The Week In Review: June 15
By Mark LaPedus
In a major foundry deal, GlobalFoundries has agreed to manufacture devices for STMicroelectronics using ST’s fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology in both the 28nm and 20nm nodes.
TSMC has approved capital appropriations of $3.176 billion for capacity expansions. It also re-elected Morris Chang as chairman. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics announced a new LSI fab line and appointed a new CEO.
Applied Materials was ranked as the largest supplier of photovoltaic (PV) solar manufacturing equipment in 2011, according to VLSI Research. This is the fourth consecutive year that Applied has been ranked number one in revenue in the PV solar market.
Soitec has completed construction and grid connection for the largest concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) solar power plant in Italy. The plant is equipped with 74 of Soitec’s high-efficiency CPV trackers.
Mentor Graphics rolled out two products and announced a new deal. Mentor announced a new version of its Flowmaster thermo-fluid simulation software. It also released a GENIVI 2.0-compliant Linux-based solution for in-vehicle infotainment systems. And separately, Simco Ltd. is using Mentor’s Embedded Inflexion HMI product to develop its vehicle instrument cluster.
SEMI reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $10.61 billion in the first quarter of 2012. The billings figure is 14% higher than the fourth quarter of 2011.
Toshiba in the first quarter of 2012 made a noteworthy comeback in the NAND flash memory business, according to the new rankings.
A new report from IC Insights shows sensor sales growing 18% in 2012 to $5.7 billion, surpassing the $4.8 billion record set in 2011.
Tags: Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries, IC Insights, Mentor Graphics, Samsung, SEMI, Soitec, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, TSMC, VLSI Research