Finance

A surge in bookings for semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Q2 meant that bookings exceeded billings in the quarter, reports SEMI, although there were some erratic local variations. Billings were $9.4bn; bookings were $10.2bn. Billings were 1% down on Q1 and 2% down on Q2 2014. Bookings were 6% up on Q1 and 2% up on Q2 2014. Taiwan’s Q2 billings ...

Ten winners have emerged from the ARM, Unicef, Frog competition for wearable tech. They are: · CommunicAID, U.S: a bracelet that tracks medication treatment · Droplet, U.S: a wrist-worn wearable water purification device · Guard Band, Vietnam: a wristband that helps protect children from abuse · Khushi Baby, India and U.S: a necklace-type wearable to track child immunization in the ...

GloFo is reported to be looking at 5000 voluntary lay-offs in the US mainly from the chip operations it acquired from IBM. In July GloFo was paid $1.5 billion to take over IBM’s plants in East Fishkill, New York and Burlington, Vermont. It is these operations, employing 5000 people, which are expected to take the brunt of the lay-offs. GloFo’s ...

By 2019 there should be 110 volume production 300mm fabs in the world compared to 87 today, reports IC Insights. The number of 300mm fabs will likely peak between 115-120. By comparison, the greatest number of volume-production 200mm wafer fabs in operation was 210 (the number declined to 154 fabs at the end of 2014). The list of companies with ...

Infineon is No.1 in power semis for the 12th year running. ‘After acquiring International Rectifier at the beginning of the year, Infineon’s 19.2% market share now makes it the clear market leader,’ says Infineon, ‘in comparison, both companies’ market share in 2013 summed up to approximately 17.5%, according to IHS. Infineon’s closest competitor lags behind with 7%.’ “Through organic growth ...

Test gear leasing and rental firm Microlease is to sell new telecoms equipment from Viavi, the company formerly known as JDSU. This is the second deal Microlease has signed to sell new equipment this year, the other was with Keysight (formerly Agilent, HP). The Viavi portfolio is broad, covering wireline and wireless test up and down physical, virtual and hybrid networks ...

The collapse in demand for smartphones has caused a severe drop in foundry orders for mobile SoCs. TSMC saw sales drop from $2.48 billion in July to $2.06 billion in August – a fall of over 17%. At UMC August sales were down 4% and the company said its Q3 wafer shipments may fall sequentially by as much as 5%, ...

The Taiwanese chip industry is in a state of accelerated consolidation with MediaTek acting as the consolidator. The independent Taiwan design community is now under notice that it will have to cope with a powerful competitor or a new owner. MediaTek already has a number of local chip companies under its belt, the most notable being MStar which was acquired ...

Intersil has bought Arizona mosfet specialist Great Wall Semiconductor (GWS) for $19 million. A further $4 million is payable if performance metrics are met. GWS was founded in 2002, has 10 employees and 22 patents related to lateral low-voltage power mosfet technology which allows low-gate charge power mosfets to be made on a CMOS process. ‘GWS’s design team brings valuable ...

Front end fab equipment spending (including new, used, and in-house) is projected to increase 5.0% in 2015 (to $37 billion) and another 6.6% in 2016 ($39.4 billion) according to SEMI. SEMI data indicates that some companies still plan to increase equipment spending in the second half of 2015, compared to the first half. Foundry is expected to slow in 2015 ...