(This is a roundup of last week’s semiconductor/EDA industry news by Abhijit Athavale founder/editor of PuneChips – Pune’s forum for the semiconductor industry. For more information about PuneChips see the PuneTech wiki profile of PuneChips)

Please keep the responses coming. It is encouraging to see that as a writer. Last week’s mention goes to Sagar Khedkar, who picked out Iranian Politics 101 as the OT item. Congratulations!

Last week was pretty packed from a news standpoint so the newsletter is a little long as well.

Markets

• Nortel done for good: Nortel has sold off whatever was remaining to Nokia Siemens Networks. I remember the days when Nortel was one of biggest OEM customer for a majority of semiconductor companies. No more, RIP!
• More on Moore!
  • iSuppli says Moore’s law will be defunct by 2014 due to manufacturing costs
  • A letter to the editor on the same topic
  • EETimes editors and Industry on the same topic

  While the demise of Moore’s law has been predicted many times, will this prediction be true? Could be, if you are thinking that the cost per transistor will decline due to process geometries. However, there may be other methods of reducing the cost other than using a smaller process node. Some out of the box or lateral thinking may be needed to keep Moore’s law alive.

  BTW, a little birdie told me that 2014 will unleash a new economic up-wave much like 1999. I wonder if that will again be based on advances in the semiconductor/nano-tech fields.

• KPMG to pay Vitesse $22.5M in settlement: This has to be the first of its kind. Collusion with the management to doctor financial statements doesn’t pay anymore
• Semiconductor Market updates: There are just too many of those every week so rather than adding links, I will just summarize. The curious readers can go find the articles themselves
  • Gartner is claiming that the semi market has hit the bottom and is increasing capex outlook. I wonder if they will have to eat their words. Gartner is also saying that IT spending will fall 3.8% this year, but grow by 2.4% next year – I just don’t understand how this works; if the biggest downturn after the great depression can cause a decline of 3.8%, a bounceback of 2.4% next year would absolutely have to be backed up by heady growth, which does not seem likely.
  • iSuppli says that semi sales were pretty bad last quarter, but like Gartner is calling Q1, 2009 as the bottom and saying that Q4, 2009 will be better than Q4, 2008. We shall see ….
  • Japan fab tool book to bill has climbed from 0.65 in April to 0.74 in May. Again the claim is that we have reached the bottom. How do we get this number? The three month average for worldwide billing was $391.1M in May while it was $385.7M in April. This does not really seem to be a quantitative improvement and to call a bottom based on this certainly does seem to be a leap of faith.

  In general, people are trying to be optimistic. However, I am not sure that we are going to see any quantitative improvement even if we are at a bottom. We could be at the bottom for a long time. Forget these numbers and just look at Chinese and Japanese exports for the past few months – they have fallen in May as well. That tells me that there is no one buying those chips that people are making!

• Analog Devices launches a new website: This is a prime example of marketing people creating news of out nothing and the press covering it. I wonder if ADI also held press briefings to herald the advent of a new website to the editors.
• India’s Solar plans: Going by the past record in power generation, I will be happy even if we see 1% of the 1GW power generation target
• New Energy guidelines for the US and the EU: Now this is something I wholeheartedly support. Government regulation in this case will spur innovation and reduce power consumption, possibly giving better returns to the companies. According to the news item, energy start rated appliances saved ~$19b from the US energy expenditure costs.

PC/Processor

• Sun may cancel Rock, a high-end Server CPU: The Rock may turn into a Brick as Sun failed to submit a paper at the HotChips conference. They should really give up the pretense. They have lost the battle and the war and need to focus on something that they do really well.
• EU warns Microsoft against not including the browser in Windows 7: Microsoft seems to be caught between a rock (pun not intended) and a hard place. After punishing them for including IE with WIndows, now the EU is telling them not including the browser will be a problem as well. Instead, they should include a choice of browsers with the OS, albeit tested, so the lazy bums on the EU competition commission don’t have to download and install.

Mobile

• India sets 3G base fee at $835M: Get on with this already. We are tired and waiting to get 3G. While I am not sure, this may be the first instance where mobile companies have the 3G networks ready, but the spectrum is not. No wonder the Indian Bureacrats were ranked way at the bottom.
• First look at iPhone 3GS: Looking at the Broadcom and Toshiba chips inside, people are saying that the “S” stands for Savings …

Storage

• Broadcom extends deadline on Emulex offer: This is second such extension. Broadcom, Emulex does not want to sell, at least at this price. Must you continue with this pursuit?

Technology

• A study of stickers shows the way to stretchable electronics: It would be pretty cool to have gadgets that you can just stick anywhere!
• A couple of items of Graphene
  • GeorgiaTech is saying that Graphene would be better than copper below 30nm
  • UC Berkley researchers have demonstrated a way to electrically tune Graphene’s bandgap enabling use in transistors before litho technology hits sub-10nm sizes

  Can someone knowledgeable enough in this group write a blog about this? A presentation to the whole group at one of the monthly events would be welcome as well.

• Startup to demo synthesis of asynchronous logic at DAC: This is pretty significant if it works as the claim is that the synthesis is done using standard design flow and System Verilog. Chip designs will become simpler.
• WAPI is back on Wi-Fi agenda: I hope the International Organization for Standards (ISO) rejects WAPI as before. This is a crude way of getting access to technology that is officially impossible to get. By making WAPI compulsory in China, they are making sure that the technology shared with a Chinese firm will atlest be one if not more generations older.
• Personal Energy Meters on the way: More useless research. I will not be surprised if they have a touch screen, blue tooth, WiFi, etc. and communicate totally irrelevant information to the user. How about putting more money into research that will make the devices we use everyday smarter and greener? Don’t forget to turn off those lights when you leave the building too!

That’s all for this week …

(This is a roundup of last week’s semiconductor/EDA industry news by Abhijit Athavale founder/editor of PuneChips – Pune’s forum for the semiconductor industry. For more information about PuneChips see the PuneTech wiki profile of PuneChips)

Thank you for the great response to last week’s e-mail. Please continue with your responses and I will keep on sending this out every week.

Arati Halbe gets the mention for being the first one to pick on the OT news from last week. A few other people did point it out as well, but she was the first. Another reader thought that the Semi industry in Pune is like the Mayan Civilization as it keeps on depleting local resources, and hence the topic was really on the money 🙂 This newsletter also contains an OT item, but is more entertaining.

Markets

• Google and the Internet caused economic crisis: This brilliant conclusion drawn by Peter Clarke of EE Times. While it is true that globalization and improved communication technologies have disrupted traditional economies, by the same token the Industrial revolution disrupted existing agrarian economies and can be blamed for the great depression. So, while the headline is catchy, the conclusion is just plain wrong …
• Are we in denial about the crappy semiconductor market: iSuppli says that foundry market will see strong growth in Q2 after three straight quarters of contraction, but FBR said that the market will cool off in Q3. Why the bullish tone? Does it really matter that the IC market declined by 22% against 24%? It still is terrible and unless and until the cost structures created to support higher sales numbers are dismantled, we will not see 1990’s type growth. Short term thinking to please the wall street is the real culprit here. There are innumerable news items last week that herald a recovery, but is it real? I have nothing against a recovery, but I just don’t get how people will start buying more chips when they are just not buying anything at all? Gartner clearly says that the demand has not returned to the market and increased sales for some companies are due to inventory restocking – this is also known as stuffing the channel. (link)

PC/Processor

• Global PC makers vying for the Green Crown: Are we really that green or is this a marketing innovation aimed at better profits?
• Sun to start porting OpenSolaris to ARM processors: While clearly a ploy at getting into the embedded market, will this work? I can see Intel just shuddering at the thought…

Mobile

• Low cost phones, emerging markets show a ray of hope: You don’t need an analyst to tell you this. Mobile companies in India have figured this out long time ago. Please get on with the program, Jupiter …
• Apple launches iPhone 3GS: In a game of one-upmanship, Apple has launched the new iPhone at only $99, but there is a catch – it is only for new customers who do not have an AT&T contract.
• Iranian Politics 101
• A Palm Pre Teardown: Portelligent shows the innards …

Storage

• Broadcom wants confidential information from Emulex: Does this not sound a little odd? Why would anyone give up their confidential information to a hostile buyer? Broadcom seems to have painted itself in a corner with no way of getting out. The market is also pricing Emulex above the Broadcom offer.

Technology

• Power over Ethernet market sees growth: Now what would be interesting is to see if someone could send power packets over wireless Ethernet. That will instantly get rid of all the clutter we have around our PCs. Let’s see if that can be done without frying anything that gets in the way!
• Nokia demonstrates energy harvesting handset: Hey, I was not that far off. Hopefully, laptops can also be charged in the same way not too far in the future.
• ZigBee & low power Bluetooth tapped as the next generation health device standard: This is really important as networked health devices are going to be a huge market. Imagine a blood pressure monitor sending a message to your doctor when irregularities are seen. I think this is a fabulous opportunity for Indian companies to be developing health devices. However, Bluetooth is far from reliable and has too many connectivity issues so they will hopefully have been fixed.
• Thin Film Batteries are here: This could be a solid advance in reducing device sizes even further.

That’s all for this week …

(This is a roundup of last week’s semiconductor/EDA industry news by Abhijit Athavale founder/editor of PuneChips – Pune’s forum for the semiconductor industry. For more information about PuneChips see the PuneTech wiki profile of PuneChips)

This is my first attempt at sending out a digest of Semi/EDA news from last week. I am also peppering it with my own, slightly irreverent comments, so feedback from you is greatly appreciated. I will also try to put in at least one off topic item somewhere just to see if you are reading this! Whoever points out the OT item, will get a reward – your name will get a mention in next week’s news.

Markets

• Chip market to contract 21.3% in 2009: More gloom and doom. While everyone has their own prediction, real decline will only be apparent Q1 of 2010 as a hindsight; singularly unhelpful as a forecasting tool.
• Art De Geus (CEO, Synopsys) says that Companies need differentiators to sell products, not lower prices: Thank you Art, for stating the obvious. The problem has become so acute that all ASSPs targeting an application look pretty much the same (albeit with minor differences) and it is almost impossible to dislodge an establish vendor based on anything by TTM and Pricing. Art also says that verification is a top three item for designers so there should be plenty of opportunities here.
• Mayan Civilization fell due to local resource overuse: All Ye take heed. An analysis of wooden samples takes from six major temples showed worsening quality of construction and material, indicating widespread deforestation.
• Minorities unrepresented in Tech: This is a silly study with a silly result as anyone who has ever worked in Tech knows. Why do people waste money on generating such stuff is a big unknown!
• EE Times list of 10 Companies in Trouble: This is not entirely surprising, but in general you can say that DRAM business sucks and renaming your company a la NXP does not always work …

PC/Processor

• Intel buys Windriver for $884 million: Possible that Intel is now targeting embedded apps. I wonder if they will launch another crush operation against Motorola (Freescale now). This on the heels of the rumor that Nvidia is thinking about a new x86 based processor.
• Microsoft to exclude ARM based netbooks from Windows 7: Is that a surefire way of making sure that ARM based netbooks don’t get popular with the non-geeky crowd?
• Larry Ellison wants more Java on Netbooks and Phones: Here goes Larry again. Anyone remember his attempt at pushing a network PC a few years ago? A PC or a phone either has Java or not – how do you get more or less Java? And, I don’t think he intends to spill Coffee on the machines 🙂
• Intel launches the CULV Processor: What is a CULV – this is just as bad as BING. Wonder if Intel and MSFT used the same agency to come up with the respective names. China may be the main market for this, so they are probably betting on getting this pronounced as CURVE anyway.

Mobile

• Palm Pre getting rave reviews: While this may be so, LG’s iPhone clones have become very popular. Does LG have an app store as well?

Storage

• Tech firms predict 18% drop in Storage sales: Storage is getting commoditized like everything else – demand for storage is increasing while prices are falling.
• Broadcom extends deadline on Emulex offer: Broadcom claims it can save costs, but the real reason may be that Emulex/QLogic are threatening its Ethernet business line with their FCoE chips.

Technology

• Flexible Memory: The researchers at National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US claim that this technology can be used to print memory as easily as printing a slide. I can’t wait for the day when I add more memory to my machine by photocopying it at the neighborhood store …