What’s at stake?
Automakers are in transition. As more sensing, computing and connectivity infiltrate ADAS vehicles, tier ones and carmakers must figure out where to process raw sensory data, and whether sensor fusion should be performed with raw or pre-processed data: The edge or the central compute? Ambarella and NXP have diverging approaches.
By Ron Wilson
What’s at stake
Our increasing expectations of smart, connected devices are placing a huge technical strain on system vendors and their chip suppliers, almost none of which are structured to exploit the situation. Change must come.
We want small things to be smart. From earbuds to UHD TVs, from kitchen appliances to forklifts, we expect our devices not just to work, but to understand their surroundings, make good decisions, and cooperate with our other devices.
Read More »Synaptics Plays ‘Go’ to Win IoT Market
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Silicon carbide device designers and wafer suppliers are shifting to a vertically integrated business model — and spending lavishly on capex — betting that demand will remain strong for power electronics in high-growth markets. If those sectors falter, SiC suppliers will be left holding billions of dollars in unused capacity and raw materials.
The silicon carbide supply chain is engaged in a delicate balancing act.
To continue satisfying demand — already strong and expected to skyrocket — SiC manufacturers are investing or promising to invest billions of dollars in new fabs and processes for a market still in its infancy. But it’s potentially problematic that the growth projections for SiC products are largely based on hope.
Read More »SiC Manufacturers Walk a Tightrope
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake?
Fueled by booming electric-vehicle demand and the long-term goal of semiconductor self-sufficiency, China is committed to developing power electronics based on silicon carbide (SiC). What is China’s plan for leapfrogging Western SiC suppliers?
Here are the questions: Who are China’s SiC players? How much money is China pouring into nascent technology and production facilities? Are Chinese vendors devising different business strategies to conquer the SiC market? Each of these riddles keep global power-electronics executives awake at night.
Read More »SiC in China: ‘Poster Child of the Decoupling Era’
By Peter Clarke
What’s at stake?
China has made numerous efforts to acquire European technology over the last decade or more. While wafer fabs, even mature ones, are a priority and have recently drawn regulatory attention, there are also many startups and fabless chip companies attracting investors and potential buyers, often without scrutiny. Individual deals may appear as the unfettered workings of the technology market, but the aggregate effect can produce a dependence that Europe is only just starting to consider.
Judging by two recent events, Europe is waking up to the risk of China buying up more of its technology – even when those capabilities are somewhat mature. Will regulators react more quickly to investments in technology startups?
Read More »European Chip Startups Top China’s Shopping List
What’s at stake?
The idea of “on-shoring” or “near-shoring” is gaining traction among supply-chain practitioners in the face of stringent government policies. Policy makers have become more inclined to define specific industries and technologies as nationally sensitive, imposing limits on cross-border goods and capital flows. At stake is how quickly a global company like Apple, author of an impeccable global supply chain, can change course.
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
A reduction in Apple’s manufacturing, procurement and other supply chain engagements with China may be desirable because of geopolitical and other constraints. But a divorce may be close to impossible because it involves not one, but hundreds of supply chains, managed by the company’s suppliers.
Apple and China. China and Apple.
Outside of the abrupt breakout of war, it will take years, if not decades, for Apple Inc. to drastically reduce or eliminate its dependence on China.
Read More »Apple Created a Brilliant But Now Nightmarish Supply Chain
What’s at stake:
Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid edict painted his country into a corner, and it’s unclear how China can extract itself from Xi’s disastrous public-health policy. The rest of the world braces for the economic consequences of Beijing’s next move.
How Beijing’s zero-Covid stance mutates into a sustainable public-health policy is the key question for the Chinese people and Western companies seeking to maintain their links to China’s supply chains and contract manufacturers.
Read More »China’s Zero-Covid Conundrum
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake?
Semiconductor and other technology M&A proposals are becoming more difficult to execute due to the influence of powerful geopolitical players whose calculations go beyond traditional motives of higher revenue, profits, and market share.
Nvidia Corp.’s abandoned $40 billion offer for Arm set in motion a series of unfortunate developments that have put the semiconductor IP vendor in a tenuous position.
Months after the offer was cancelled, Arm is still caught in a tangled web. While Nvidia is now free of a regulatory onslaught of its own making, fate has yet to set Arm on the path to true freedom. Its current owners want to sell but cannot find a buyer. Arm wants to return to the equity market via an IPO, but that path remains tortuous.
Read More »Tech M&A Conundrum: Lessons from Nvidia’s Arm Gamble
What’s at stake?
By acquiring Xilinx, AMD has the ammunition to move aggressively into next-generation automotive architectures. Yet, thus far the company has revealed scant details for a combined AMD/Xilinx automotive platform. With Xilinx’ Zynq FPGAs entrenched in the market, is AMD the victim of its own success? Is it complacent? Or is AMD reading the automotive industry — historically very slow to embracing new technologies — just right?
