The Week In Review: Oct. 29
By Mark LaPedus
Gartner has revealed its top predictions for IT and strategic technology. Among them: By 2014, three of the top five mobile handset vendors will be Chinese; by 2015, big data demand will reach 4.4 million jobs globally, but only one-third of those jobs will be filled; and by 2016, wearable smart electronics in shoes, tattoos and accessories will emerge as a $10 billion industry.
With about 21 months remaining until publicly traded U.S. component manufacturers must disclose their usage of conflict minerals to the government, the electronics industry appears to be unprepared, according to iSuppli. Conflict minerals are defined as those mined in locales of armed conflict and human rights abuses. These minerals, such as tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, are used in a wide range of components across the electronics supply chain.
According to IDC, end users’ concerns over foreign governments’ access to cloud data, particularly data stored in the U.S., are misplaced. “Scare stories over the Patriot Act abound, but they are fallacious,” said David Bradshaw, IDC research manager for European public cloud services, on IDC’s site. “The Patriot Act is nothing special, indeed data stored in the U.S. is generally better protected than in most European countries, in particular the U.K.”
Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James, said: ”While the Street seems to view AMD as imminently going out-of-business we would caution investors otherwise. AMD’s strategy announcement next week (October 29th) will likely be the unveiling of an ARM 64-bit strategic collaboration. With SeaMicro’s world-class fabric, AMD’s strategic positioning becomes quite powerful. We also remind investors that AMD knows the server market quite well, it has an x86 license and it just hired Apple’s processor architect.”
STMicroelectronics reported its third quarter results. The company also cut jobs and reduced its capital expenditures to about $500 million this year. During the quarter, ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor L8540 LTE ModAp platform and the FD-SOI variant of this application processor product were taped out and sample wafer fabrication started. Samples of both products are expected to be available during Q4. STMicroelectronics will fab the chips. ST-Ericsson is a 50-50 joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics.
During a conference call to discuss its results, executives from STMicroelectronics remained bullish about its efforts with FD-SOI.
TSMC reported mixed results in the quarter. http://www.tsmc.com/english/default.htm “TSMC reported 3Q results and guided 2013 CapEx to $8.0 billion to $8.5 billion, versus $8 billion in 2012, below our estimate of $9 billion. We believe this is consistent with a weakening macro backdrop, coupled with expectation for Apple business to truly ramp in 2014, as opposed to 2013,” said C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital. TSMC is expected to make applications processors at the 20nm node on a foundry basis for Apple.
TSMC has purchased 14 hectares of land near Hsinchu, Taiwan. TSMC plans to build an R&D facility for 450mm wafers, as well as 7nm process development, according to TSMC Chairman Morris Chang on Seeking Alpha. Chang also discussed TSMC’s outlook, CapEx, and other topics.
In partnership with the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), ATIC will support 14 research initiatives over the coming year spanning Khalifa University, UAE University, American University of Sharjah, Masdar Institute and New York University Abu Dhabi. ATIC owns a majority stake in GlobalFoundries.
Mentor Graphics has released a new product in the HyperLy-nx suite. h In addition, Kalray has completed its new 160 million gate, 3 billion transistor multi-purpose processor array IC using a Mentor’s functional verification, physical design and verification, and design-for-test flow.
AMD announced its collaboration with Microsoft for more than 125 Windows 8-based PC designs from OEMs, including ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and more.
During a recent press event at the company’s new headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Maxim discussed integration and other trends in analog. The company also revealed a 90nm process technology and discussed a new class of power system-on-a-chip (SOC) products. And the company revealed its directions, including a strong push in the mobility segment.
Most mobile SoC GPUs were shipped by Qualcomm in the first half, according to Jon Peddie Research.
Texas Instruments announced third-quarter revenue of $3.39 billion and net income of $784 million. “For 4Q ‘12, TI guided revenues to fall 6% to 13%. Annual Capex guidance was cut by $200 million to $500 million, as TI dials back additional capital spending, commensurate with the environment,” said Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR.
Broadcom said revenue for the third quarter of 2012 was $2.13 billion. This represents an increase of 8.0% compared with the $1.97 billion reported for the second quarter of 2012 and an increase of 8.7% compared with the $1.96 billion reported for the third quarter of 2011. “Broadcom reported robust 3Q ‘12 results and gave 4Q ‘12 guidance near Street estimates, better than most peers,” Berger said.
KLA-Tencor reported mixed results. “KLA-Tencor’s results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 reflect today’s challenging demand environment for the wafer fab equipment industry,” said Rick Wallace, president and CEO.
It was a tough quarter for ATE giant Teradyne. The company reported Q3 revenues of $463 million, up 35% from the same period in 2011. But Q4 orders are down 61% from this quarter quarter and Q4 revenue is forecast at between $235 million and $260 million.
Tags: 7nm, AMD, ARM, ATIC, Barclay's Capital, Broadcom, Gartner, IDC, IHS iSuppli, KLA-Tencor, Maxim, Mentor Graphics, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Semiconductor Research Corp.; GlobalFoundries, STMicroelectronics, Teradyne, Texas Instruments, TSMC