European Commission is planning to announce it will impose a record-breaking 3 billion (about $3.4 billion USD) fine on Google, according to the UK's Telegraph newspaper claiming EC officials plan to make the announcement prior to the summer holiday season. Google has been under investigation for seven years for allegedly using its search engine to favor results of its vested interests while excluding or minimizing options belonging to rival companies. Google has denied any unfair practices.

TI tops industrial chips market

Texas Instruments was the leading vendor of semiconductors to the industrial sector in 2015, placing it ahead of Infineon Technologies AG, according to analysis at Semicast Research. Semicast's industrial semiconductor vendor share analysis ranks TI as the leading supplier in 2015, with an estimated market share of 8.1 percent, ahead of Infineon with 6.8 percent, Intel (4.9 percent), STMicroelectronics (4.4 percent) and Renesas
(3.8 percent).

Foundry sales indicate slump is not yet over

Taiwanese foundries TSMC and UMC, two of the industry's largest circuit makers, have both released sales figures showing that a chip market slowdown that lasted through the winter is not yet over. Both companies announced April 2016 sales that were significantly smaller than those they achieved in April 2015.

Imec announces IoT chip that supports 5 networks

The Imec research institute (Leuven, Belgium) has designed an SoC integrating support for five low power wide area (LPWA) networks for the Internet of Things. The chip supports five networks that run in the 780-930 MHz ISM band and are geared for smart meters or smart cities"”802.15.4g/k, LoRa, KNX-RF, Sigfox and Wireless M-Bus.

Flexible electronics and OLED market could be $18B in 2020

According to IDTechEx Research's latest report, the plastic and flexible displays market will reach nearly $2 billion (USD) this year and will grow to $18 billion by 2020. The two main manufacturers of OLED displays have both announced large investments supporting capacity expansion. Samsung Display has said it plans to spend more than $3 billion between 2015 and 2017 for a new production line. Its rival LG Display is trying to lead the industry by committing over $9 billion for two new manufacturing plants.

FDSOI drives ST's automotive business

The fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) chip manufacturing process championed by STMicroelectronics has become almost the default choice for digital manufacturing within the automotive and discrete group (ADG) business unit at ST, according to that group's senior executive, Marco Monti who is responsible for the ADG business unit.

ARM doubles-down on smartphones

ARM, the world's largest provider of reusable designs for silicon, expects its latest CPU and GPU cores to help revive demand for smartphones by taking games, virtual reality and augmented reality to a new level.

While some industry observers believe smartphone demand has peaked, ARM sees plenty of upside in a segment that has already doubled the number of personal computers in the marketplace. ARM representatives said they believe enhanced capabilities enabled by their new devices and ongoing OEM product development can revive consumer interests.

June 2016

Xiaomi buys 1,500 Microsoft patents

Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi will purchase approximately 1,500 patents from Microsoft as it looks to expand its portfolio of intellectual property, according to a 31 May statement from the company. Wang Xiang, Xiaomi's senior vice president of strategic cooperation, said he believed the approach pointed to a long-term effort to grow the company's patent portfolio through collaboration and commitment to mutually beneficial relationships.

FDSOI garners EC IoT development support

Globalfoundries and STMicroelectronics are the leading chip companies in a European Commission collaborative research project that aims to create an ultra-low power platform for Internet of Things (IoT) applications based on 22nm FDSOI chip manufacturing process. The three-year project is led by Belgian research group imec and includes academic and commercial participants across the chip supply chain.

Military startup announces new neural processor

KnuEdge Inc. (San Diego), a company that has raised more than $100 million since it was founded in 2005, has announced a neuromorphic processor called KnuPath intended to accelerate voice recognition and other machine learning applications.

The processor is already in production and in use at customer sites, KnuEdge said. At the same time the company launched KnuVerse, its voice-recognition and authentication software that has been in use by military contractors for five years.

New imec Wi-Fi radio ready for IoT

Nanoelectronics research center imec along with the Holst Centre and Wi-Fi IP provider Methods2Bussiness have demonstrated a complete Wi-Fi HaLow radio. The low-power, long-range radio solution is claimed to use 10 times less power than state-of-the-art orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) radios on the market. The radio's compliance with the recently amended wireless networking protocol (IEEE 802.11ah) ensures that it is optimized for IoT-related applications.

Fab Capex billings fall 13 percent in 4Q, rise in 1Q 2016

Global semiconductor capital equipment billings posted a year-over-year decline of 13 percent in the fourth quarter, led by precipitous declines of nearly 50 percent in Europe and more than 30 percent in the US and South Korea, according to the SEMI industry trade group. By 1Q 2016, semiconductor capital equipment billings totaled $8.3 billion in the first quarter, up 3 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2015, according to SEMI. Tool sale bookings totaled $9.4 billion in the first quarter, up 5 percent from the previous quarter and down 2 percent compared with the year-ago quarter, SEMI said.

Qualcomm offers new connected car reference design

Fabless chipmaker Qualcomm has announced a reference platform for connected cars. Supporting wireless key technologies such as LTE, GNSS, Wi-Fi, DSRC/V2X and Bluetooth, the platform addresses the requirements of a broad range of applications with one sweeping blow.

China dominates smartphone supplier lists

China-based component suppliers represented eight of the top 12 positions for smartphone manufacturers in the first quarter of 2016, according to a report from IC Insights. Chinese companies Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi were all top five suppliers. Although Samsung and Apple surpass all other companies in total smartphone shipments by a significant margin, both companies are forecast to have slight decreases in overall shipments by the end of 2016. Five of the eight Chinese companies ranked by IC Insights are expected to increase their shipments by at least 5 percent compared with 2015, even though most of their customers are within the PRC home market.

Most new Semi Fabs headed to China

At least 19 wafer fabs will start construction in 2016 and 2017 with most going into China, which is responsible for more than half of new fab starts, according to the SEMI industry trade group. As a result spending on chip making equipment, which had started slowly in 2016, will pick up and result in a market worth $36 billion this, up 1.5 percent on 2015, rising to $40.7 billion in 2017, up 13 percent year-on-year.

ASML to buy Hermes for $3.1B

ASML Holding NV will spend $3.1 billion (USD) to buy Hermes Microvision, Inc. for its e-beam inspection tools, shoring up the ecosystem for ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, which it now says could be used for volume production of semiconductors starting in 2018. According to industry watchers, the deal is significant because after KLA-Tencor dropped its EUV mask inspection program, ASML had to find a way to keep an alternative EUV mask inspection/metrology tool alive to accelerate the market. This deal appears to be another step in that direction.

Solar Impulse 2 begins Atlantic crossing

The Solar Impulse 2 took off from JFK Airport in New York on 20 June and set a course across the Atlantic for Seville Airport in Spain. If it completes this leg of its mission, it will have taken a giant step closer to circumnavigating the globe using only the power of the sun.

Google launches Zurich AI research center

Google is diving deeper into artificial intelligence, with the company opening a dedicated machine learning research center in its Zurich office, the company announced on 16 June. The Google Research Europe center will focus on three areas: Machine intelligence, natural language processing, and understanding and machine perception.

Daimler plans to add EVs to its luxury lineup

Luxury carmaker Daimler intends to add an electric version to all of its model families and develop a specific vehicle architecture for battery-electric cars. Its existing GLC model will be expanded by a new version that combines fuel cell with plug-in hybrid approaches. The company will invest €7 billion over the next two years.

Swiss team pushes perovskite efficiency

Michael Graetzel and his team at the Ecole Polyechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have found news ways to grow perovskite materials for larger-size solar cells, reaching over 20 percent efficiency and matching the performance of conventional thin-film solar cells of similar sizes. Their technique involves briefly reducing pressure during fabrication of the perovskite crystals, which enables higher efficiencies with a low cost manufacturing process.

Researchers create first 1,000 core processor

A team of engineering students from the University of California-Davis has designed a 1,000-core processor with 621 million transistors. The "KiloCore," presented at the 2016 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Honolulu on 16 June is said to be the most energy efficient many-core processor ever reported. "To the best of our knowledge, it is the world's first 1,000-processor chip and it is the highest clock-rate processor ever designed in a university," said Bevan Baas, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who led the team that designed the chip architecture.

Fab tool book-to-bill remains at parity

The three-month average ratio of bookings to billings for North American semiconductor equipment vendors remained above parity for the fifth consecutive month in May, according to the SEMI trade group. The book-to-bill ratio for North American fab tool vendors in May was 1.09, meaning that $109 worth of orders were booked for every $100 worth of billings, SEMI stated. The SEMI book-to-bill ratio has remained above parity in each month this year.

"˜Brexit' ripples through tech community

A majority of voters in the UK on 23 June decided to leave the European Union, a move that had been opposed by a number of tech titans from IBM to Microsoft. Britain's exit from the European Union is expected to impact not only that country, but also the companies that do business there. While the stock market reacted negatively to the vote, and the British pound (GBP) fell in valuation against other major world currencies, those losses were largely regained in the months that followed.