SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to use
20-nanometer processing technology or finer technology to produce all
mobile DRAMs from the second-quarter of next year, according to a market
researcher on Saturday.
Finer processing technology allows a
chip manufacturer to improve wafer productivity and produce a
semiconductor that consumes less electricity.
According to
market researcher DRAMeXchange, about 94 percent of chips produced by
Samsung during the fourth-quarter of this year are believed to use
20-nanometer or finer circuit elements.
From the second-quarter of next year, Samsung is expected to stop using 25-nanometer processing technology.
On Oct. 20, Samsung said it has rolled out the semiconductor
industry's first 8-gigabyte mobile DRAM package for smartphones, based
on its advanced 10-nanometer production technology.
The new
package of mobile chips is expected to significantly improve mobile user
experiences for those using high-definition, large-screen devices,
Samsung said in a statement.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2016/10/29/8/0502000000AEN20161029001600320F.html
Monday, October 31, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
To solve IoT security, look at the big picture, ARM says
The recent DDoS attacks launched from IoT devices
demonstrate that the internet of things spans all parts of IT and that
most companies deploying it still need a lot of help.
That's the message from ARM, the chip design company behind nearly every smartphone and a big chunk of IoT, at its annual TechCon event this week in Silicon Valley.
Small, low-power devices like sensors and security cameras are the most visible part of IoT, and they’re right in ARM’s wheelhouse as the dominant force in low-power chips. But on Wednesday, the company highlighted a cloud-based SaaS offering rather than chips or edge devices themselves. IoT depends on back-end capabilities as much as edge devices, and the company wants to play a role in all of it.
The SaaS platform, called mbed Cloud, handles device connection and setup, encryption-key provisioning, and firmware updates. Anyone selling IoT devices or deploying them across an organization can use mbed Cloud for any or all of these functions, ARM says. With some extra work, it can serve non-ARM devices, too.
In recent DDoS attacks, hackers built botnets out of thousands of connected devices. Making them vulnerable were default passwords that were the same on every device, letting attackers take over the devices. So it’s clear that some IoT manufacturers need help locking down products and keeping them secure, ARM executives said.
“It’s no longer just a matter of ‘build a product, throw it over the wall, and let the consumer deal with it,’” said Michael Horne, vice president of marketing and sales in ARM’s IoT division. The mbed Cloud service provides for individual device authentication and ongoing security updates to defend against new threats.
Whether they make baby monitors or jet-engine sensors, many IoT device vendors need outside help on security, IDC analyst Shane Rau said. IoT evolved from specialized, isolated devices built for vertical industries, with no provision for security. Now developers are looking outside their own fields for general features like security. ARM is in a good position to provide those, through offerings like mbed Cloud, because its designs are at the heart of so many embedded chips, he said.
“You can reinvent the wheel, or you can use this,” ARM CEO Simon Segars told reporters at the conference. “We think we can help defragment what is otherwise going to be an incredibly fragmented -- and probably weaker as a result -- set of solutions.”
IoT is ARM’s rallying cry as it marches forward from its recent acquisition by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. It will use its newfound resources to accelerate development in several areas, key among them being IoT and security, Segars said.
Embedded processors are a fast-growing part of its business, which includes about one-half smartphone chips today.
But ARM’s IoT strategy encompasses more than those billions of devices, Segars said. IoT also involves the servers that crunch the numbers streaming out of those devices and the networks that link the two. ARM-based chips are already widely used in networking. An end-to-end architecture based on ARM chips will help the company make inroads into the server business, where it’s had a hard time gaining a foothold, he said.
The company’s new owner, SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son, has said IoT was his main reason to buy ARM. Son meets regularly with ARM management and is on board with its strategy, Segars said. “He completely trusts us to get on with business.”
http://www.itworld.com/article/3136307/internet-of-things/to-solve-iot-security-look-at-the-big-picture-arm-says.html
That's the message from ARM, the chip design company behind nearly every smartphone and a big chunk of IoT, at its annual TechCon event this week in Silicon Valley.
Small, low-power devices like sensors and security cameras are the most visible part of IoT, and they’re right in ARM’s wheelhouse as the dominant force in low-power chips. But on Wednesday, the company highlighted a cloud-based SaaS offering rather than chips or edge devices themselves. IoT depends on back-end capabilities as much as edge devices, and the company wants to play a role in all of it.
The SaaS platform, called mbed Cloud, handles device connection and setup, encryption-key provisioning, and firmware updates. Anyone selling IoT devices or deploying them across an organization can use mbed Cloud for any or all of these functions, ARM says. With some extra work, it can serve non-ARM devices, too.
In recent DDoS attacks, hackers built botnets out of thousands of connected devices. Making them vulnerable were default passwords that were the same on every device, letting attackers take over the devices. So it’s clear that some IoT manufacturers need help locking down products and keeping them secure, ARM executives said.
“It’s no longer just a matter of ‘build a product, throw it over the wall, and let the consumer deal with it,’” said Michael Horne, vice president of marketing and sales in ARM’s IoT division. The mbed Cloud service provides for individual device authentication and ongoing security updates to defend against new threats.
Whether they make baby monitors or jet-engine sensors, many IoT device vendors need outside help on security, IDC analyst Shane Rau said. IoT evolved from specialized, isolated devices built for vertical industries, with no provision for security. Now developers are looking outside their own fields for general features like security. ARM is in a good position to provide those, through offerings like mbed Cloud, because its designs are at the heart of so many embedded chips, he said.
“You can reinvent the wheel, or you can use this,” ARM CEO Simon Segars told reporters at the conference. “We think we can help defragment what is otherwise going to be an incredibly fragmented -- and probably weaker as a result -- set of solutions.”
IoT is ARM’s rallying cry as it marches forward from its recent acquisition by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. It will use its newfound resources to accelerate development in several areas, key among them being IoT and security, Segars said.
Embedded processors are a fast-growing part of its business, which includes about one-half smartphone chips today.
But ARM’s IoT strategy encompasses more than those billions of devices, Segars said. IoT also involves the servers that crunch the numbers streaming out of those devices and the networks that link the two. ARM-based chips are already widely used in networking. An end-to-end architecture based on ARM chips will help the company make inroads into the server business, where it’s had a hard time gaining a foothold, he said.
The company’s new owner, SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son, has said IoT was his main reason to buy ARM. Son meets regularly with ARM management and is on board with its strategy, Segars said. “He completely trusts us to get on with business.”
http://www.itworld.com/article/3136307/internet-of-things/to-solve-iot-security-look-at-the-big-picture-arm-says.html
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Qualcomm to Buy NXP Semiconductors in $47 Billion Deal
Qualcomm Inc., the largest maker of mobile-phone chips, will acquire
NXP Semiconductors NV in a transaction valued at $47 billion, aiming to
speed an expansion into new industries and reduce its dependence on the
smartphone market.
San Diego-based Qualcomm agreed to pay $110 a share in cash for NXP, the biggest supplier of chips used in the automotive industry, or 11 percent more than Wednesday’s close, the companies said in a statement Thursday. The deal will be funded with cash on hand as well as new debt.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf is betting the deal, the largest in the chip industry’s history, will accelerate his company’s entry into the burgeoning market for electronics in cars. Eindhoven, Netherlands-based NXP is strong in that sector following its acquisition last year of Freescale Semiconductor Ltd.
“It’s no secret that we’ve been looking around,” Mollenkopf said in an interview. "If you look at our growth strategy it’s to grow into adjacent markets at the time that they are being disrupted by the technology of mobile.”
The purchase is Qualcomm’s response to slowing growth in demand for smartphones, which provide the bulk of the company’s revenue. The two companies, which will have combined revenue of more than $30 billion, will have products that are capable of winning sales in markets worth $138 billion by 2020, Qualcomm predicted. Two years after the transaction closes, Qualcomm forecast $500 million of annual cost savings.
The equity value of the transaction is $38.5 billion. Including debt, the enterprise value goes up to $47 billion, according to Chief Financial Officer George Davis. The acquisition will add $11 billion of debt to Qualcomm’s balance sheet, which it will be able to rapidly improve by using the overseas cash it generates to pay down, Davis said.
Mollenkopf said he will aim to combine the two companies and their products as quickly as he can and make sure that the management of the combined company has representatives from both sides.
NXP shares rose 1.7 percent to $100.34 at 10:12 a.m. in New York. Qualcomm gained 3.1 percent to $70.32.
“There just isn’t enough mobile growth to be had –- they are already the dominant chip supplier and licenser of intellectual property in an industry where the product is being commoditized and volume growth is moderating,” said Sid Parakh, a fund manager at Becker Capital Management, which owns Qualcomm stock. “As a long-term investor, I would much rather have a more diverse company that has the potential to participate in new markets and probably grow significantly more than it would in a mobile-only world.”
NXP is projected to report 2016 sales of $9.48 billion, the average of analysts’ estimates from data compiled by Bloomberg. By revenue, that makes it less than half the size of Qualcomm, which will report sales of $23.2 billion this year, according to analysts. Still, the Dutch company has averaged about 11 percent growth over the past three years, while the U.S. chipmaker’s sales declined 5 percent last year, a collapse from a revenue increase of 30 percent in 2013.
Like other chipmakers, Qualcomm is targeting what’s called the Internet of Things, the addition of connections and computing power to everything from washing machines to trucks and industrial equipment. The company has pitched prospective new customers with modified mobile-phone chips that it says offer the easiest way to add electronic capabilities to a broader range of devices. That push is in its early stages, with wins in areas such as automotive, where Qualcomm’s chips power entertainment devices and cell-phone connections to cars.“Automotive and industrial are Internet of Things verticals that we see as more profitable for semiconductors, and this is precisely the exposure that Qualcomm would gain with an NXP deal,” Cowen & Co. analyst Timothy Arcuri wrote in a note. “Qualcomm could become the dominant player in connected industrial and automotive applications.”
By buying NXP, which started off life as Koninklijke Philips NV’s chip unit, Qualcomm is taking on the risk of merging with a company that’s in the process of integrating its own acquisition of Freescale. That $16 billion transaction was completed in December. NXP owns factories and produces some of its own chips -- something Qualcomm has avoided by outsourcing its manufacturing -- and has about 44,000 employees, compared with about 33,000 for Qualcomm.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/qualcomm-to-buy-nxp-semiconductors-for-47-billion-in-cash
San Diego-based Qualcomm agreed to pay $110 a share in cash for NXP, the biggest supplier of chips used in the automotive industry, or 11 percent more than Wednesday’s close, the companies said in a statement Thursday. The deal will be funded with cash on hand as well as new debt.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf is betting the deal, the largest in the chip industry’s history, will accelerate his company’s entry into the burgeoning market for electronics in cars. Eindhoven, Netherlands-based NXP is strong in that sector following its acquisition last year of Freescale Semiconductor Ltd.
“It’s no secret that we’ve been looking around,” Mollenkopf said in an interview. "If you look at our growth strategy it’s to grow into adjacent markets at the time that they are being disrupted by the technology of mobile.”
The purchase is Qualcomm’s response to slowing growth in demand for smartphones, which provide the bulk of the company’s revenue. The two companies, which will have combined revenue of more than $30 billion, will have products that are capable of winning sales in markets worth $138 billion by 2020, Qualcomm predicted. Two years after the transaction closes, Qualcomm forecast $500 million of annual cost savings.
The equity value of the transaction is $38.5 billion. Including debt, the enterprise value goes up to $47 billion, according to Chief Financial Officer George Davis. The acquisition will add $11 billion of debt to Qualcomm’s balance sheet, which it will be able to rapidly improve by using the overseas cash it generates to pay down, Davis said.
Mollenkopf said he will aim to combine the two companies and their products as quickly as he can and make sure that the management of the combined company has representatives from both sides.
NXP shares rose 1.7 percent to $100.34 at 10:12 a.m. in New York. Qualcomm gained 3.1 percent to $70.32.
Record Consolidation
Last year was a record for chip-industry consolidation, with semiconductor makers getting together to weather rising costs and a shrinking list of customers. Though he sat out the deal spree in 2015, Mollenkopf is now making use of his company’s more than $30 billion in cash reserves, most of which is held overseas.“There just isn’t enough mobile growth to be had –- they are already the dominant chip supplier and licenser of intellectual property in an industry where the product is being commoditized and volume growth is moderating,” said Sid Parakh, a fund manager at Becker Capital Management, which owns Qualcomm stock. “As a long-term investor, I would much rather have a more diverse company that has the potential to participate in new markets and probably grow significantly more than it would in a mobile-only world.”
NXP is projected to report 2016 sales of $9.48 billion, the average of analysts’ estimates from data compiled by Bloomberg. By revenue, that makes it less than half the size of Qualcomm, which will report sales of $23.2 billion this year, according to analysts. Still, the Dutch company has averaged about 11 percent growth over the past three years, while the U.S. chipmaker’s sales declined 5 percent last year, a collapse from a revenue increase of 30 percent in 2013.
Connected Devices
Like other chipmakers, Qualcomm is targeting what’s called the Internet of Things, the addition of connections and computing power to everything from washing machines to trucks and industrial equipment. The company has pitched prospective new customers with modified mobile-phone chips that it says offer the easiest way to add electronic capabilities to a broader range of devices. That push is in its early stages, with wins in areas such as automotive, where Qualcomm’s chips power entertainment devices and cell-phone connections to cars.“Automotive and industrial are Internet of Things verticals that we see as more profitable for semiconductors, and this is precisely the exposure that Qualcomm would gain with an NXP deal,” Cowen & Co. analyst Timothy Arcuri wrote in a note. “Qualcomm could become the dominant player in connected industrial and automotive applications.”
By buying NXP, which started off life as Koninklijke Philips NV’s chip unit, Qualcomm is taking on the risk of merging with a company that’s in the process of integrating its own acquisition of Freescale. That $16 billion transaction was completed in December. NXP owns factories and produces some of its own chips -- something Qualcomm has avoided by outsourcing its manufacturing -- and has about 44,000 employees, compared with about 33,000 for Qualcomm.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/qualcomm-to-buy-nxp-semiconductors-for-47-billion-in-cash
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Intel has sparkling Q3
Intel’s Q3 revenues grew 9.1% y-o-y and profit grew 21% y-o-y Gross margin was 64.8% and operating profit was $5.1 billion.
The PC business saw sales increase 21% y-o-y, and 5% q-o-q to $8.9 billion.
Data centre grew 13% q-o-q and 10% y-o-y to $4.5 billion.
IoT grew 20% q-o-q and 19% y-o-y to $689 million
Flash grew 17% q-o-q and shrank 1% y-o-y to $649 million.
Security was flat q-o-q and up 6% y-o-y at $537 million.
Programmables (Altera) were down 9% q-o-q at $425 million.
Q4 revenues are expected to be $15.7 billion with a gross margin of 63%.
“We’re executing well, and these results show Intel’s continuing transformation to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected devices, ” said CEO Brian Krzanich.
“It was an outstanding quarter, and we set a number of new records across the business,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. “In addition to strong financials, we delivered exciting new technologies while continuing to align our people and products to our strategy.”
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/intel-sparkling-q3-2016-10/
The PC business saw sales increase 21% y-o-y, and 5% q-o-q to $8.9 billion.
Data centre grew 13% q-o-q and 10% y-o-y to $4.5 billion.
IoT grew 20% q-o-q and 19% y-o-y to $689 million
Flash grew 17% q-o-q and shrank 1% y-o-y to $649 million.
Security was flat q-o-q and up 6% y-o-y at $537 million.
Programmables (Altera) were down 9% q-o-q at $425 million.
Q4 revenues are expected to be $15.7 billion with a gross margin of 63%.
“We’re executing well, and these results show Intel’s continuing transformation to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected devices, ” said CEO Brian Krzanich.
“It was an outstanding quarter, and we set a number of new records across the business,” said Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO. “In addition to strong financials, we delivered exciting new technologies while continuing to align our people and products to our strategy.”
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/intel-sparkling-q3-2016-10/
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
China to produce 3D NAND chips as early as end-2017
Yangtze River Storage Technology (YRST) will start
operating China's first 12-inch fab for the manufacture of NAND flash
and DRAM memory at the end of 2016, and is expected to produce the
region's first homegrown 3D NAND flash memory a year later, according to
industry sources.
YRST will be able to make 32-layer 3D NAND flash chips as early as end-2017, said the sources.
Construction
of YRST's 12-inch fab will be in three phases, with investment totaling
US$24 billion, the sources indicated. The company will complete the
first-phase construction at the end of 2016, followed by the second
phase in 2018 and the third phase in 2019, the sources said.
The
target production capacity at YRST's 12-inch fab is set at 300,000
wafers monthly, the sources noted. The facility will also be engaged in
the manufacture of DRAM memory, and could play a role in Tsinghua
Unigroup's planned strategic alliance with Micron Technology, the
sources said.
YRST was formed with goverment subsidies
and investments from several government-owned groups, and built based on
Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing's (XMC) 12-inch IC R&D and
manufacturing capability and "continue to develop XMC's presence in the
memory-chip market," XMC disclosed in August. XMC added it has become
YRST's wholly-owned subsidiary since 2016.
In fact,
YRST took over XMC's role as China's main production base for DRAM and
NAND flash memory, industry sources identified. XMC is now in charge of
making China's homegrown NOR flash as well as logic chips, with monthly
capacity of around 30,000 12-inch wafers.
YRST will use
Spansion's technology to produce 3D NAND chips based on a license
agreement between Spansion and XMC, the sources said.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20161017PD204.html
Monday, October 17, 2016
16nm FinFET FPGAs in production, says Xilinx
Less than a year after first ship of all devices, open order entry
for production devices is available this quarter,” said the company.
Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA family is a FinFET-based programmable technology which is now available at 14nm or 16nm process nodes.
This includes Kintex, Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs and Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs.
Moshe Gavrielov, president & CEO at Xilinx, writes:
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/16nm-finfet-fpgas-production-says-xilinx-2016-10/
Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA family is a FinFET-based programmable technology which is now available at 14nm or 16nm process nodes.
This includes Kintex, Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs and Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs.
Moshe Gavrielov, president & CEO at Xilinx, writes:
“This production milestone further stretches our greater than one year lead in 16nm product delivery.”
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/16nm-finfet-fpgas-production-says-xilinx-2016-10/
Friday, October 14, 2016
Murata buys French capacitor tech firm
Murata expects the addition of IPDiA’s integrated capacitor arrays to strengthen its core business within the mobile communications market, but also to expand into new applications within the automotive and medical markets.
“Combining IPDiA’s 3D silicon capacitor technologies with Murata’s current technologies and product portfolio will enable us to expand our combined offering and meet our customers’ high reliability requirements, such as high temperature or high voltage, in automotive and other demanding markets”, said Toru Inoue, executive vice president of Murata’s components business.
IPDiA, which is based in Caen, was formed in 2009 from an existing NXP facility and technology. It has around 130 employees.
According to Franck Murray, IPDiA CEO: “The company’s patented technology has enabled silicon passive components to be considered as a superior solution in specific markets where high performance and miniaturisation are required.”
The French firm specialises in making silicon capacitors for high voltage and high temperature applications.
Compared with multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC), the MOS technology used by IPDiA offers a reliability of 84,000 hours operation at 250°C.
The transaction is expected to close before the end of October.
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/uncategorised/murata-buys-french-capacitor-tech-firm-2016-10/
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