Finance

Despite alarm about the state of semiconductor inventories, particularly from the foundries, Bill Jewell’s Semiconductor Intelligence says that: “Semiconductor inventories appear to be under control throughout the semiconductor device supply chain.” At the semiconductor manufacturers inventory ratios have been stable for eighteen months, says Jewell Exceptions are Intel and Qualcomm where lower revenues caused Intel’s inventory ratio to go from ...

The French business weekly magazine Challenges reports that the future of ST’s digital division is now in the hands of President Francois Hollande. The French Economics Minister and the Defence Minister have reviewed the possible divestment or closure of Crolles, the Finance Ministry has had its say, the CFE-CGC union has been to see Hollande’s advisers and now the decision ...

Memsstar, the Livingston manufacturer of MEMS manufacturing equipment has secured a significant funding deal with Santander supported by a guarantee from UK Export Finance. Memsstar makes etch and deposition systems for MEMS manufacturing. It also represents SMEs in a range of European funding programmes. Memsstar exports around 90% of its products and is looking to capitalise on this momentum in ...

Plessey is to carry out a major expansion of the company’s LED manufacturing facility in Plymouth, after securing a £30 million loan from Deutsche Bank. The £60 million expansion will provide the base for new solid state lighting technologies and products, increasing the Company’s production capabilities by a factor of 30, more than tripling its workforce to about 535 employees ...

Q3, traditionally the industry’s strongest quarter, will not be a good quarter for the Big Three Taiwanese foundries, reports Digitimes Research. The combined revenues of TSMC, UMC and VIS (Vanguard International Semiconductor) will be 0.8% down q-o-q and 3.7% down y-o-y. Q3 revenues are expected to be $8.03 billion compared to Q2’s $8.09 billion and the $8.33 billion of Q3 ...

Marvell appears to be pulling out of mobile to focus on IoT. The company is to lay off 17% of its 7,000 employees. The lay-offs will hit staff in its mobile operation, they will cost $100-130 million and will save $170-220 million a year. Mobile produced $122 million revenues last year for a profit of $13 million. Marvell is involved ...

The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has certified Infineon’s OPTIGA technology to TPM (Trusted Device Module) 2.0 standard. TPM 2.0 is the most recent version of the standard which addresses the security requirements of a growing number of IoT devices. Trusted computing based on TPM root of trust hardware provides protection for such devices as gateways and routers ...

Unusually for a Future Horizons forecast, today’s was gloomy. Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons told IFS 2015 in London this morning that he expected 2% semiconductor market growth this year and a flat 2016. “This is what we said in January – 8.5% growth for a $364 billion market,” said Penn. What he’s saying now is that the best ...

The UK government is squeezing more money out of the mobile operators. Regulator Ofcom has announced a significant increased in licence fees for the 900-1800MHzz radio spectrum. Ofcom has today published revised annual fees for mobile operators, determining the amount of money they must pay to use certain parts of mobile spectrum. It is the result of a five year ...

Chip industry bellwether TSMC reckons its Q4 revenues will be less than its Q3 revenues – the first q-on-q drop for four years. Q4 sales are estimated at between $6.08 billion and $6.21 billion while Q3 sales are estimated at $6.45 billion. TSMC blamed the Q4-Q3 sales drop on falling demand for smart phone SoCs with Chairman Morris Chang saying ...