Finance

Massive demand for advanced ICs from the mobile phone industry will drive semiconductor growth for the next few years, according to Sanjay Jha, president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “Samsung and Elpida say that, by 2008, the number of memory bits shipped in wireless will outstrip the number of bits shipped in PCs,” Jha told the IEE/FSA International Semiconductor Executive Forum ...

Shanghai foundry SMIC has identified 463 fabless chip firms in China

2005 will be a correction year, not a recession year. That was the determination of Gartner’s Semiconductor Masterminds Panel, featuring some of the top brass from Intel, STMicroelectronics, Samsung, Nokia and headed by Mentor Graphics CEO Wally Rhines. “I don’t see ahead of us something like the [recent] downturn,” Jean-Philippe Dauvin, chief economist at ST, told the audience at the ...

The semiconductor industry is headed for an imminent downturn in 2005, but nothing as deep or lengthy as the one from which the industry has recently recovered. The prediction came from analyst firm Semico, which released its 2005 outlook last week, calling next year “a bump in the road”. This year the semiconductor industry will grow by 31.5 per cent ...

London-based algorithm company Tecteon has teamed up with Canadian firm Dspfactory to jointly market sound processors for portable devices. “The relationship with Dspfactory opens new market opportunities for Tecteon’s technologies and algorithms,” said Tecteon’s MD Masoud Ahmadi. “We believe there is a growing market need for a variety of voice quality modules on low-power DSP devices. Our algorithms have the ...

National Semiconductor roared past its year-ago numbers, posting net income of $117.7m for the quarter ended on August 29 versus $29.7m for the same quarter in 2003. But not everything came in exactly as the company hoped. Inventory imbalances ate into sales, and probably will impact earnings this quarter, as well. Sales increased 29 per cent to $548m for the ...

Samsung Electronics’ share of the global semiconductor market continued to skyrocket in Q2 – its growth surpassing all other top 10 players in a market that experienced overall growth of 34.4 per cent on a global basis over Q2 2003, according to iSuppli. Thanks to its leadership in the fast-growing DRAM and flash memory markets, Samsung sits in the number ...

European exports to China are a headache for SEMIDavid Manners SEMI is facing a conflict of interest between the commercial interests of its members and the requirements of the World Trade Organisation. The issue for SEMI – the international body representing the suppliers of semiconductor production equipment – is over exporting equipment to mainland China. “I don’t know whether the ...

A group of ex-Zarlink Semiconductor staff have formed a start-up called AlphaHorizon to provide marketing services to young UK high technology companies. “In their rush to create world beating products, many start-ups lack, or fail to recognise, the commercial skills required to understand markets that will enable them to achieve a healthy, sustainable and profitable business,” Ray Gleason, CEO of ...

UK electronics companies should be taking greater advantage of the opportunities provided by the vast Chinese market, and the services offered by the UK Government to help them do so. “China’s electronics industry is vibrant, particularly in fields such as optoelectronics, flat panel displays, electronics systems design and semiconductors,” said Steve Williams, senior sector manager at Government body UK Trade ...