There are still mixed signals in ICs and related end-user markets, such as PCs and storage. ''Consumer notebook PC demand is tracking in line with historical trends. Notebook vendors with greater exposure to the consumer segment are maintaining their earlier expectations of a 10 percent plus quarter-over-quarter increase in shipments in 2Q08,'' said Longbow Research semiconductor analyst Tayyib Shah in a report.
''Our checks indicate weakness in U.S. corporate notebook demand with major OEMs including Dell and Acer showing some weakness in their orders,'' Shah said. ''This is in line with our survey work into the enterprise storage market which is also showing signs of weak IT spending.''
IC makers are also all over the map. For example, chip maker Atmel Corp. is ''cautiously optimistic about business trends, noting its customers still have significant macro and consumer-driven fears,'' said Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR, in a report.
''This commentary was more cautious than comments from peers like Fairchild Semi, Microsemi, or On Semi, in our view,'' Berger said. ''Management (from Atmel) said that inventories remain at normal levels and lead times remain stable and are not stretching out, thus motivating chip customers to maintain normal buffer inventories.''
Last week, ''Marvell reported very strong financial results and gave robust 2Q guidance,'' he said. ''2Q revenue guidance was much better than expected with strength in storage, Wi-Fi, and cellular-related chip businesses, fueled by a robust global PC market and by strength at top cellular customer RIM ahead of its Blackberry 'Bold' launch in 2Q.''
Another chip maker, On Semiconductor, is ''saying that bookings and order trends strengthened in April, with that strength continuing into May across most end markets and product categories,'' the analyst said.
''Management said the pricing environment remains benign, which we interpret to mean that chip prices are falling by between 0 percent and 1 percent quarter over quarter, below historical long-term trends,'' he said. ''On the inventory front, distributor inventories rose slightly in 1Q to about 10 weeks but remain within normal levels of 8 to 10 weeks.''
A comprehensive suite of data from Embedded.com's 2008 user survey, this report unearths some surprises among embedded developers: a decline in interest in embedded Linux, a reticence to use source-code analysis tools, and significant increases in the delays in development projects.
A joint project of EE Times, Piper-Jaffray, and Sandia National Laboratories' FPGA Mission Assurance Center, this report updates the 2006 survey by showing that the shift from wide-scale ASIC use to production FPGAs has already occurred. This year's report includes expanded sections for analog components and military-aerospace applications.
A comprehensive overview of venture investments in the electronics industry made during calendar year 2007. This study focuses on areas such as "cleantech" investment, fabless semiconductor investment, and wireless end markets such as WiMax. Available as a PDF report, and as a combined report and Excel spreadsheet.
Waiting for the Mobile Payments Global Infrastructure - Near-Field Communications holds the promise of being the underlying technology for all mobile payment schemes. But NFC has faced a long gestation, driven by slow development of application software and a variety of chip-set support schemes. This report provides a careful look at when NFC and contactless payments from a handset can experience the growth rates promised for the last five years.
The uncertain extent of primary telecom transport cannibalization of form factors turns on the hinges of global deployments. Current trends suggest a rapid transition in the North American market from full-sized ATCA to uTCA and its smaller cousins, like PicoTCA. If carriers in Asia and Europe follow this trend to smaller, more power-efficient central offices and POPs, overall ATCA shipments may be dominated by uTCA well before 2015. If traditional rack-mount sizes dominate in overseas markets, full-sized ATCA could carve out its own portion of the market of a size approaching several billion dollars per year by 2015. In any event, the drive toward standardization will favor the growth of an overall ATCA/uTCA market to a point exceeding $5 billion per year by 2012.
In 2007, the IEEE 802.3 working group for Ethernet took a revolutionary step and approved two separate paths beyond 10 Gbit/sec speeds: one standard is for 40-Gbit/sec Ethernet channels, the other for 100-Gbit/sec channels. Today, the choice of two speeds could accelerate design for those who were hesitant at moving directly to 100 Gbits/sec, or it could slow implementation of practical prototypes by diluting efforts to develop a faster Ethernet. Early indications suggest the first alternative remains the most likely, and this implies that a 40-Gbit/sec market will be first to emerge.
The semiconductor industry has dominated electronics for four decades using silicon and other elements doped with inorganic materials. A new generation of technology aims to use organic polymers to produce light emitting diodes (LEDs) and transistors that use less power, are lighter and more flexible and can be made more cheaply using ink jet printing techniques and low cost materials.
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