Nov 18 ON Semiconductor Corp said it
would buy Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc in a
$2.4 billion deal, the latest in a rapidly consolidating
semiconductor industry.
The offer of $20 per share represents a premium of nearly 12
percent to Fairchild Semiconductor's Tuesday close.
(Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by
Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
For a while it was hard to get your hands on an ARM server, but that may not be the case soon.
Five computer makers have announced servers with ARM processors that
will challenge x86 systems in the mainstream market. The systems are
largely for Internet and cloud workloads and have the 48-core Cavium
ThunderX chip, which is based on 64-bit ARM architecture.
The servers from Gigabyte, Inventec, Wistron, Penguin Computing and E4 Computer Engineering are based on designs commonly used in x86 servers, but have ARM processors.
An interesting twist in some new servers is the ability to also use
Nvidia's Tesla graphics processors, adding extra processing punch for
graphics, engineering and other high-performance computing applications.
The systems largely have one or two sockets, and play to different
strengths. For example, Gigabyte's systems can be configured with up to
24 2.5-inch hard drives, making it particularly suitable for Web serving
or storage. Penguin Computing's upcoming 19-inch Valkre system -- which
will ship in 2016 -- is targeted at high-performance computing and can
be configured with SSDs and different I/O technologies. Wistron's
WV-S7224-10 and WV-A7424-10 are 2U and 4U storage servers, respectively.
All of the servers have shared power and cooling resources.
Pricing for the servers was not immediately available. The servers
were announced at the Supercomputing 15 conference in Austin, Texas,
this week.
Most of the companies announcing ARM servers can make and supply
servers to buyers directly, eliminating the middleman traditionally
involved in the selling process. Wistron and Inventec are also making
their mark as server vendors in China.
ARM develops and licenses its processor architecture and is best
known for its mobile chips. Some believe the power efficiency derived
from the mobile chips could translate to low-power ARM servers. But up
to now only a few systems have been available, with the most notable
being Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Moonshot.
The new servers could be the shot in the arm that ARM needs to make a
serious push for the server market. Chip makers are struggling to
generate profits with mobile and PC chips, since margins are thin for
those systems, so servers could be a lucrative alternative for vendors
using ARM-architecture chips. AMD plans to offer both x86- and
ARM-architecture chips as it rebuilds its server product line.
Samsung Electronics Co. gave its
biggest indication yet that the company’s upcoming high-end Galaxy
smartphones will use only one chip to run applications and enable
wireless connections.
The
world’s biggest maker of smartphones last week unveiled its latest
semiconductor, called the Exynos 8 Octa. It is designed to perform
functions that currently require two chips, and mass production is
scheduled to start this year.
“As
a component provider you have to find the biggest customer in the
world, and for us it happened to be Samsung,” Hong Kyushik, vice
president for marketing at Samsung’s System LSI business, said Monday
during an investor briefing in Singapore. “Exynos 8 is targeted for the
premium segment.”
He
declined to comment specifically on customers for the new chip.
Combining two chips into one helps make devices more energy-efficient,
and Samsung says the Exynos processor improves performance.
Samsung
is the world’s biggest memory-chip maker, yet it’s trying to build
scale in processing by developing Exynos as a direct challenger to
Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon lineup, which dominates the mobile device
market. The company is coming to depend on components, investing in new
plants for chips and displays, as its Galaxy lineup struggles to compete
with Apple Inc.’s iPhones and cheaper devices in China and India.
“We strongly believe Samsung’s Exynos processors is to become one major pillar of growth
and one which should help its entire component business,” Amir
Anvarzadeh, a manager of Japanese equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. in
Singapore, said in a Nov. 12 e-mail. “Samsung is likely to dramatically
ramp output of these chips beyond its own needs and to begin supplying
other handset makers.”
From electronic records to digital medical devices, all signs point to healthcare as a stable, Read Now
The battery is based on the same lithium ion chemistry used in cellphone
batteries today but gets its advantage from atoms of graphite bonded to
the anode, Huawei said on Friday at an industry conference in Japan.
That change means faster charging but not at the expense of usage life
or a sacrifice in the amount of energy that can be stored in each
battery, it said.
It was developed by Huawei research and development subsidiary Watt Lab
and the company showed off two prototypes in videos posted online.
One of the two batteries has a capacity of 3,000mAh (milliampere hours)
-- about equivalent to the batteries in modern smartphones -- and can be charged to 48 percent of capacity in five minutes. The second has a much smaller capacity of 600mAh but reaches 68 percent of capacity in just two minutes.
The batteries have undergone repeated testing and the fast charging isn't a one-time deal, the company said.
In the video, a battery is taken from a Huawei smartphone and recharged
in a prototype charging unit. The device is bulky and hasn't been shrunk
to the size that it could fit inside a phone.
Huawei didn't say when the fast charging might make its way into commercial products.
The announcement is one of a number this year that all point toward
faster charging or longer battery life. Advances in battery technology
have lagged other areas of technology and battery life remains a
limiting factor for gadgets such as phones and larger products like
electric vehicles.
Earlier this week, researchers at Vanderbilt University said they had used quantum dots of iron pyrite, also know as fool's gold, to realize a fast-charging lithium ion battery.
Scientists at Stanford University presented in April
a fast-charging battery that uses aluminum-ion cells. They said it
could be charged in about a minute, but at that time had only realized
prototypes that were not powerful enough for use in smartphones.
Resistive RAM appears to be gaining traction. Once considered a
universal memory candidate—a replacement for DRAM, flash and SRAM—ReRAM
is carving out a niche between DRAM and storage-class memory. Now the
question is how large that niche ultimately becomes and whether other
competing technologies rush into that space. ReRAM
(known alternately as RRAM), is a type of non-volatile memory that
began garnering attention in 2009 when startup Unity Semiconductor
emerged from stealth mode. Rambus bought Unity in 2012 because it was
one of several contenders for the next generation of memory technology,
along with ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM) and Magnetoresistive RAM. ReRAM also has been considered a possible replacement for 2D NAND, NOR flash, and other memory types.
Since then, multiple competitors have entered into the ReRAM business, which seems to validate the potential here.
“I have worked in memory all my career, and for years it was looked
down upon as boring,” said Gary Bronner, vice president of Rambus Labs.
“Today it is leading innovation. It’s very exciting.”
He’s not alone in that view. “It’s a really exciting time to be in
the memory business,” said Sylvian Dubois, vice president of strategic
marketing at Crossbar.
What makes ReRAM so interesting is the limitation of other memory
choices. There is DRAM for rapid access memory; NAND flash, which is
three orders of magnitude slower; and there is storage-class memory in
between. Storage-class memory, a term first coined by IBM several years
ago, could have a huge impact on computation efficiency.
“I believe that the gap could be filled by two or three different
types of ReRam, and could see a real reduction in the volume of DRAM
being used,” Bronner said. “This would have very significant impact on
the industry. Architects have been very clever at taking advantage of
developments. They already take advantage of hierarchy of memory on chip
and chip to chip.”
There is a decent list of alternative memory types that all rely upon
a bi-stable material as the storage element that changes resistance. Rambus is working with a multilayer metal oxide structure that changes resistance by injecting ions into the material.
Crossbar uses silver atoms suspended in an amorphous silicon matrix.
Under write voltage, atoms from a top silver layer migrate into the
matrix to form bridges of conductive metal filaments. “These filaments
are only 3nm in diameter, but create a very large on/off ratio,” Dubois
said. The company has published results for a 7nm read cell.
The other option that has been widely publicized involves
phase-change materials, which depend on melting a material and then
cooling, quickly or slowly, to create either crystalline or amorphous
phases. In terms of these materials choices, Bronner observed that “the
physics of the phase change material is probably the best understood.”
However, thermal-based solutions have had a rocky history in the
semiconductor industry, from Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) to
smectic liquid crystal displays. The problem is that heat spreads, so
there is crosstalk between neighbors and DC heating of the part that
depends on duty cycle.
“Many people have favored other materials over phase change for these
reasons,” Bronner said. “However, Intel and Micron have pioneered work
in these materials, presumably because the device physics is much better
understood.”
In the end heat may limit the phase change device to lower bandwidths and higher power, according to Dubois.
In addition to material choices, there also are architectural
choices. Although crossbars have received a lot of publicity, a 1
transistor-1 storage cell similar to DRAM is where many are starting,
particularly for embedded memory. It makes integration much simpler and
gives the best access times.
“You can add the new material after the conventional device processing is completed,” Bronner said.
Crossbars give higher density and single bit access, but are limited
in the size of each block of crossbars. This is a similar problem to the
old multiplexed displays, where the cell count depends on the
non-linearity of the on-off switch.
The third choice is a 3D stack. One possibility is multilayers of
crossbars, but this requires lithography at each layer. More
interesting, in Bronner’s view, is “an equivalent to 3D NAND, where one
litho step creates a vertical string of storage cells. 3D NAND will
allow flash to continue to scale for five to seven years, and then new
materials will have an opportunity.”
The penalty for storage in the form of strings is that there is no
longer single-bit access, so the memory slows down. Different access
times and cost structure could result from single bit, byte, and
multi-byte architectures.
Dubois emphasized that crossbars and 3D all require a multiplexed 1
transistor to N cell architecture, which in turn means that each cell
must have a non-linear element. Some teams use a diode with each cell,
but Crossbar has demonstrated a cell that has its own non-linearity. Who and what will win?
“The most impressive progress was disclosed by the Intel/Micron
partnership over the summer when they described a 128Gbit chip 3D
XPoint” memory,” said Bronner. “To even think about building a device of
this size, requires a very mature level of process and defect control.” Intel
had a previous false start with phase-change memory. The company made
it clear that the technology has shifted, but has not elaborated on
that, according to industry sources.
A search of the U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent application
database found crossbar memory materials patents applications as
recently as 2012 assigned to Micron that focused on metal chalcogenide
phase change systems, which suggests that 3D XPoint may well be an
improved phase change system.
In its announcement Intel claimed “a crossbar structure which is
1,000 times faster than NAND flash and 10 times the density of DRAM.”
The company also showed a patterned wafer, discussed an operational
manufacturing plant in Utah, and said it plans to sell product next
year.
Panasonic currently sells a tantalum oxide-based ReRam embedded flash replacement for on-chip static memory.
Rambus purchased the ReRam IP of Unity Semiconductor in 2012 for$33M,
and has licensed that IPto a number of parties. Unity had raised more
than $22M and created 145 patents.
“Rambus is also partnering with licensees, such as Tezzaron, to
create embedded flash products,” Bronner said. “The focus of licensing
is architecture and materials.”
A patent search suggests those materials are metal oxides.
Elsewhere, in the startup world, Crossbar announced on Sept. 14 that
it has completed a $35 million Series D funding round, bringing the
total investment so far to $85 million. Crossbar plans to use the funds
to continue the commercial ramp of its “game-changing non-volatile (NVM)
memory technology.” At IEDM in 2014, the company reported a device
architecture that “has been successfully demonstrated in a 4 Mbit
integrated 3D stackable passive crossbar array.”
Dubois said Crossbar received wafers from one of its production
manufacturing partners. “The new funding will allow us to put products
with embedded RAM on the shelves and move Crossbar forward.”
It appears that differences between the various competitors are
primarily in their storage material choices that determine power, access
time, read/write cycles and cell size. This is a competition that
requires deep pockets, and smaller players are relying on being able to
use existing fabs to compete with the industry giants who can bankroll a
custom fab.
Two
of Europe’s biggest chipmakers are targeting futuristic cars that drive
themselves and have wireless connections as a new revenue growth
opportunity.
Infineon Technologies AG, which makes sensors
including those that enable autonomous driving, is predicting rising
car-chip sales even if total vehicle purchases decline, Chief Executive
Officer Reinhard Ploss said Wednesday in Barcelona. As cars become more
like robots -- more automated, and connecting to each other and to their
surroundings -- STMicroelectronics NV expects “very strong growth” in
demand, CEO Carlo Bozotti said at the same event.
"The number of
semiconductors in the car is growing and customers are willing to pay
extra for some features,” Ploss told investors at a conference hosted by
Morgan Stanley. “We are focused on everything that makes the car like a
driving robot.”
Carmakers
including BMW AG, Tesla Motors Inc. and Daimler AG are loading their
luxury models with technology. The average car had $333 worth of chip
content as of 2014, an increase of 11 percent in the past four years,
according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Hybrid and electric cars have
higher dollar content per car, as do higher-end models such as the
Mercedes S-Class compared with smaller budget models.
Infineon
rose 0.2 percent to 11.44 euros at 9:08 a.m. Thursday in Frankfurt.
STMicro declined 0.5 percent to 6.60 euros in Paris.
Infineon has
been building out its business focused on what’s known as
power-management chips, which are used to handle the flow of power in
electronics, from mobile phones to automobiles. Betting that demand for
these chips will keep rising, Infineon bought International Rectifier
Corp. for about $3 billion in cash in a deal completed in January. It’s
developing a radar sensor chip with Google that may go into car safety
applications.
Meanwhile at STMicro, Bozotti has turned to cars to
make up for falling sales in other segments like some smartphone parts.
He said his company has a 70 percent market share in products that help
vehicles detect their surroundings, process that information and behave
accordingly.
“Innovation is still thriving in semiconductors,” said Mark Muller, chief technology officer of ARM Holdings, in a keynote address Tuesday morning (November 10) at the ARM TechCon conference and exposition in Santa Clara, Calif.
“We’ve always had constraints on what we can do,” he added. Still, “there’s an incredible amount of innovation ahead of us.”
With ARM marking its 25th anniversary this month, Muller
briefly reviewed the history of the company and the technology that
preceded its establishment, harking back to the BBC Micro Model A/B computer of 1981 and the 1985 introduction of the ARM1 processor. The BBC Micro has ultimately led to this year’s introduction of the BBC micro:bit single-board computer, which is being provided for free to 10-year-old and 11-year-old schoolchildren in the United Kingdom.
Muller talked about ARM’s progress in getting its designs into server
chips, with “multiple manufacturers” shipping ARM-based servers, he
noted. Such servers are being implemented at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain and at Sandia National Laboratories, Muller said.
Moving on, Muller said, “Mobile computing has been transformed.”
While the annual growth rate of mobile devices is expected to decline to
10 percent by 2020, such “not bad” growth will primarily be coming from
entry-level smartphones by the end of the decade, he added.
The CTO touted “a truly remarkable product,” the Cortex-A35 processor,
being introduced at this week’s conference. Chips with that processor
design will be able to run on less than 6 milliwatts, he said.
At the same time, Muller said of ARM’s product strategy, “It’s so
much more than processors.” The company aspires to provide “all of the
IP [intellectual property] you need,” he said to the designers in
attendance.
Muller enthused about what he called “the product of the year,” an
energy-harvesting Bluetooth Low Energy insulin pen designed by Cambridge Consultants, incorporating a Dialog Semiconductor
chip. The KiCoPen concept has no battery, he noted. Using piezoelectric
technology, it derives its energy from the injector cap being removed
from the pen.
The ARM executive also addressed the security issue with the Internet
of Things and related products. “We’re under attack in a way we never
were before,” Muller said.
“How do we make a $1 microcontroller design done by people with no security experience?” he asked.
ARM also introduced the TrustZone CryptoCell security technology this week, along with its ARMv8-M architecture for embedded devices.
“The hardware is the easy part,” Muller commented. With the IoT,
there are familiar problems in chip and system design, “times trust,” he
said.
“You have to be able to secure them,” Muller said of IoT devices. “You share that trust around you.”
