Opinion

Intel ‘Internal’ vs. Pure-Play Foundry Quandary Deepens

Featured, Opinion

What’s at stake:
Intel Foundry Services faces a bleak future if the company continues to hang on tightly to the “ownership” strings. Many of the world’s biggest fabless chipmakers will remain on the sidelines if they see Intel as a competitor, which it is. While Intel does not want to spin off its foundry business it should consider deploying an alternate strategy to pull in hesitant potential customers.

Nvidia Corp. is a major force in the artificial intelligence (AI) market. Rival Intel Corp. also wants to “democratize the incredible power of AI” and supply the market with “a full suite of silicon and software to drive AI,” according to CEO Pat Gelsinger. Intel, the world’s No. 1 microprocessor vendor, would also like to have Nvidia as a customer of Intel Foundry Services (IFS), its contract wafer manufacturing division upon which Gelsinger has pinned the company’s future.

Somebody needs a reality check.

Will this Semiconductor Cycle Be Deep or Shallow?

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By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Getting an accurate reading of the direction of the electronics market has always been problematic. Yet, the decisions executives take that end up massively impacting employees, shareholders and customers depend so much on a good understanding and acceptance of the market fundamentals. What chipmakers especially must do to determine the direction of the current cycle is clear. Will they go instead with the typical knee-jerk actions, though?

Inaccurate forecasts are the bane of the chip market.

Malcolm Penn, CEO and founder of Future Horizons Ltd., a UK-based semiconductor research and consulting firm, comes closest to being the industry’s one true oracle. Penn may not be the only one to generally get chip sales forecasts mostly correct annually. But he stands out.

Charting China’s Dominance of Global Chip Startup Activity

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By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
China is the world’s No. 1 investor in semiconductor startups. It is locked in a desperate struggle to catch up with the West and avoid the suffocating effects of American-led technology sanctions. Even without US opposition, though, China’s investments may not yield the expected returns.

For many years China has been directly and indirectly funding domestic semiconductor startup activities.

The rest of the world may have been aware that something was going on, via anecdotal details and various slices of investment data. But it is unlikely that many people will have seen the big picture.

Chip Leaders Are Responsible for Capex Disarray

Featured, Opinion

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
The capital expenditure plans announced by chipmakers just a couple of years back were huge – in dollar value, number of plants and scale – but they were also unrealistic. Why are semiconductor industry executives that should know better this prone to shooting themselves in the foot?

Once again, the latest semiconductor industry capital expenditure fever has broken. Forecasts for double-digit year-over-year capex increases are being revised downwards, steering the industry towards more believable numbers.

IBM unveils the world's first 2nm chip technology

Japan’s 2nm Ambition Needs a Solid Foundation

Featured, Opinion

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
Rapidus Corp. is Japan’s great hope for a reentry into semiconductor manufacturing at 2nm. Such an ambitious plan is to be commended. But this must be also recognized as a high-risk project.

The Contrarian View: Infineon Should Try Again to Buy Wolfspeed

Featured, Opinion

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Infineon failed once to purchase Wolfspeed, but the landscape has changed so dramatically that a retry seven years later, for more consequential reasons, should be considered by its management.

Corporate Culture? What Corporate Culture?

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Many companies talk up their corporate missions and/or corporate cultures. But these intangible are, well … intangible. It’s hard to judge whether they really mean the corporate slogans printed on posters and tacked up on the wall. But, to veteran observers, there are clues.

Autonomous vehicle companies routinely talk about their “safety first” corporate culture. Companies in every industry spout mottos like “Quality is in our DNA.”

For an outsider, namely me, only one point — beyond platitudes and posters — is clear. They repeat these golden rules because they’re “the right things to say.”

Microchip: Could This M&A Predator Become Prey?

Featured, Opinion

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Microchip actively participated in the consolidation of its industry segment, but its success, rising valuation and stable business make it a target too. Can any rival dare to take it up now that it is so much bigger?

Even after the frenzied mergers and acquisition actions of the last decade, the semiconductor industry still has quite a few juicy targets but not many are as mouth wateringly appealing as Microchip Technology Inc.

The microcontroller supplier is a voracious consolidator that has gobbled up some 25 companies in the last 12 years, but it stands the risks of becoming a victim of its own success.

Get Ready for UX-Defined Vehicles or Not

Featured, Opinion

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Everyone’s mimicking Tesla, pioneer of the software-defined vehicle. Software will buttress next-generation vehicle architectures. But shouldn’t carmaker imagination reach further, to a vehicle defined by user experience?

The “software-defined vehicle” is a convenient and overused terminology when auto industry types discuss the architecture of future vehicles. The term implies a car whose functions and performance can be patched, fixed, and updated over the air. Such software can alter and improve control, for example, of a vehicle’s firmware and entertainment system.

But c’mon. Can’t we do better than that?

Ultra Cruise will become available when GM launches the Cadillac CELESTIQ.

The Ultra Question for Ultra Cruise

Featured, Opinion

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
General Motors is throwing all the sensor technologies they can scrounge at its upcoming Ultra Cruise – the company’s next-generation hands-free driving system. Will that make Ultra Cruise a better “automated vehicle” than a Tesla?

The sensor suite that comes with General Motor’s new Ultra Cruise seems quite impressive. But what jumped out to me in GM’s announcement wasn’t the gadgetry. The grabber was the new claim that GM customers will “over time” be able to “travel truly hands-free with Ultra Cruise across nearly every paved public road in the U.S. and Canada, including city streets, subdivisions and rural roads, in addition to highways.”