Author Archives: david manners

Xilinx and Pico Computing provide Hybrid Memory Cube interface for 20nm FPGAs.

Xilinx, and Pico Computing have made available now a 15Gb/s Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) interface for All Programmable UltraScale devices.

The Xilinx UltraScale devices support the HMC bandwidth of 4 lanes, comprised of 64 transceivers running up to 15Gb/s.

Pico Computing’s HMC controller IP offers high memory bandwidth.

“Customers can now leverage the industry’s only shipping 20nm FPGAs along with a validated IP core to bring their 15Gb/s HMC designs to market today,” says Xilinx’s Tamara Schmitz, “UltraScale FPGAs are the only devices currently available that can support all four HMC lanes to enable full memory bandwidth with additional transceivers for datapath and control signals.”

Altera’s Interlaced Look-Aside core compatible with Cavium’s NEURON.

Altera’s Interlaced Look-Aside intellectual property (IP) core has been is compatible with Cavium’s NEURON Search Processor and is available now.

The core provides networking OEMs with a packet interface for use in routers, switches, firewalls, and security storage.

The core is integrated in Altera’s Arria 10 and Stratix V FPGAs and enables interoperability between a datapath device and a look-aside coprocessor with transfer rates up to 300 Gbps delivering 500 million packets per second performance.

The core has both soft and hardened logic blocks offering lane and data rate configuration flexibility for optimal integration.

Altera and Cavium tested and verified the Core using a Stratix V FPGA and a NEURON Search Processor.

An interoperability report is available from Altera that describes the testing methods and performance metrics achieved using Altera’s Interlaken Look-Aside IP core interfacing with Cavium’s NEURON Search Processor.

Government to address flaky mobile telecoms service

The Prime Minister has joined the rest of us in getting fed up with ‘not-spots’ – areas where you can’t get a mobile phone signal.

Astonishingly, it appears, that even Downing Street suffers from flaky mobile service while, it is said that the PM has had to cut short West Country holidays because of lack of a mobile signal.

But relief may be at hand, not only for the PM, but for the rest of use.

The plan is to tell network operators to make their masts accessible to all users.

So your mobile phone gets connected to the nearest mobile mast whoever it belongs to.

The operators, of course, are against the plan. They say switching between different operators’ masts will itself caused dropped calls.

The minister charged with the task of bringing the operators round to the PM’s way of thinking is culture secretary Sajid Javid.

The EU moves to provide free roaming in 2016 have, apparently, precipitated the UK plan because the EU plan would mean that visitors to the UK would get a better service than the locals who would remain tied to one operator’s network.

$50 bn capex for top semi spenders

Hynix will spend $3-3.8 billion on semiconductor capex and Samsung will spend $11.5 billion says Digitimes Research.

With Samsung planning to begin install production equipment at its Line-17 fab in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, its semiconductor capex in the second half of 2014 will be higher than in the first.

Having already set up seven semiconductor production lines in its plants in Hwaseong and Xian, China, the Hwaseong plant will aim to migrate to more advanced process nodes in 2014, while the Xian plant will focus on ramping up its vertical-NAND (V-NAND) flash capacity.

The Line-17 fab, which is slated for completion in the second half of 2014, will focus on offering wafer foundry services using 20nm and below processes.

Hynix’s main capex for 2014 will be used to build its M14 fab. Construction of the M14 line is expected to begin in mid-2014.

Companies spending over $1 billion on capex this year include Micron, Toshiba and SanDisk.

Micron is expected to accelerate the migration of its DRAM production to 20nm process, while also ramping up its NAND flash capacity.

Toshiba and SanDisk will expand the production capacity of V-NAND flash at its plant in Yokkaichi.

For non-memory chips, the 2014 capex of Intel, TSMC, GloGo and UMC..

Intel will deepen its development of 14nm and below processes, TSMC will focus on 16nm FinFET process. GloFo and UMC will raise the ratios of their 28nm production,while beginning to develop 20nm and below technologies.

Combined 2014 capital spending of these semiconductor firms with a capex budget of over US$1 billion in the year is expected to amount to US$49.3 billion, Digitimes Research estimates.

The top-three DRAM chipmakers will move to upgrade their processes to 25-21nm, while the NAND flash industry will focus on ramping V-NAND flash production as well as to migrate to 19-16nm processes.

No takers for Kilby’s Chip

Christies - Jack Kilby ICA prototype of Jack Kilby’s original IC failed to sell at Christie’s New York yesterday.

The highest bid was $850,000 which was below the reserve price.

The chip was to be sold with a letter dated April 30th 1964 written by Tom Yeargan who performed the actual fabrication of the IC and kept the prototype.

The letter includes the statement:

‘I assisted Jack in his work on semiconductor networks.
‘I remember working on the first unit, a phase shift oscillator.
‘At the time, I was assigned to Stacy Watelski and had been working for him on germanium transistor having a horse shoe base and dot emitter.
‘In this work, I evaporated metal to form the base and emitter.
‘I heated the germanium and then evaporated the metal.
‘When metal hit the germanium, it became alloyed in.’

There are two earlier prototypes of Kilby’s IC – one in the Smithsonian and one in the Chicago Museum of Technology.

Apple iWatch moves into early stage manufacturing

Reuters reports that the Apple iWatch will move into production at Quanta in July.

The commercial launch of the iWatch will be in October, says Reuters.

The screen is said to be 2.5 inches on the diagonal and protrudes slightly from the band.

The interface will be touch and the charging will be wireless.

Messaging and voice will require a paired iPhone. The iWatch will only be compatible with devices running iOS.

Apple is said to be planning to ship 50 million of the devices in the 12 months after launch. Quanta is said to be responsible for 70 % of the production.

Smart watches have been launched by Samsung, Sony, Motorola and LG with little market success.

Chinese company in top ten LED makers

China’s massive investments in LED manufacturing capacity are paying off, with a Chinese company entering the top ranks of the global market for the first time ever, according to IHS Technology.

China’s MLS Electronics in 2013 rose to the No. 10 rank in the worldwide market for packaged LEDs, up from 14th place in 2012.

The other top 10 players are based in Korea, Japan, the USA, Germany and Taiwan.

“Since 2011, most of the new LED production capacity that has been added worldwide has occurred in China,” said Jamie Fox, principal LED analyst for IHS. “Because of this, it was inevitable that Chinese companies eventually would penetrate the ranks of the top 10 LED suppliers. MLS was first to join the global elite, having established itself as the clear leader in the Chinese market by capitalizing on strong domestic demand.”

MLS is one of many Chinese LED suppliers that have sprung up amid the surge in production. However, the other firms do not even rank among the top 20 global suppliers. China’s LED supply base is massive and highly fragmented, with thousands of small manufacturers located across the country.

“Despite leading the domestic market, MLS accounted for less than 10 percent of Chinese LED revenue in 2013,” said Alice Tao, China LED analyst at IHS. “The next five largest LED suppliers in China represented only about 20 percent of the market.”

With the rise of LED manufacturing capacity in China, concerns have risen relating to overcapacity. Some of the equipment purchased for metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) manufacturing—the most important process step in LED production—is now sitting idle in China. Observers have fretted that the overcapacity could result in the shutdown of some Chinese suppliers.

However, only a few of the smaller Chinese vendors so far have closed their LED operations. Most of the top companies remain active in the market, with some posting strong profit margins.

MLS and the smaller Chinese suppliers mostly compete among themselves for a share of the large domestic LED market. The international portion of sales for these companies is very small.

At the same, the extremely low prices in the Chinese market make the country inaccessible to overseas suppliers. Because of this, foreign LED makers don’t encounter Chinese competitors very often.

But that situation will change rapidly. IHS expects the LED revenues of Chinese vendors to grow steadily over time, as the country’s economy continues to grow strongly. Because of this, Chinese LED suppliers will begin to sell more internationally and come into competition with foreign rivals.

Both intellectual property and quality are concerns for international customers that are considering Chinese suppliers.

However, several factors suggest these concerns could be alleviated over time. These factors include patent expirations, China’s established history in other industries, the sheer volume of manufacturing capacity in the country and the fact that many LED lamps are assembled in the nation.

Top-tier LED suppliers such as Nichia, Osram, Lumileds and Cree so far have seen only a small impact from Chinese vendors on their sales. This is especially true in the market for general lighting in regions such as Europe and the Americas. Such will not necessarily be the case by the end of the decade.

X-Fab builds two new MEMS fabs

X-FAB Silicon Foundries has expanded its MEMS manufacturing capabilities in Erfurt and Itzehoe with two new dedicated MEMS fabs with cleanroom space totaling more than 2000 square metres.

MEMS devices manufactured at X-FAB include pressure sensors, micro-mirrors, microphones and microfluidic devices used in mobile, consumer, medical and automotive applications.

“With the two new dedicated MEMS fabs, we are well prepared for volume MEMS manufacturing and able to meet the growing demand we see from our customers,” says X-Fab’s Peter Merz.

In Erfurt, X-FAB will use 1300 square metres of new MEMS manufacturing space alongside its existing CMOS and MEMS semiconductor fabs on site. The new cleanroom will be used for high-volume manufacturing of 200mm MEMS and related processes with the first equipment to be installed in December this year.

In Itzehoe, X-FAB is moving its operation into a new state-of-the-art 1000 square metre fab commonly used with Fraunhofer ISIT.

In addition, X-FAB will expand its R&D cooperation with Fraunhofer Institute. The Itzehoe fab was opened last month with the first tools already installed.

“X-FAB offers a variety of CMOS processes for analog/mixed signal, high-voltage and power applications in combination with a wide range of MEMS process capabilities,” says Merz, “customers benefit from this one-stop-shopping approach. In addition, X-FAB simplifies the supply chain by supporting integration and interface challenges on all levels.”

Qualcomm dominates China LTE market

Qualcomm SnapdragonQualcomm is the biggest supplier of China’s LTE chip market, of which it is expected to take over 80% in the first half of 2014, reports Digitimes.

Qualcomm is currently pushing its Snapdragon 400 series as the mainstream platform for the LTE market and because of the series’ friendly pricing and strong performance/function balance, the platform has achieved high popularity in the market.

Qualcomm is set to release its entry-level 64-bit Snapdragon 410 series in the third quarter of 2014, looking to accelerate shipment growths.

Marvell released its LTE solutions at the same time as Qualcomm, but limited by its business scale and supporting personnel, Marvell has been unable to offer a technology support as competitive as Qualcomm’s, while component costs for its solutions are also higher. It has a lot less clients than Qualcomm.

Despite the fact that Marvell and Qualcomm both released their LTE solutions at about the same time, Marvell’s LTE chip shipments have been a lot weaker than those of Qualcomm.

Meanwhile, MediaTek continues to achieve growth in 3G-related chip markets. The chipmaker’s quad-core and eight-core products are achieving rapid growth in the second quarter and have become the main revenue contributors.

Although MediaTek has already developed independent LTE baseband chips and released related solutions to the market, demand for the solutions is limited and significant shipments are unlikely until the third quarter.

However, by then, the entry-level market, where MediaTek has a strong presence, may have already been occupied by Qualcomm’s 32-bit and 64-bit solutions and MediaTek is likely to be forced to offer same-spec-but-cheaper solutions to compete for orders, Digitimes  believes.

MediaTek currently still lacks plans for 64-bit products. MediaTek’s high-end 32-bit MT6595 is able to outrace Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801/805 in terms of performance, but for the 64-bit product line, MediaTek currently still has nothing to compete against Qualcomm’s upcoming 64-bit 808/810 series.

The aPhone arrives

Amazon PhoneAmazon launched its phone yesterday. It’s a 4.7 inch phone with a 13 megapixel camera, a 2.2 GHz processor and free photo storage.

It can be controlled by tilting it, by eyeball tracking and by moving it from side to side.

It links with Amazon Prime, Kindle and Amazon cloud storage

The US cost, through AT&T, is $199.99 with a 2-year contract for a 32 GB model. A 64 GB model costs $299.99. Without a contract, the phone will cost  $649.99.

Pre-orders for the phone begin Wednesday, and the phones will be available starting July 25.