Part 2: SoCs Change the Design Challenges Profile

Semico Research, in conjunction with Advance Tech Marketing, announced today a new series of reports that offers unique information, market data, and insights as the semiconductor industry continues to transition to System-on-Chip (SoC) style methodologies for chip development.

Semico predicts that the market for SoC’s will surpass $45 Billion by 2013, a compounded annual growth rate of 9%. This growth is being driven by increasing usage within consumer products, such as cell phones, digital televisions, and networking equipment. While the market is growing, the chip price-performance requirements for these consumer products are creating significant business and technical challenges for semiconductor companies. The economic downturn has accelerated the need for the industry to complete this transition.

“In order to build a profitable business model using SoC style development, semiconductor companies have to first make the culture transition from niche supplier of certain pieces of the system, to the system integrator that supplies the entire system. The issue facing the industry is that its infrastructure, and some its major players, have still not made enough of the transition,” says Phil Casini, managing director, Advance Tech Marketing. “However, today’s reality is that the consumer OEM’s now control the growth direction of the semiconductor industry, and they have made the transition. Prolonging the inevitable then only continues to erode the industry’s health”.

Semico’s new four part series of reports entitled System(s)-On-Chip, A Market Perspective offers new information and industry expert perspectives about these challenges and how to address them.

• Part Two provides a unique perspective of how the new SoC design challenges have evolved as SoC complexity continues to rise, and how computing architecture models struggle to deliver valued price-performance, eroding the traditional semiconductor business models.

"On the surface, making the transition to SoC development may appear to be just a subtlety, but this transition is actually very difficult because it affects every aspect of how companies operate," says Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst, Semico Research. "This series of reports has the information and perspectives companies need to help bring clarity to the challenges and provide potential resolutions. Companies can use these reports as a blueprint to set the right course for their own success."