Semico is a semiconductor marketing & consulting research company located in Phoenix, Arizona. We offer custom consulting, portfolio packages, individual market research studies and premier industry conferences.
CES is the event that usually gets me energized about the upcoming year; however, this year I almost didn’t attend because I didn’t think there was going to be anything new that would shake up the industry. At the last minute I decided to put on my best walking shoes and fight the crowds. Unfortunately, I think my initial gut feeling was correct.
Sure, there were a lot of people waiting in lines to sit in the new self-driving and electric vehicles or eager to put on the new VR headsets, but there were still several things missing. IoT and power for our mobile electronics need a revolutionary innovation to attain the next level of ubiquitous technology.
First of all, I was disappointed to see so many booths still touting wireless charging solutions aka Powermat. I still have too many charging cables and every month that my phone or Fitbit device ages, the life of the battery charge declines. There were a number of people walking around with a cute, bright green bag that was plugging its ‘Big power, small cells’ product. I wasn’t sure what their product was, but I was definitely curious and feverishly looked for their booth. I was hoping they’d have a product that provided a breakthrough in battery technology or possibly an energy harvesting option. Unfortunately when I got close to their booth, I was handed the cute bag which included a USB charger that was powered by two rechargeable AA batteries. Really?
published by Tony Massimini on Mon, 2016-01-11 23:08
Whether it’s the Internet of Things, wearables, or industrial automation, many new devices and applications are portable and battery-operated. Wireless connectivity is required for connecting to the Internet. Today’s devices collect and transmit data from sensors, are always or almost always on and require power. The semiconductor industry has met the challenge to design devices for low power operation. Low-power microcontrollers and low-power RF are now available from many semiconductor vendors. But eventually batteries still run out of energy and have to be replaced or recharged.
The term energy harvesting, also known as power scavenging, is used to describe the creation of energy derived from a variety of external sources such as solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, kinetic energy or electromagnetic sources. Energy harvesters accumulate the wasted energy in a system, such as heat given off by motors or semiconductors, or the vibrations of motors or other moving objects. The basic technologies for generating energy are: mechanical vibration (kinetic energy), thermoelectric, solar (photovoltaic), and RF/Inductive.
Semico tracks over 900 semiconductor fabs in its Fab Database. The database includes detailed information about the fabs, including the operating status of the fab, its location, process and products, wafer size and capacity, and more. The other document included with the database is a Word file containing a summary of updates made to fabs by company type: Memory, Foundries, and Other.
The Wafer Demand Summary and Assumptions is a quarterly publication. It includes an excel spreadsheet with annual wafer demand by product by technology from 2010-2020. Product categories include DRAM, SRAM, NAND, NOR, Other Non-volatile, MPU, MCU, DSP, Computing Micro Logic, Communications, Other Micro Logic, Programmable Logic, Standard Cell, Gate Array, Analog, Discrete, Optoelectronics, Digital Bipolar. In addition, there is a summary write-up providing the major assumptions behind the forecast and changes from the previous quarter.
The Internet of Things is a growing market driver, key to the continued success of the semiconductor industry. With applications ranging from medical and sports monitoring/diagnostics to automotive to industrial and agricultural, there are plenty of opportunities for wide range of semiconductor devices, especially sensors, MEMS and MCUs. In fact, the market for sensor hubs, one of the basic building blocks for IoT, will grow from 1.1B units in 2014 to 6.9B by 2020, a CAGR of 36%.
Analog ICs are critical to nearly all electronic devices. The world electronics market will consume over 121 billion analog ICs in 2015. This translates to several analog ICs per electronic device.
Analog ICs are critical to nearly all electronic devices. The world electronics market will consume over 121 billion analog ICs in 2015. This translates to several analog ICs per electronic device.