Global IC Trading Group, Inc.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

UPDATE 1-Integrated Silicon agrees to be bought by Cypress Semi

(Reuters) - Chipmaker Integrated Silicon Solutions Inc, which rejected a bid from Cypress Semiconductor Corp two days ago, reversed its decision on Wednesday and said it had now agreed to Cypress's terms for the $643 million deal to proceed.
Cypress raised its offer to buy Integrated Silicon for a second time in May, trumping bids by a Chinese consortium led by Uphill Investment Co.
Integrated Silicon said on Monday the deal had fallen apart because Cypress was not willing to take "all necessary actions" to ensure antitrust clearance in the United States and Germany.
Cypress, it said, had only agreed to take "all reasonable actions." Both companies have a large share of the U.S. and German SRAM memory chip market.
Integrated Silicon said on Wednesday it had now agreed to proceed with the deal on the basis of Cypress's commitment "to use its reasonable best efforts and take all reasonable actions" to win antitrust approvals.
This could include fully divesting Integrated Silicon's SRAM business if required, Integrated Silicon said.
Integrated Silicon's shares were down slightly at $20.35 in early trading, above Cypress's offer of $20.25 per share. Cypress shares were up 5 pct at $13.22.
SRAM (static random access memory) chips are used in a wide range of products, including automotive electronics, appliances and toys. They are more expensive than DRAM chips, which are mostly used in PCs, but are faster and require less power.
Integrated Silicon, which is based in Milpitas, California, said failure to merge with Cypress, based in San Jose, on the terms of the current Cypress offer would reasonably be inconsistent with its fiduciary duties under Delaware Law.
However, the company said it was still open to a counter-offer and gave Uphill four days to come up with one.
Integrated Silicon said it delayed a special meeting of stockholders scheduled for June 12 until at least June 19. (Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Ted Kerr)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/10/integrated-silioncon-solution-inc-ma-cyp-idUSL3N0YW4G820150610

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

TSMC May revenues increase 15%

TSMC has reported consolidated revenues of NT$70.16 billion (US$2.26 billion) for May 2015, representing a 15.4% increase on year but 6.9% decrease on month.

TSMC's revenues totaled NT$367.52 billion for the first five months of 2015, rising 35.7% from a year ago.

In other news, TSMC's board of directors has approved a capital appropriation in the amount of approximately US$1.45 billion for the purpose of installing advanced and specialty technology capacity, converting certain logic capacity to specialty technologies, and for R&D capital investments and sustaining capex in the third quarter. The board also approved a capital injection of up to US$2 billion to subsidiary TSMC Global for the purpose of reducing foreign exchange hedging costs.

At a board meeting held on June 10, Morris Chang was re-elected as chairman and FC Tseng as vice chairman of TSMC.

See charts:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20150610VL200.html

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

New Silicon Motion SSD controller supports Micron 16nm TLC NAND

Microsemi has announced its Timberwolf audio processor, the ZL38AMB. It is designed specifically for Ambarella camera SoCs and is claimed to be engineered to be the best-in-class HD audio solution for Ambarella's suite of video processors.

The ZL38AMB device is designed with AcuEdge Acoustic Technology on Microsemi's Timberwolf DSP platform, which features a set of complex, fully integrated algorithms that allow users to extract information from the audio environment in which they are communicating.
The audio processor is a wideband acoustic echo canceller which also provides noise reduction, beam forming and sound location detection for the IP camera and wearable markets.
The ZL38AMB is said to provide voice specific hardware accelerators, three digital microphone interfaces, two independent 16bit D/A converters with headphone drivers and two flexible time-division multiplexing interfaces in a single 64pin QFN or 56pin 3 x 3mm CSP. Additional features include 48kHz stereo music playback with voice, ultra-low and standby power.
- See more at: http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics/best-in-class-audio-processor-for-iot-applications/86065/#sthash.PV2b079B.dpuf

Silicon Motion Technology has announced that its SM2256 SATA client SSD controller now supports Micron Technology's new 16nm 128 gigabit (Gb) TLC NAND flash, enabling high-performance and reliability for cost-effective TLC-based SSDs.

Silicon Motion's SM2256 is a four-channel SATA 6Gb/s client SSD controller built using Micron's 128Gb 16nm TLC NAND. The new SSD controller delivers up to 540MB/s sequential read performance and 460MB/s sequential write, as well as up to 90,000 random read IOPS and 80,000 random write IOPS.

Leveraging Silicon Motion's proprietary NANDXtend error-correcting code (ECC) technology, the SM2256 enhances the endurance and retention of TLC NAND, delivering more than three times better reliability for TLC SSD as compared to the existing BCH ECC schemes, the company said.

The Silicon Motion SM2256 with Micron 128Gb 16nm TLC NAND is ideally suited for client SSDs targeting ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets and HDD replacement, Silicon Motion noted.

"Our SM2256 solution coupled with Micron's 16nm TLC NAND delivers the most advanced, cost-effective and reliable SSDs in the market," said Nelson Duann, VP of product marketing for Silicon Motion. "Our customers can offer a new class of no-compromise, cost-effective SSDs that leverage the strengths of NAND technology advancements at affordable prices."

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20150608PD207.html

Monday, June 8, 2015

IBM Renting Its EDA Tools

PORTLAND, Ore. — By moving its electronic design automation (EDA) suite of chip-designing tools to the cloud, IBM can now share its famous proprietary EDA tools with chip designers at what it claims is one-half the price of licensing tools from other EDA providers. Using its own SoftLayer cloud infrastructure to securely store its tools, IBM is now offering its EDA toolkit through the SiCAD Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.) portal — a silicon design platform provider of cloud-based EDA design flows.

"We are targeting small- to medium-sized businesses, with a factor of two in price/performance compared to other tool vendors," Christopher Porter, IBM high-performance computing (HPC) manager told EE Times. "We now offer a pay-as-you-go business model instead of a three-to-five year license agreement like the other EDA vendors."
IBM's tools are rented per day, per application, per core — a price that will halve the cost of developing a new integrated circuit (IC), according to IBM. However, IBM is not offering the complete design flow — even internally they have to use third-party tools to complete a design — but they are offering what they say is 70-to-90 percent of a typical EDA design flow including its Library Characterization Tool (for synthesis, sign-off timers and power analysis that it claims doubles performance over competitors), its Logic Verification tool (that verifies and debugs VHDL and Verilog designs 10-times faster than competitors tools, it claims), along with its own Spice simulator.

IBM is offering its proprietary verification, library characterization and Spice tools for rent (pay-as-you-go).
(Source: IBM)

"And these are just the first three tools we are offering," Porter told us. "Stay tuned as we will be enhancing our offerings in the future."
According to IBM the tools it is offering through SiCAD offer verification, simulation and regression testing, which is about 70 percent of the typical new IC design flow today and will become 90 percent of the typical design flow in the future as the industry progresses to more advanced nodes.
"The number of design rules is going up and thus the complexity of designs is going up, making our tools more and more important to the semiconductor design flow," Porter told us.
IBM also claims that it has invest over 50-to-100 years of research and development into its tools and have been using them internally for 10-to-20 years on real-world chip designs by more than 1,000 engineers on as many as 500,000 jobs producing over 100 unique mainframe and Power microprocessors, interconnects, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and more. Other EDA toolkits are relative newbies in comparison, IBM claims.

IBM claims its verification tool runs 10-times faster than other industry verification suites.
(Source: IBM)

It expects its tools to be used by enterprise-class organizations to design systems-on-chip (SoCs) for mobile phones, wearables and Internet-of-Things devices conceived by small-to-medium sized businesses who will appreciate the cost savings of cloud-based EDA design flows.
Each user will be assigned its own server for both physical and network isolation including firewalls and other proprietary techniques for securing clients data. Clients need only workstations to access the complete design flow toolkits of SiCAD, with no requirement for licenses, data centers or IT staffs.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326801

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Microsoft works with Toshiba for IoT

Micron Technology has expanded its flash storage portfolio with the addition of what it calls a 'purpose built solution for cost sensitive consumer applications seeking high performance and reliability'.

The triple level cell (TLC) NAND device, built on Micron's 16nm process, is said to deliver features which suit applications like USB drives and consumer solid state drives.
"Our new TLC NAND technology meets rising demand for reliable high capacity storage," said Kevin Kilbuck, director of NAND planning. "We see 16nm TLC as an excellent solution for 2015 consumer applications as we drive toward 3D NAND TLC production in 2016."
- See more at: http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electronics-news/micron-launches-16gbyte-tlc-nand-on-16nm-process/85860/#sthash.E4kWGNY8.dpuf

Microsoft has teamed up with Toshiba in its latest push to address the market for internet of things (IoT) products and services.
This mirrors the combination of IBM’s cloud service with ARM-based IoT development platforms, which was announced earlier this year.
The plan is to bring together Microsoft’s Azure IoT Cloud infrastructure with IoT applications running Toshiba’s sensors and wireless comms devices.
These include the firm’s ApP Lite application processor, in-vehicle driving recorders, sensors and cloud storage services.
The initial focus this year will be the transportation and logistics market.
IoT applications make extensive use of cloud computing services for by gathering, storing and processing data centrally.
“IoT is bringing in a dramatic technology transition that is reshaping the nature of networks, the meaning of service, and the way we live and work,” said Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, corporate vice president at Toshiba.
“Bringing together the power of the Azure Services and IoT Suite with Toshiba’s cutting edge sensor driven devices will provide a new level of data access and business intelligence to customers,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice president, Microsoft.

- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/internet-of-things/microsoft-works-toshiba-iot-2015-06/#sthash.o8hIzcSU.dpuf

“IoT is bringing in a dramatic technology transition that is reshaping the nature of networks, the meaning of service, and the way we live and work,” said Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, corporate vice president at Toshiba.
“Bringing together the power of the Azure Services and IoT Suite with Toshiba’s cutting edge sensor driven devices will provide a new level of data access and business intelligence to customers,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice president, Microsoft.

- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/internet-of-things/microsoft-works-toshiba-iot-2015-06/#sthash.o8hIzcSU.dpuf

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Atmel launches chips that make touchscreen devices less frustrating

http://venturebeat.com/2015/06/02/atmel-launches-chips-that-will-make-touchscreen-devices-less-frustrating/

Touchscreens are everywhere now, but they still don’t work as good as they should. They remain frustratingly unresponsive to finger taps, consume a lot of power, and are bulky.
So Silicon Valley chip maker Atmel is launching a new generation of touchscreen sensor chips that should lead to better touchscreens. The new MaxTouch U series touchscreen microcontroller chips will enable better performance, power consumption, and thinner screens.
The U Series chips support screens ranging from 1.2 inches (for watches) to 10.1 inches for tablets, and everything in between. The San Jose, Calif.-based Atmel has been making these kinds of chips for years. With each new generation, it makes improvements in metrics like better wake-up performance.
Touchscreen use has exploded over the past five years, and Atmel can now package its chips in a space that measures 2.5 millimeters-by-2.6 millimeters. The new chips have features such as active stylus support, low-power for wearables such as watches, passive stylus support (so you can use things like pencils on a touchscreen), and a high hover distance so that you can answer a phone call if you have a wet finger. The touchscreen chips can sense water and reject it as a touch action. And it works with multiple fingers, even if you are wearing gloves.
Binay Bajaj, the senior director of touch marketing, said the company’s expertise in low-power controllers and touch engineering will enable new markets through its new touch chips, which serve as building blocks for cool new gadgets. Atmel has created six new MaxTouch U Series chips. The chips are available in samples today, and production versions will be ready in the third and fourth quarters.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Samsung, SK hynix mull more investment on DRAMs

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the world's top two suppliers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, plan to invest more on them because of continued solid demand for use in mobile devices such as phones.

But company officials and market experts say if the two raise their production capacity, the long-term supply growth will remain constrained due to technological complexity.

"Samsung Electronics plans to maintain greater flexibility in the operation of our chip plants according to the market situation. Although we are producing both memory chips including DRAMs and NANDs, as well as logic chips, we may increase the output of DRAMs for mobile devices to maximize short-term profit," an official at the company said Sunday.

He stressed that as supply shift continue from DRAMs for use in conventional PCs to those for use in mobile devices, the firm expects chip prices to stabilize for the remainder of this year.

This year, Samsung is busy manufacturing DRAMs for Apple's new iPhone said Credit Suisse. Samsung mainly produces DRAMs at its plant in Giheung, near Seoul, while it manufactures NANDs and processor chips at its factories in Xian, China and Texas, the United States.

Samsung's local rival SK hynix also plans to produce DRAMs using the company's latest 21-nanometer class processing technology at its plant in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul, from the latter half of this year, said sources.

Although SK hynix focuses on profitability instead of market share, some say it may ride the current market trend in DRAM pricing by expanding.

Its M14 line is nearly finished with the clean room installation scheduled to be completed by the end of the second quarter.

"The outlook for SK hynix is bright now because global DRAM supply is likely to increase in 2016. The industry appears to be headed into another shortage," said Credit Suisse analyst Keon Han.

Unlike Samsung, SK hynix generates more than 80 percent of its annual revenue from selling pure memory chips, which means that it is well-positioned to benefit more than its rivals by expanding DRAM output.

"We remain bullish on memory stocks across the board," said Bernstein Research.

Samsung Electronics is the leader in the DRAM mobile devices market as of the first quarter with 52.1 percent, followed by SK hynix with 22.9 percent and Micron Technology with 22.6 percent, according to data from market research firm Dramexchange.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/05/133_179902.html