The Week In Review: Nov. 5
By Mark LaPedus
The number of high-risk suppliers to the U.S. government, including companies that sold suspect counterfeit products to military and commercial electronics channels, soared by 63% from 2002 to 2011, according to IHS iSuppli.
Consolidation in the fab tool market continues.Brooks Automation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Crossing Automation, a rival supplier of fab automation tools. The cash purchase price is $63 million. Crossing, which bought the atmospheric automation portion of Asyst two years ago, has developed several 450mm fab automation sub-systems, such as loadports, sorters and modules.
A technologist from Micron kicked off SEMI’s 2012 Strategic Materials Conference (SMC) with a comprehensive overview of the challenges of electronic materials. At the event, VLSI Research reported on the status of directed self-assembly (DSA) technology. “AZ Electronic Materials showed good progress in DSA,” according to the research firm. “In particular, we’re really excited about DSA. The rate of progress over the last two years has sparked that feeling of déjà vu. It feels like those days of immersion’s emergence, just when it seemed like there was no answer, one emerged.”
Cadence Design Systems has announced the tapeout of a 14nm test chip featuring an ARM Cortex-M0 processor. The test chip is based on IBM‘s finFET process and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. In a blog, Richard Goering provides the “inside story” of the 14nm finFET tapeout at Cadence.
Applied Materials rolled out new PVD and PECVD technologies to enable the next era of ultra-high definition (UHD) televisions and high-pixel density screens for mobile devices. The Applied AKT-PiVot PVD and Applied AKT-PX PECVD film deposition systems provide display manufacturers with a high-performance, cost-effective path to help bring advanced materials to volume production.
Mentor Graphics announced hardware and software solutions to accelerate the verification of PCI Express Generation 3 products.
UMC posted its results and disclosed that is working on a second-source model for TSMC-like processes.
X-FAB Silicon Foundries has increased its share in the German-based MEMS Foundry Itzehoe GmbH (MFI) from 25.5% to 51%. The move reflects X-FAB’s focus on MEMS manufacturing services and technologies.
MagnaChip said revenue for the third quarter of 2012 was $221.9 million, a 9.5% increase compared to $202.6 million for the second quarter of 2012, and a 10.7% increase compared to $200.4 million for the third quarter of 2011.
Apple rolled out new Mac computers that pair an SSD with a conventional HDD. Apple calls this its Fusion Drive, not to be confused with Fusion-io’s products. The SSD Guy weighs in.
ARM Holdings’ long-awaited entry into the 64-bit processor arena could propel the intellectual-property (IP) chip giant into new markets. ARM’s move also drew mixed reviews from analysts, especially regarding the announcement from one of its new licensees-Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
VLSI Research released its new outlook for 2013. The semiconductor equipment market is expected to reach $43.4 billion in 2013, down 4.4% from 2012. VLSI Research’s fab tool forecast calls for minus 14.3% in 2012.
According to NPD DisplaySearch, spending on manufacturing equipment for FPDs is forecast to rise 121% from $3.8 billion in 2012 to $8.3 billion in 2013.
After a strong surge in 2010 from the 2009 downturn and solid growth in 2011, the market for optoelectronics, sensors/actuators, and discrete semiconductors (O-S-D) lost most of its momentum in 2012, says IC Insights.
With Motorola (Google), RIM and Nokia posting operating losses during the third quarter of 2012, Canaccord Genuity technology analyst Michael Walkley estimated that Apple’s 59% of operating profits and Samsung’s 47%, combined to take 106% of all smartphone profits. He said, “Given the current competitive dynamics, we believe Apple and Samsung will maintain dominant value share during Q4/12 with share gains for Apple versus Samsung expected in Q4/12.” Walkley estimated that in 2013, AAPL will sell 193.9 million smartphones, while Samsung will sell 303.6 million, combining for more than 50% of market share. As a reference point, his next highest estimate of smartphone sales was with Huawei, at 47.9 million sales.
Tags: AMD, Apple, Applied Materials, ARM, AS Electronic Materials, Brooks Automation, Cadence, Canacord Genuity, counterfeit, Crossing Automation, Google, IBM, IHS iSuppli, Itzehoe GmbH, MagnaChip, MEMS, Mentor Graphics, Micron, Motorola, Nokia, PECVD, RIM, SEMI, TSMC, UHD, UMC, VLSI Research, X-Fab Silicon Foundries
November 5th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Immerson was an engineering challenge. Everyone knew the technology worked and had worked in other applications for decades. DSA is far more than a mere engineering challenge. It is a materials, infrastructure, equipment and process challenge. Every “shiny new penny” lithography technology has suffered from the same disease: “nice from far but far from nice”. Double patterning looked uglier from afar than EUV but at least we knew how to do it (thank goodness). A person (or company) could die waiting on EUV.