You are here

February 2012

3D Packaging is Coming; Are You Ready?

Jim Feldhan to Deliver BiTS 2012 Keynote Address Phoenix, Arizona Februay 29, 2012 - As ICs become more complicated and push the technology roadmap, system performance and chip-to-chip interaction is becoming a limiting factor. The result is that test and packaging issues are coming to the forefront at semiconductor manufacturers around the world. 2.5D and 3D packages offer great advantages, yet there are still technical issues to overcome.

The Time Has Come For MEMS Oscillators

Phoenix, Arizona February 21, 2012 - The MEMS oscillator market is still at a nascent stage. It represents less than one percent of the total timing market of $6.3 billion. Nevertheless, the potential growth of MEMS oscillators continues to attract more vendors. There are currently nine vendors shipping MEMS oscillators. Two more have announced they will start shipping later in 2012. More are expected to jump into this market.

Warren East, CEO of ARM, to Keynote at Semico IP Conference

Phoenix, Arizona February 15, 2012 - Semico is proud to announce Warren East, CEO of ARM Holdings, will deliver the keynote address on May 16th, 2012 at the Semico IMPACT Conference: Focus on the IP Ecosystem. ARM is the world's leading supplier of semiconductor intellectual property with over 20 billion ARM-based chips shipped to date. In a year when semiconductor revenues were flat, ARM's revenues increased 24% in FY2011 to $785 million. Warren East will open Semico's IP conference providing his vision of what this industry needs to continue on a path of innovation and success.

ASIC Design Starts: New Growth Ahead

The ASIC Design Start landscape has changed since 2006 to accommodate increasing design costs, rising design complexity and lengthening design cycle times, especially in the System-on-a-Chip (SoC) market. These changes are having an impact on the ASIC Design Start market as the broader semiconductor market has mostly recovered from the financial meltdown that occurred in the 3rd quarter of 2008 and into the first part of 2009.

Table of Contents: 

ASIC Design Starts By Key End Market Application

The ASIC design start landscape has seen dramatic changes as end market demand rose and fell due to the financial meltdown in 2008, recovery in 2009 and 2010 and more uncertainty due to natural disasters and financial market fluctuations in 2011. Rising consumer spending for mobile and portable electronic devices helped mitigate some of the impact of these fluctuations on the ASIC design start landscape.

Table of Contents: 

The Time Has Come For MEMS Oscillators

The MEMS oscillator market is still at a nascent stage. It represents less than one percent of the total timing market of $6,3 billion. Nevertheless, the potential growth of MEMS oscillators continues to attract more vendors. There are currently nine vendors shipping MEMS oscillators. Two more have announced they will start shipping later in 2012. More are expected to jump into this market. The MEMS oscillator has to compete with the long established quartz crystal oscillators. MEMS oscillators offer several advantages over quartz devices.

Table of Contents: 

The All-Electric Nissan Leaf, the Perfect Urban Car?

Last week I took a ride in a friend’s new Nissan Leaf, which may be the perfect urban car. It has adequate performance and can more than keep up with traffic, even on the Interstate. It is essentially noiseless. Its range is limited, but more than adequate for trips around a city. It has a quite spacious storage capacity. Best of all, it’s pollution free. The only thing that’s missing is the “zoom.”

What is zoom? It’s a sleek, sexy body style - maybe a coupé or convertible. It’s the sound of an engine howling toward a 7,000 rpm redline. It’s carving a corner and hitting the apex exactly. It’s braking as late as possible while double-clutching to downshift, turning-in at the right point and then maxing the exit speed. It’s 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds. It’s the thrill of pretending you’re a racer. It’s the ego trip of posing as a rugged outdoor 4WD dude. It’s the promise of getting the girl. Until now, zoom is what has sold cars, but we don’t need zoom any more.

My friend doesn’t care about zoom. He doesn’t do drag racing starts or road racing corners. He doesn’t go off-road. He’s married. He already got the girl a long time ago. What he wants is reliable, comfortable, economical transportation. Because he cares about ecological issues, a green car with low carbon emissions is a bonus. He’s a good representation of an average car buyer, but he’s ahead of the pack.

Monthly archive

Twitter