By Mark LaPedus
Japan’s Ushio will discontinue its R&D for EUV light sources and will sell its EUV service business to ASML. That means the market has only two EUV source vendors—ASML’s Cymer unit and Gigaphoton. “Ushio’s subsidiary, Xtreme Technologies, competes with Cymer, which was recently acquired by ASML, thus symbolizing an endorsement of Cymer’s EUV technology. Ushio will gain cost savings in both fixed costs and variable costs as 30 staff in their German facility will be shifted under ASML’s umbrella. Although the termination of this business is disappointing, it does reduce future risk of high R&D costs as well as lowering current costs,” said analyst David Motozo Rubenstein in his blog called Chips and Dips.

Taking another shot to displace ARM in the mobile, tablet and other markets, Intel rolled out its new and long-awaited microarchitecture for its Atom processor line.

SEMI applauded the White House announcement that President Obama decided to visit Applied Materials’ facilities in Austin, Texas. This was part of his focus on manufacturing jobs, high-tech skills and technology that will drive long-term economic growth. The administration’s announcement cited Applied Materials’ contribution to innovation and job creation.

While faced with difficult technology and investment choices in R&D, there is now increased pressure on the component-level supply chain, according to Michael Lercel, director of nanodefectivity and metrology at Sematech, in SEMI’s newsletter.

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments decreased during the first quarter 2013, when compared to fourth quarter 2012 area shipments according to the SEMI.

KC Ang, senior vice president and general manager of GlobalFoundries Singapore, has been appointed to serve SEMI Singapore Regional Advisory Board (RAB) as their new chairman.

Cadence announced its intent to acquire the IP business of Evatronix, adding to its rapidly expanding IP offering.

Cadence also introduced a new version of Incisive Enterprise Simulator, which improves low-power verification productivity of complex SoCs by 30%.

Mentor Graphics announced availability of the newest tool in the Capital software suite, Capital Harness TVM. This tool automatically generates detailed harness manufacturing process and cost data that is specific to each harness design, each factory and each company’s cost models.

SRC and NIST announced the second phase of the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI). For this phase, SRC and NIST will provide a combined $5 million in annual funding for three multi-university research centers tasked with demonstrating non-conventional, low-energy technologies that outperform current technologies on critical applications in 10 years and beyond.

On the outside, the U.S. and South Korean versions of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S4 smartphone look alike. But on the inside, there are differences in key components, according to IHS. Global shipments of solid state drives (SSD) in PCs are set to rise by a factor of seven by 2017, allowing them to claim more than one-third of the market for PC storage solutions by that time, according to an IHS.

The high-flying acceleration and sensor product category was brought back to earth in 2012 when price erosion pulled down annual sales growth to 7%—the lowest percentage increase for motion-sensing semiconductors since 2005, according to IC Insights.

After falling 15% in 2012, solar photovoltaic wafer production is forecast to grow 19% in 2013, passing 30 GW and recovering to the 2011 level, according to NPD Solarbuzz. However, industry utilization is expected to remain below 60%.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) on the road in the world’s seven largest automobile markets will reach only 7.5 million as the industry struggles to capitalize on cheap shale-driven natural gas, Lux Research said.

By Mark LaPedus
The term carbon footprint seems to be “old hat” and yesterday’s measure of sustainability. “Sustainable development” is the new term. But what is it and can someone please define it? The recent European Coatings Show provided a clue, according to Lux.

For years, smart watches have failed to take off for one reason or another: they looked ugly, had weak functionality, or the battery life was lousy, according to ABI Research. However, a new collection of smart watches have emerged that could change consumers’ perceptions. Market intelligence firm ABI Research projects more than 1.2 million smart watches will be shipped in 2013.

Intel announced its results and cut its CapEx by $1 billion from $13 billion to $12 billion. Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James, made the following observations: “With smartphones/tablets not contributing much for Intel in 2013 and the foundry growth vector still 2-3 years from being a real business, Intel is, in our view, quite vulnerable. The hope is for a datacenter recovery as an offset in 2H13 – we’ll see. Interestingly, Intel indicated in relation to its foundry strategy that it would not enable competitors that license ARM processor technology. Outside of programmable logic devices (PLDs), isn’t everybody of significance already using ARM?”

For total fab spending, GlobalFoundries plans to spend $4.4 billion this year to expand production as demand for smartphones and tablets jumps, according to Bloomberg. The spending compares with $3.8 billion last year.

TSMC raised its capital spending. Spending will be $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared to an earlier forecast of $9 billion, according to Bloomberg. TSMC is accelerating its 20nm and finFET production.

In a blog, Applied Materials said it has recently completed the electrical characterization of through-silicon via (TSV) structures. This development is important because TSVs are the vertical interconnections that carry power and high-bandwidth speed signals between the stacked die of layered logic and memory devices.

Recently, more than 270 students from National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, crowded into the campus auditorium to hear Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO, of Applied Materials, to deliver a talk. The Applied Materials CEO told students to follow their passion.

Soitec’s solar unit has completed a debt financing plan for its Touwsrivier project in South Africa.

Soitec announced consolidated sales of 72.7 million euros for the fourth quarter, down 9.3% on a yearly basis. On a sequential basis, Q4 electronic sales were up by 19.1%.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a book-to-bill ratio of 1.14 in March, up from 1.10 from April, according to SEMI. id=highlights

Mentor Graphics announced the opening of a new Mentor-sponsored electronics design laboratory at The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), based in the Zhejiang province. Mentor has donated more than $10 million in EDA software and support to enable UNNC students to graduate with in-depth knowledge of leading-edge design methodologies.

ASML announced its results and said the contract of Eric Meurice, president and CEO, ends next year. As of July 1, ASML’s leadership will be comprised as follows: Peter Wennink, ASML’s CFO, will be president and CEO; Martin van den Brink, ASML’s executive vice president, will be president and chief technology officer. Meurice will be chairman of ASML and act as adviser to the new leadership and the supervisory board until the end of his contract on March 31, 2014.

Intermolecular has entered into a multi-year technology development and IP licensing agreement with Micron Technology, focused on technology development and related IP for advanced memory technologies. Intermolecular has been working on DRAM technology with Elpida, which is being acquired by Micron. Now, with Micron, Intermolecular is expanding into the nonvolatile memory front with the memory maker, said Dave Lazovsky, president and CEO of Intermolecular. “New materials and device architectures are increasingly needed to meet future embedded and mobile technology requirements, and partnering with Micron in this area is a significant milestone for Intermolecular,” he said.

Tessera has named Richard Hill as interim chief executive and executive chairman of the board. Hill replaces former president and CEO Robert Young, who has decided to step down amid pressure from an investment firm.

Altera has agreed to acquire TPACK, a subsidiary of Applied Micro Circuits Corp. TPACK delivers FPGA-based optical transport network products targeting packet and optical networking equipment suppliers.

”According to Dow Jones VentureWire and other news reports, Avago has reached a deal to acquire Javelin Semiconductor, a manufacturer of CMOS power amplifiers (PAs) which services the mobile market,” said Doug Freedman, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

Netronome has raised $19 million in series E and related financing from Sourcefire, Intel Capital and existing investors DFJ Esprit and the Raptor Group. The company is making a next-generation flow processor line, the NFP-6xxx, which is built using Intel’s 22nm tri-gate technology.

Smartphones are forecast to account for 26% of the $30.0 billion NAND flash memory market in 2013. The NAND flash market is forecast to grow 12% in 2013, from $26.8 billion in 2012, according to IC Insights.

By Mark LaPedus
What impact will Intel have on the overall foundry business? In a research note, Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said: “Competition between Intel and the foundries, and the foundries and each other, should force high spending at the leading edge over the next two to three years. We remain bullish on equipment demand as long as Intel continues to play an aggressive role in the x86 versus ARM battle and its new foundry effort. We believe Intel is attempting to exploit its manufacturing technology advantage, which should pressure rivals TSMC and Samsung to maintain aggressive node transition plans.”

Staying in the leading-edge process technology race requires deep pockets. At 20nm and beyond, chipmakers will have to raise the CapEx ante to stay in the race. “Capital and production costs are rising faster than historic levels as logic and foundry producers migrate to 20nm and below,” Twigg said. “We expect equipment costs to rise 25% at the 22nm node and 28% at the 14nm node. New gate technologies, along with multiple-patterning steps and pitch-splitting techniques, are driving costs higher.”

GlobalFoundries has announced several milestones in the 2.5D/3D chip arena—a series of events that brings the technology one step closer to mass production.

In coordination with the National Academy of Sciences, GlobalFoundries helped host a conference titled, “New York’s Nanotechnology Model: Building the Innovation Economy” at the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, N.Y.

Fabless ASIC house Socle Technology named Michael Noonen as its new chairman. Noonen is still the executive vice president of global sales and marketing at GlobalFoundries, which is an investor in Socle.

The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) said that the ESD Working Group of the OpenPDK Coalition has released an ESD Protection Design Flow Methodology. The ESD Working Group that developed this document included representatives from IBM, Intel, GlobalFoundries, NXP, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics.

Mentor Graphics announced availability of a comprehensive IP-to-system, UPF-based low-power verification flow.

ARM and Cadence disclosed the details behind their collaboration to implement the first ARM Cortex-A57 processor on TSMC’s 16nm finFET process.

Peregrine Semiconductor said that its UltraCMOS phase locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer and prescaler devices are designed into six Globalstar mobile communication satellites that were launched into orbit in February. UltraCMOS is an advanced RF silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) process.

Randhir Thakur, executive vice president and general manager of the Silicon Systems Group at Applied Materials, has been named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Sematech executive Raj Jammy has joined Intermolecular as senior vice president and general manager of the semiconductor group.

RF Micro Devices announced the appointment of James Clifford, a former executive at Qualcomm, as vice president of foundry services.

More than one quarter of installed wafer capacity worldwide is dedicated to producing IC devices using process geometries smaller than 40nm, according to IC Insights.

In 2012, Intel retained the No. 1 market share position for the 21st year in a row, according to Gartner. Qualcomm climbed from No. 6 in 2011 to No. 3, and now trails only Intel and Samsung. Texas Instruments retained its fourth-place ranking, although Toshiba slipped to fifth place.

By Mark LaPedus
Has Apple finally hit the wall after years of sizzling growth? “Relatively soft sales of large-format iPads and iPhones are likely to drive FQ2 revenue to $41.1 billion and FQ3 revenue to $33.5 billion, both of which are below the Street estimates of $42.8 billion and $40.0 billion, respectively,” according to a research note from Pacific Crest Securities. “Among them, we consider the reduction to our large-format iPad estimates to be the most significant, as this appears likely to be a sustained trend as tablet demand shifts to smaller and less expensive models. The shifts to our iPhone estimates are largely related to the product cycle, which we consider to be a transitory issue. However, we continue to believe sell-through evidence supports our view that the high end of the smartphone market is quickly becoming saturated.”

The semiconductor equipment market continues to consolidate. Hitachi High-Technologies has completed its acquisition of SII NanoTechnology from Seiko Instruments. SII, a supplier of photomask repair tools, has been placed into a new subsidiary called Hitachi High-Tech Science. The move also propels Hitachi High-Tech into the mask repair equipment business.

The European Commission is funding yet another 450mm program. The project, called Enable450, includes Intel and fab tool vendors. It is aimed at 450mm wafer processing, specifically targeting European material and equipment companies. The group also consists of U.S. tool vendors, as well. ASM International is the coordinator of the group. Other members are Applied Materials Israel, ASML, CEA-LETI, Fraunhofer, Future Horizons, IMEC, RECIF, SEMI, Soitec, among others. At present, there is no news to report beyond the formation of this group. Stay tuned.

IC Insights has released its top-50 semiconductor supplier rankings. In the rankings, Qualcomm registered a 34% surge in sales and moved up three positions to replace TI as the fourth-largest semiconductor supplier in 2012. GlobalFoundries registered better than 30% growth last year, moving from 21st place in the rankings in 2011 to 15th last year.

Taiwan DRAM maker ProMOS Technologies has agreed to sell its 300mm wafer fab and equipment to GlobalFoundries, according to Reuters.

Peregrine Semiconductor has filed a new suit, alleging the infringement of its RF silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology by RF Micro Devices. This new legal action is in addition to an existing suit filed by Peregrine against RFMD in February 2012. That case is still pending.

In a blog, Applied Materials’ venture capital arm discusses the lessons it has learned to ensure the mutual success of a startup company and a corporate investor.

In another blog, Applied Materials talks about the evolution of the semiconductor service model. Instead of just repairing the equipment as in the past model, the new idea is to make fab tools work better, with higher output and lower cost of ownership.

SEMI Europe honored four industry leaders for their accomplishments in developing standards for the photovoltaics (PV) industry. The SEMI Standards awards were recently announced at the SEMI PV Fab Manager Forum 2013.

Why is there a need for “best practices” in mixed-signal SoC verification, and what are some of those practices? Cadence provides some insights in a video.

Mentor Graphics said that its FloEFD computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation solution helped Skeleton Bobsleigh World Championship winner Shelley Rudman of Great Britain to her first world championship win on Feb. 1 in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Analog Devices announced that CEO Jerald Fishman passed away suddenly from an apparent heart attack. ADI President Vincent Roche has been appointed CEO on an interim basis by ADI’s board. In a research note, Doug Freedman, an analyst with RBC, said: ”If Jerry Fishman did not touch your life personally, his work and that of ADI have surely touched your life. I had the pleasure of competing against ADI for 12 years, and writing investment research about ADI for another 11 years. While Jerry was given a great company to run he did so much more than could be expected. ADI has been the envy of the analog IC industry for as long as I can remember. In Silicon Valley, we watched ADI build and maintain a data convertor and amplifier franchise that is unmatched in our industry. All the while, competitors tried extremely hard to take away the market share ADI had, and at every turn Jerry, and his east coast based team, turned away the efforts from Silicon Valley and Texas. In one instance, a competitor hired a team of engineers away from ADI and was able to get a foot hold into a market. Jerry fought back and won, not just in the market but in the courts having found patents that were violated. The far reaching impact of Jerry and the work at ADI is being felt in the areas of driver safety, medical imaging, and mobile communication (none of which would be as advanced as they are today without Jerry and his team of analog engineers). In recent years he had turned his attention on making the best better, not just technically but financially. The path he sought was always clear and easy to see, for all those that wished to follow him. I always enjoyed my interactions with him and will miss his conviction, thoughts and guidance. Jerry, Your legacy lives on in your family and ADI.”

China’s move to corner the market for rare-earth minerals (REMs) has prompted manufacturers of low-voltage industrial motors to adopt alternative technologies that reduce or eliminate the use of these materials, spurring new growth in the motors market, according to IHS.

By Mark LaPedus
For years, Brazil has been trying to get a semiconductor industry off the ground. A government-backed entity called Ceitec operates a small-scale fab in Brazil. There are also several IC design centers in that nation. Last November, SIX Semiconductors emerged and announced plans to build a fab in Brazil. The venture includes a partnership between IBM and SIX Soluções Inteligentes, a technology company of EBX Group, and others. The group will invest R$1 billion, or US$513 million, to a fab in Ribeirão Neves. Recently, the group was on a job-recruiting mission in the United States. In total, there are 300 job positions available at SIX Semiconductors in Brazil.

Starboard Value LP, together with its affiliates, currently owns 7.4% of the outstanding common shares of chip-packaging IP provider Tessera. The investment firm wants to shake up the board and oust the CEO. This follows allegations that Tessera’s CEO may have been engaged in inappropriate behavior.

Front-end fab equipment spending is expected to be flat in 2013, remaining around $31.7 billion, according to SEMI. Front-end fab equipment spending is projected to hit $39.3 billion in 2014, a 24% increase, according to SEMI.

Semiconductor industry growth drivers and European market strategies were featured topics at the recent SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) Europe 2013. In one area of growth, NXP believes that by 2022, about 20% to 25% of global passenger vehicles will be connected to intelligent traffic management infrastructure and/or in-vehicle networks.

The flexible and printed electronics community reports encouraging progress in the materials and process ecosystem needed for commercial production, according to SEMI.

RDA Microelectronics has begun volume shipments of its GPS LNAs for use in Samsung’s 3G handsets. Developed on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS process technology, RDA’s GPS LNA is a high-gain, small-size amplifier ideally suited for GPS, Galileo and GLONASS applications in 2G and 3G handsets.

RF chipmaker Skyworks Solutions said that its SOI switching technology is now being utilized by European, Japanese, Korean and North American car manufacturers for advanced infotainment systems.

Peregrine Semiconductor will collaborate with Murata on a multisource arrangement for RF switches and other components based on Peregrine’s UltraCMOS technology. UltraCMOS is based on a variant of SOI.

Cadence introduced design and verification IP supporting the new Mobile PCI Express (M-PCIe) specification.

Mentor Graphics announced several new capabilities for its Flowmaster simulation software solution for thermo-fluid systems. Mentor also intends to pay an annual cash dividend of $0.18 per share on its common stock.

Applied Materials has approved an 11% increase in the quarterly cash dividend from $0.09 to $0.10 per share, payable on June 13.

Spansion and United Microelectronics Corp. announced the joint development of a 40nm process that integrates UMC’s 40nm LP logic process with Spansion’s embedded charge trap flash memory technology. As part of the non-exclusive agreement, UMC is licensed to manufacture products based on this technology for Spansion.

Cortus, a provider of 32-bit processor IP, and speciality foundry Dongbu HiTek are teaming up to offer platform solutions. The design platforms will be based on the Dongbu HiTek 0.13-micron eFlash technology and Cortus APS3R processor and peripheral IP.

IDT has transferred the assets and design team of its smart-metering IC product lines to Atmel in an all-cash transaction.

Significant reductions in capital equipment spending among DRAM makers are expected to stabilize DRAM prices at a minimum, but more likely will help drive prices further upward throughout the balance of the year, according to IC Insights.

Capex budgets are also being trimmed for NAND flash (though not nearly as much as DRAM), and that, along with ongoing unit demand, has put upward pressure on ASPs for these memory devices as well.

By Mark LaPedus
A year ago, chipmakers were reeling from a severe shortage of 28nm foundry capacity, prompting foundries to ramp up their fabs at a staggering pace.

At the time, foundries were unable to keep up with huge and unforeseen demand for mobile chips. The shortfall was also caused by low yields and the overall lack of installed 28nm capacity.

Today, the 28nm crunch is largely over. The foundries have caught up with the demand and customers no longer are feeling the pinch. And as it turns out, 28nm is a sweet spot for many devices and the technology will remain a long-lasting node.

However, the overzealous foundries may have expanded too fast. In fact, there are some signs of a possible foundry glut, and falling fab utilization rates, for 28nm and other processes in 2013. “I don’t see a shortage problem,” said Samuel Wang, an analyst at Gartner. “But overall utilization rates for advanced technologies will go down this year.”

Mobile chipmakers represent the biggest customers for foundries, but pockets of the business are cooling off to some degree. So, unless there is a steep upturn in the near term, the foundry market may quickly turn into a buyers’ market in 2013. Average selling prices for wafers could steadily drop, putting a squeeze on foundry margins.

Besides 28nm, foundries are simultaneously developing 20nm planar and 14nm-class finFETs. In doing so, foundries are moving toward the long-awaited “virtual IDM” model, where vendors and customers collaborate more closely under the same roof.

The shift towards the “virtual IDM” model is easier said than done, however. “The foundries will have some obstacles,” said Robert Bruck, vice president and general manager of the Technology Manufacturing Engineering Group at Intel. “Design, process technology, development and equipment costs are going up.”

As the costs and challenges mount, there are signs that the leading-edge foundry business is ripe for a shakeout. Currently, there are six companies that provide leading-edge foundry services in one form or another: GlobalFoundries, IBM, Intel, Samsung, TSMC and UMC.

28nm glut?
In total, the IC market is expected to increase 6% in 2013, compared to a drop of 1% in 2012, said Bill McClean, president of IC Insights. Capital spending is expected to fall 10% in 2013, but foundry CapEx will remain flat this year, he added.

For 28nm alone, the foundries had a total capacity of 200,000 wafer starts per month (wspm) by the end of 2012, according to Barclays Capital. In 2013, the foundries are expected to add an additional capacity of 75,000 to 100,000 wspm for 28nm, according to Mike Splinter, chairman and chief executive of Applied Materials.

And at 20nm, the foundries are expected to have a total capacity of 25,000 wspm in 2013, Splinter said in a recent conference call. Most of that capacity will be added in the second half of 2013, he said.

Splinter projects that the worldwide wafer fab equipment (WFE) market will be flat to minus 10% in 2013, up from minus 5% to minus 15% from his previous forecast. “We think the foundries will be down, but not as low as we expected,” he said.

CapEx race
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) is showing no signs of a slowdown. The world’s largest foundry vendor has increased its capital spending from $8.3 billion in 2012 to $9 billion or more in 2013.

For 28nm, TSMC is expanding its capacity threefold in 2013 over 2012, said Morris Chang, chairman and chief executive of TSMC. In 2012, the polysilicon version of 28nm represented 100% of TSMC’s output. TSMC is expanding its 28nm high-k/metal-gate technology, which will reach the crossover point in the third quarter of 2013, he said.

The company also sees strong demand for 20nm. Apple will have its upcoming 20nm A7 application processors made on a foundry basis by TSMC, according to Barclays Capital, which noted that Apple is switching foundry vendors from Samsung to TSMC.

Meanwhile, GlobalFoundries, the world’s second largest foundry vendor, has set its capital spending budget at $3.5 billion in 2013, said Ajit Manocha, chief executive of GlobalFoundries. In 2012, GlobalFoundries’ capital spending hit $3.2 billion, according to Barclays.

The spending will help GlobalFoundries’ efforts to become more of a “virtual IDM.” In January, GlobalFoundries announced plans to build a multi-billion dollar R&D facility at its Fab 8 campus in Saratoga County, N.Y. The company’s new Technology Development Center (TDC) will help accelerate its 10nm and 7nm process development.

The TDC will also house part of GlobalFoundries’ stacked-die packaging and advanced photomask efforts. As photomask complexities soar, “some customers want a turnkey solution,” Manocha said.

Within its new 300mm fab in New York, the company has begun ramping up 28nm and 20nm processes. In 2013, Fab 8 is expected to expand from 10,000 to 30,000 wafers a month. “That’s still on plan,” he said. “We are also expanding our fab production in Dresden and Singapore.”

In total, GlobalFoundries will offer five technology platforms: bulk planar, bulk finFET, super-steep retrograde well (SSRW), FD-SOI (minimum) and FD-SOI (maximum). Customer tapeouts for its 14nm-class finFETs are expected in 2013, with production slated for 2014.

The maximum version of FD-SOI is tuned for specific applications, said Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries. Meanwhile, the minimum version is a simple and an “out of the box” FD-SOI technology, Kengeri said.

The company will provide FD-SOI wafers on a foundry basis for STMicroelectronics and other customers. GlobalFoundries’ 28nm FD-SOI process will move into risk production in the fourth quarter of 2013, with production slated for the first quarter of 2014.

Meanwhile, amid the apparent loss of a major customer in Apple, Samsung has cut its logic capital spending from 8 trillion Korean won in 2012 to between 4 trillion and 4.5 trillion Korean won in 2013, according to Barclays. Apple accounts for roughly one-third of Samsung’s logic capacity.

Samsung’s main logic/foundry fab is called S1, which is in Korea. S1 is making 28nm devices and is capable of low-volume finFET production. “S1 has more than doubled its size over the last year,” said Ana Hunter, vice president of foundry services at Samsung Semiconductor.

In Austin, Texas, Samsung has two 300mm fabs, plus a copper metallization facility. One fab is a foundry/logic plant. The fab, dubbed S2, has been a dedicated foundry plant for Apple. The other fab in Austin was previously a NAND facility. Last year, Samsung converted that fab from NAND into a 28nm logic/foundry plant.

In 2012, the company put on the brakes on its new S3 fab, a 300mm plant in Korea. “S3 resumed construction at the end of January,” said Christian Gregor Dieseldorff, an analyst at SEMI. “Equipment may begin to move in by mid-year. I think this may be the earliest.”

The S3 fab, which is expected to ramp up in 2014, will manufacture 20nm planar devices and 14nm-class finFETs. With process design kits available today, Samsung is expected to sample finFETs in 2014. In addition, the company has deployed “training teams” to help customers with their finFET designs, Samsung’s Hunter said.

The complexity of new and advanced designs will require more handholding between the foundries and their customers. “The collaboration has to get deeper with customers,” she added.

In moving towards the virtual IDM model, the foundries face some challenges. “There are very large investments that are required,” Intel’s Bruck said. “How do you accelerate the yield learning? What about the IP issues? Another aspect in terms of the foundry model is the delay that we are seeing in terms of revenue on the leading-edge.”

All chipmakers, including Intel, face the same challenge: How to keep up with the soaring R&D costs associated with the new and emerging technologies? “R&D is weighing on every level on the supply chain in this industry,” he added.

Foundry companies are keeping a close eye on Intel. To date, Intel is only providing foundry services to a limited customer base, and shows no signs of expanding the offering to a broader audience. So far, the chip maker is providing its 22nm finFET technology on a foundry basis to flow processor supplier Netronome and two FPGA vendors, Achronix and Tabula. In addition, Intel recently announced capital spending of $13 billion in 2013, including $2 billion for 450mm development.

Meanwhile, Taiwan foundry vendor United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) continues to fall behind, as the company said it is having yield issues with its 28nm process. In addition, UMC recently said it will move directly from 28nm to 14nm finFETs, thereby skipping the 20nm node.

By Mark LaPedus
Is the cell phone market cooling down? Worldwide mobile phone sales totaled 1.75 billion units in 2012, a 1.7 percent decline from 2011 sales, according to Gartner. The last time the worldwide mobile phone market declined was in 2009. On the bright side, smartphones continued to drive overall mobile phone sales, and the fourth quarter of 2012 saw record smartphone sales of 207.7 million units, up 38.3% from the same period last year.

Egypt’s Si-Ware Systems, a fabless chipmaker, has licensed its MEMS FT-IR spectrometer technology to Hamamatsu Photonics. The FT-IR spectrometer is the world’s first single-chip spectrometer. The technology is based on Si-Ware’s Silicon integrated Micro Optical System Technology (SiMOST). With the technology, multiple optical MEMS structures can be patterned and etched on SOI wafers using deep reactive ion etching. The structures are then wafer-level packaged and diced to create a one-chip optical system. 4

Applied Materials reported its Q1 results for fiscal 2013. Orders grew 44% sequentially led by demand for semiconductor and display equipment.

In its conference call, Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO of Applied, said: “We now believe the 2013 wafer fab equipment will be flat to down 10% relative to 2012 spending of around $30 billion.”

Applied also announced that Charlie Gay, president of Applied’s Solar division, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his contributions to the development of the global solar industry.

Worldwide silicon wafer revenues declined by 12% in 2012 compared to 2011 according to SEMI. Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments declined 0.1% in 2012 when compared to 2011 area shipments.

Pure, part of Imagination Technologies, has used Mentor Graphics’ technology and services to create its digital TV recorder 3D user interface.

Cadence announced the election of Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer of Samsung Electronics, to its board of directors.

2013 has barely started, but various research firms already are making predictions for this year and next. For example, Semiconductor Intelligence has revised its 2013 chip forecast to 7.5% growth. The firm is holding its 2014 forecast at 12%. The firm also compares its predictions with other recent forecasts for 2013 and 2014.

Ten product categories, led by tablet MPUs and cell-phone application MPUs, are forecast to exceed the 6% growth rate forecast for the total IC market this year, according to IC Insights.

OEM spending on semiconductors for wireless applications is set to rise by 13.5% this year to reach a value of $69.6 billion, up from $62.3 billion in 2012, according to the IHS.

Revenue in 2013 for the worldwide outsourced manufacturing industry is forecast to reach $404.5 billion, up 4.5% from $387.0 billion last year, according to the IHS.

By Mark LaPedus

The recent Nano Job Fair in New York exceeded the 800 registrant capacity. Due to the overwhelming response, and the need to fill an additional 300 jobs, another job fair will be scheduled in the next few months. The fair itself filled more than 300 current and future openings at the CNSE, including positions with the Global 450mm Wafer Consortium (G450C).

China’s transition from a low-cost manufacturing hub to an innovation hotspot with growing foreign ambitions represents both a threat and an opportunity, according to Lux Research. Foreign acquisitions worth $28 billion are just the beginning of China’s global ambitions, according to the firm.

The Chinese IC market is forecast to have a 2012 to 2017 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13%, five points higher than the 8% CAGR forecast for the total IC market during this same time period, according to IC Insights. By 2017, China is expected to represent 38% of the worldwide IC market, up from 23% in 2007, according to the firm.

Skyworks announced its results for the quarter. The company has also garnered some RF antenna tuning design wins, some of which are based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, said David Aldrich, president and CEO of the RF chip maker, on the Seeking Alpha Web site.

STMicroelectronics announced its results for the quarter. During a conference call, Carlo Bozotti, president and CEO of ST, said the company is developing ASICs for various applications using FD-SOI technology. ST also is looking at strategic options for ST-Ericsson, the cell-phone chip venture with Ericsson, he said. The venture recently rolled out a chip based on FD-SOI.

Following the announcement of STMicroelectronics’ intention to exit as a shareholder of ST-Ericsson, Ericsson is also exploring various strategic options for the venture.

Kilopass, a provider of semiconductor intellectual property (IP), will demonstrate its one-time programmable (OTP) memory IP on IBM’s 45nm, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology at the Common Platform Technology Forum. The event, which is on Feb. 5, will take place in Santa Clara, Calif.

Mentor Graphics announced the latest release of its HyperLynx product for superior high-speed design and analysis.

Chipmakers must explore, and embrace, new design methodologies to cut costs and boost cycle times. One way to bolster the design flow is to rethink the register-transfer level (RTL) synthesis process.

Applied Materials said that George Davis, executive vice president and chief financial officer, will depart the company effective March 8. The company expects to name a successor in the coming weeks. Davis will become CFO for Qualcomm.

SEMI and the U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance their cooperation in the areas of standards and roadmap activities for the solar thin film industry.

Renesas continues to cut costs. The company has sold its backend operations to J-Devices.

American Semiconductor has a process that transforms standard silicon wafers into flexible wafers. The technology is now available on TowerJazz’ CMOS foundry process.

Worldwide tablet shipments outpaced predictions, reaching a record total of 52.5 million units worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to IDC. Samsung is gaining ground on Apple, according to the firm.

VLSI Research says the IC industry will grow 10.1% in 2013. “We expect (the IC industry) to be an ASP-driven upturn,” according to the firm. “Even though the Chinese New Year is still weeks away, chipmakers are becoming more optimistic about 2013. This is driven in part by a modest improvement that is taking place at the macro level. The visibility for the U.S. economy has improved considerably. China’s macro data has also been positive and the European debt crisis appears to be fading.”

Chip inventory held by semiconductor suppliers reached alarmingly high levels in the third quarter of 2012 amid weak market conditions, according to IHS iSuppli.

By Mark LaPedus
In New York, Saratoga County is booming. Saratoga counts on several growth engines, including semiconductors. In the county, GlobalFoundries is ramping up a new fab and recently announced an R&D center. In addition, there is a new push to build casinos in the county to further boost the local economy. But the local mayor is apparently against the idea, according to reports.

Samsung overtook Apple as the top worldwide semiconductor buyer in 2012, according to Gartner.

In 2012, Samsung almost doubled its foundry sales and surpassed UMC to become the third-largest IC foundry in the world, according to IC Insights. IC Insights believes that Samsung will challenge GlobalFoundries for the No. 2 spot in the rankings in 2013.

Synopsys announced immediate availability of its EDA solutions for finFET-based semiconductor designs. GlobalFoundries and Samsung are collaborating with Synopsys in the arena.

Soitec announced its results for the third quarter. The mobility-driven markets continue to offset PC segment weakness.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a book-to-bill ratio of 0.92 in December, up from 0.79 in November, according to SEMI. “Both bookings and billings increased in December, but remain below figures reported one year ago,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “While uncertainty remains regarding the 2013 equipment outlook, the foundry and advanced packaging segments are the key investment drivers at the beginning of the year.”

SEMI announced that Rudy Kellner, vice president of the Industry Group at FEI, has joined the SEMI North American Advisory Board (NAAB).

The new edition of the International Technology Roadmap for PV (ITRPV) will be presented and published at the upcoming PV Fab Managers Forum, according to SEMI.

The Chinese end market dominated shipments of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels during the final quarter of 2012 with 33% of global end-market demand, according to NPD Solarbuzz.

Solar PV equipment spending was $3.6 billion for 2012, a 72% decline from the peak of $12.9 billion in 2011, according to NPD Solarbuzz. Finlay Colville, vice president at NPD Solarbuzz, said: “Spending for 2013 is forecast to decline even further to $2.2 billion, levels not seen in the industry since 2006.”

Mentor Graphics announced a hardware emulation solution for ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor-based system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

After two straight years of contraction, the global DRAM market has the opportunity to rebound to double-digit growth in 2013, according to IHS iSuppli.

A new generation of lower-cost and more appealing ultrabooks is expected to help cause global shipments of solid-state drives (SSDs) to more than double in 2013, according to IHS iSuppi.

With emerging economies such as China and India slowing down, the Southeast Asian nations are emerging as key destinations for multinational companies, both as markets for their products as well as a source for new technologies, according to Lux Research.

By Mark LaPedus
Get ready for the 2012 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco. At the event, slated for today through Wednesday, GlobalFoundries CEO Ajit Manocha will give a keynote, entitled: “Is the Fabless/Foundry Model Dead? We Don’t Think So. Long Live Foundry 2.0!”

Here are some of the papers and events at the IEDM event:

*A team led by IBM will report on the world’s first high-performance hybrid-channel ETSOI CMOS device. Researchers have integrated a PFET having a thin, uniform strained SiGe channel, with an NFET having a Si channel, at 22nm.

*IBM will describe a fully-integrated SOI SRAM at 22nm.

*In a separate paper, CEA-LETI, STMicroelectronics, IBM, GlobalFoundries and Renesas will discuss FD-SOI for the 20nm node and beyond.

*STMicroelectronics will describe the performance of ultra-thin box and body technology. The SOI technology will provide a total power reduction of 30% to 40% at identical speed with respect to bulk thanks to back side gate biasing efficiency.

*National Chiao Tung University will discuss a high-performance Ge CMOS finFETs on a thin SOI wafer.

*Imec, GlobalFoundries and Samsung will talk about stress enhanced mobility for n- and p-FinFETs with both Si and Ge channels for the 14nm node and beyond.

*Applied Materials and Synopsys will present a paper entitled, “Is strain engineering scalable in FinFET era?”

*SuVolta, a developer of low-power CMOS technologies, announced the results that demonstrate the performance and power advantages of its Deeply Depleted Channel (DDC) technology.

*The SOI Industry Consortium has organized a symposium that will address the world of fully depleted SOI. The symposium will be held at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel today, concurrent with the IEDM 2012 Conference.

*The 14nm node is expected to be an inflection point for the chip industry, beyond which the resistivity of copper interconnects will increase exponentially and may become a limiting factor in chip design. Tomorrow, Applied Materials will host a forum in San Francisco to explore the subject.

Intel’s push in the foundry business has the industry talking. Can the chip giant give the traditional foundries a run for their money? Some say no. In a report, Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James, said: “The chatter that Intel should become a foundry for Apple/Qualcomm as a positive for the company is amusing to us given that foundries are the low-end of the semiconductor manufacturing totem-pole. Does it make sense for Intel to build $10 billion shiny new fabs for foundry work? We think not for 45-50% gross margins, and ask IBM how the foundry investment turned out. Intel’s fabs are not meant for the fragmented nature of foundries and truth be known, Intel is a laggard in SoC manufacturing anyway (at least today). Regardless, a formalized foundry strategy would be an acknowledgment by Intel that its model isn’t working and a negative for gross margins.”

Thanks to investments from Intel, Samsung and TSMC, ASML is developing a 450mm EUV scanner. But EUV remains delayed. So the industry is hedging its bets. In an announcement at Semicon Japan, Kazuo Ushida, president of Nikon, said that the company plans to ship 450mm, 193nm lithography tools in 2017 through a joint development effort with Intel. Nikon plans to have 450mm-enabled ArF immersion prototype tools in 2015-16.

In a video on SEMI’s site, Paul Farrar, general manager of the Global 450mm Consortium (G450C), discussed the progress and impact of the G450C.

AMD has amended its wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries. As part of the plan, AMD will reduce its procurement of wafers from GlobalFoundries.

International Rectifier introduced a series of high-current, ultra-low dropout hybrid linear voltage regulators based on SOI.

A team of ST and CEA-LETI received the 2012 Général Ferrié Award. They were honored for their work on FD-SOI technology.

ST has taken the decision to exit ST-Ericsson after a transition period and is currently in negotiations on exit options. This disengagement process has started, with the transition expected to end during the third quarter of 2013.  ST will continue to support ST-Ericsson as its supply-chain partner, advanced process-technology partner (FD-SOI) and application-processor IP provider.

Soitec will hold a grand opening celebration of its North American solar headquarters and manufacturing facility in San Diego on Dec. 19.

The Center for Science Teaching and Learning (CSTL) and Applied Materials announced a new clean tech competition challenge that addresses the global problem of access to clean water. The program, which now includes students from Singapore, as well as Xi’an, China, and California’s San Francisco Bay Area, was created last year to inspire the next generation of leaders and innovators in clean technology.

As a result of an equity investment, Qualcomm will become a minority shareholder in Sharp.

Axcelis will exit the dry-strip business to focus on the ion implanter market. Axcelis will sell its dry-strip business to Lam Research.

CyberOptics announced the completion of a restructuring and staff reduction totaling approximately 10% of its global workforce.

Signetics will double its capacity for flip chip package assembly within its factory in Paju, South Korea.

For most of the last two decades personal computers have accounted for a third or more of annual IC sales, but standard PCs are now on the brink of being replaced as the largest end-use product category for integrated circuits, according to IC Insights.

Amid weak economic conditions, IHS is downgrading its forecast for the global semiconductor market in 2012, with revenue now expected to decline by 2.3% for the year.

Sony next year is expected to purchase $8.4 billion worth of semiconductors, up nearly 5% from $8.0 billion in 2012, according to HIS. Meanwhile, Toshiba’s spending will increase 2.0% to $6.1 billion in 2013, up from $6.0 billion in 2012. In contrast, spending at the other major Japanese consumer electronics OEMs, Panasonic and Sharp, will decline in 2013 and 2014.