Featured

Intel’s Crisis Was Predictable. Its Future Isn’t a Mystery, Either

Featured, Opinion

Three years ago, Patrick Gelsinger rode in on a charger to save Intel Corp. He should have been on a fighter jet.

The battlefield and combatants had changed since Gelsinger left Intel 10 years earlier in 2009. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) were on his radar, but the main threat was coming from a different source. While Gelsinger was focusing on process technology leadership, Nvidia Corp. with its GPU-CPU combo had invaded and taken over Intel’s lucrative server business.

Gelsinger meant well, but in aiming to restore Intel’s old “glory” with new fabs and billions of dollars in fresh capital expenditure spending, he made a classic mistake that turnaround specialists know well to avoid: attempting the restoration of a storied enterprise is a recipe for further disaster.

Can Intel Auto Chip Chart a New Course?

Featured, News & Analysis

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
By all accounts, Intel Automotive is an underdog. But as automakers go through radical changes in vehicle architecture, electrification and the balance of market power, Intel sees an opening in automotive chips. However, in the midst of its internal turmoil, will Intel stick with automotive as “a must-seize” segment? And will CEO Pat Gelsinger stick with Intel?

Among the businesses in which competitors have outplayed Intel, Intel Automotive is an outlier.

Intel: The Beginning of the End?

Featured, Opinion

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
The break-up of the decades-long leader of the semiconductor industry would likely cause dramatic shifts in the semiconductor landscape. It would not only dent U.S. pride but could also undermine certain aspects of the American government’s technology policy and its CHIPS and Science Act.

The signs are mounting up that chip giant Intel Corp. is not long for this world – at least not in the form familiar to most industry observers.

Intel is now considering its strategic options, including splitting its product and chip manufacturing businesses, a potential sell-off, and whether certain factory projects might need to be delayed or cancelled, according to a Bloomberg report citing unnamed sources “familiar with the matter.”

CHIPS Act: Under The Hood

Featured, Podcast

We talked to the Department of Commerce for a breakdown by the CHIPS Program Office.

The Engineering of the CHIPS Act

Featured, News & Analysis

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The CHIPS and Science Act is one of the most ambitious industrial policies the U.S. government has launched since the New Deal. Federal involvement in private industry ground to a halt in the administration of Ronald Reagan, which enforced the libertarian view that government guidelines are “business interferences” and financial assistance “handouts.” Given this recent history, the Department of Commerce has much to prove in executing the CHIPS Act fairly, effectively, transparently and on time.

How IoT is Tackling Global Challenges

Featured, Partner Content

The global impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) is evident in its diverse applications across continents. It’s addressing rapid urbanization in the developing nations, tackling water scarcity and climate change, ensuring food safety and supply chain transparency, optimizing natural resource use in amid environmental concerns, and transforming healthcare.

Shift from Hardware-Defined SoCs to Workload-Optimized Chips

Featured, Truth & Consequences

By Ron Wilson

What’s at stake:
Increasingly systems houses, rather than chip companies, are designing the silicon for their systems and optimizing it for their workloads. Their needs are altering the traditional chip design flow.

Two closely linked changes in the semiconductor industry are gradually altering the way ICs are designed, demanding new skills from designers, inspiring new tools from the EDA industry, and opening new roles for AI in the design flow. In a recent conversation with Synopsys VP for Product Management and System Solutions Tom De Schutter we explored this evolution.

Infineon: Bellwether for a Semiconductor Market in Transition

Featured, News & Analysis

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?

Infineon Technologies should be closely tracked by technology companies and investors trying to make sense of the semiconductor industry’s cycles. Its wide range of products aimed at the broadest range of technology sectors, and the Munich-company’s critical financial metrics such as book-to-bill, gross profit margin, lead-times and inventory stats more closely reflect the industry’s fundamentals than those of rivals serving hot markets like artificial intelligence.

Infineon Technologies AG executives call the company a “… global player, clear No. 1 in power semiconductors, and ranked No. 2 in the overall microcontroller market.” That description is adequate, but it doesn’t completely reflect the company’s growing role in the semiconductor world.

To complement that brief, the Ojo-Yoshida Report is also classifying Infineon as the chip industry’s latest and probably most accurate bellwether.

This designation has significant implications for the semiconductor market and the larger electronics industry.

Pop Quiz on India

Bulletin, Featured

India is the hot story again. But how much do we really know about India?

India’s ‘Brain Gainers’ Target Chip Startups

Featured, News & Analysis

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Despite thousands of trained, experienced design engineers in India, no branded semiconductor companies exist in India. Why? Expats returning to India are poised for change.

The semiconductor industry is global. However, a startup’s birthplace matters because it — which could become the next Nvidia — will anchor its nation’s industry and affect the whole world.

But to reach that status, India must measure its economic health, the readiness of its social infrastructure and the maturity of its industrial policies.

Register free for The Business of Semiconductor Summit (Set 9 – 11), a virtual conference organized by the Ojo-Yoshida Report. A panel entitled “India: Ripe for Next Steps” will be held on Sept. 9.

After decades of dismissal by skeptics and doubters, India seems to be emerging from the shadows. Ajit Manocha, CEO of SEMI, recently told us, “For the first time, stars are aligned in India.”