My blog's been nominated by Electronics Weekly!

It was indeed a pleasant surprise to receive an email from Electronics Weekly, yesterday evening, informing me that my blog was recently shortlisted/nominated in the 2008 ElectronicsWeekly.com Blog Awards by a reader of ElectronicsWeekly.com!

All of the nominated blogs have apparently been considered by the panel of judges at ElectronicsWeekly.com. The email said, "I am delighted to inform you that you have made the shortlist in the Best Electronics Hardware Blog category."

The list can be seen on Electronics Weekly's (www.electronicsweekly.com) website!

Wow! I must add that here that there are such great blogs and bloggers in that list that I went dizzy for a few minutes!

I never expected my blog to reach this kind of appeal or level! Nor do I think I have that kind of traffic, as this blog has more to do with serious stuff, rather than talk about gadgets, etc. In fact, somebody once told me last year that no one would bother about a blog on semicon and electronics, nor would I get any traffic!

Well, all of this has never bothered me. I'm here to blog about what I feel is close to my heart! If folks happen to stop by, I am extremely grateful to all of them!

Irrespective of whether I win this award, it is just the right time to thank all of you, dear readers of my blog! Thanks to all of you for choosing to stop by my blog occasionally! I sincerely hope you find the content interesting and appealing enough.

There's lots happening in the semiconductor, electronics and telecom industries, and hope that I am able to add my views on all of those in the coming months.

Thanks again, my dear readers. Please keep those suggestions coming. I will try to live up to your expectations. Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Semicon half year over, what next now?

Wow! A majority of my predictions made on this blog for the global semiconductor industry have so far turned out correct -- in December 2007 and again in May 2008.

Recently, I'd done a check on where are we today, in May, and earlier, via a Webcast from Semiconductor International, I had mentioned about the semiconductors market situation. Around that time, I had attempted my hand at predicting the top 10 global semiconductor trends for 2008.

There have been several folks, who've contacted me via this blog. Each one of them has his and her opinion about the semiconductor industry, and now want me to take this up a little bit more ahead. Let's see what more I can do!

While all of these makes me feel proud of having been spot on with my assessment of the global (and Indian) semiconductor industry, it should also serve as a warning for the global (and Indian) semiconductor industry -- that it really needs to pull up its socks! It is not going to be an easy ride ahead!

For starters, you simply cannot wish away the rising oil prices. The oil prices impact will be immense, and DRAM and flash are still wobbling. Besides, the ASPs are a wobbly lot and will continue to remain so. Interestingly, several forecasts from various quarters have been revised or re-assessed. Didn't you all see it coming?

I'd also like to touch upon the Indian semiconductor industry. In all likelihood, the wafer fab story has all but disappeared. Very few comments are now being made about the wafer fabs, although, how this topic was played up, rather, hyped up about a year ago is quite well documented. In fact, I'd also written about whether the timing was right for having fabs in India!

No, it is not a failure on part of the Indian industry or the India Semiconductor Association. Perhaps, we started on the fab path a bit too late! Let's all accept that!! Having said that, if a wafer fab or two do start functioning in India later in 2009 or beyond, that would be simply great!

Yes, several solar fabs are coming up and investments in solar/PV are rising, as also in India, but that was along expected lines.

I'd mentioned earlier that investments in photovoltaics (PV) had eased the pressure on capital equipment makers and spend somewhat. In fact, 2007 is now well remembered as the year when the PV industry emerged as a key opportunity for the subsystems suppliers and provided a timely boost in sales for those actively addressing this market. Perhaps, here lies an opportunity for India! I'm repeating this to the extent of sounding boring.

Further, even though it has been quite a while since the Indian semicon policy was announced, some feel that India should continue to focus on design services and embedded -- its well known strengths, rather than go after something as mature as wafer fabs. Also, why do we have to 'force ourselves to think' that we are good at product development? We are not! Yes, it can change, but that would need great effort on part of all industry stakeholders.

So, what next? For now, I will not try and predict again what's the way ahead for the semiconductor industry, as I've recently done a self check on where the global semiconductor industry stands today. That assessment will be left for another day!

Top semicon articles of 2008

A very kind reader left a comment yesterday that he (or she?) spent three hours on my blog! I am simply overwhelmed and humbled!!

It has really been a pleasure writing and maintaining a semicon blog! Plenty such are around carrying very valuable information, and I salute those bloggers.

It is really tough to contend with all the other technology-related information, but then, semicon has its own charm, and its own set of dedicated readers -- who DO go on to become extremely loyal.

I am even more touched by another request by a friend to list all the top articles I've written this year. Wow!!

It is very difficult for me to say, which ones are the best! However, I am listing the articles here. They all link back to CIOL. Of course, I've blogged here first, so, those who are familiar with my blog pieces, will identify them immediately.

Here goes then -- starting from the latest back down to very late last year -- in terms of relevance. Enjoy!

Semi trends 2008: Fab spend lower, ASPs stabilizing
The call on global fab spend was for a 10 percent reduction, and this is now getting to be closer to 20 percent.

UK, India aim for semicon collaboration
ISA-UKTI study examines collaboration scope between India and UK in design, applications and devices.

Dubai an emerging silicon frontier
The government of Dubai has set up the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) as the engine for propelling Dubai into the knowledge economy.

Be parallel, or perish!
Parallelism offers new doors, and creativity is required to open these new doors, says Intel.

Altera first @ 40nm FPGAs
The company has announced two product lines -- the Stratix IV FPGAs and the HardCopy IV ASICs.

Semicon likely to grow 12pc in 2008
If there will be an economic recession, the chip industry (but not all firms) is in the best shape possible to weather the ensuing storm.

India's growing might in global semicon
India is fast becoming the world's destination, and increasingly the source too, for semiconductors.

Fascinating developments in 22nm!
These augur well for the global semiconductor industry, even though the field could get much narrower.

Indian design services to touch $10.96bn by 2010
Total design services market in India is said to have grown at 21 percent year on year.

NXP India achieves RF CMOS in single chip
The entire analog and RF work done has been in Bangalore by NXP's single-chip design team.

LabVIEW 8.5 delivers power of multicore processors
With LabVIEW, designers and engineers can assign different tasks on different cores -- which are independent.

Multi-nationalization of product development process
Indian designers lead in transaction level design, and can play big role in EDA.

Can we expect exciting times in 2008? Some trends
Blurring lines between PMPs and PNDs, semicon rush or hush; Netscape's end -- all are in store!

Semicon outlook 2008: Global market likely to grow 6-11 percent in 2008
Some predictions are for 2008 to be flat year or a year of negative growth; EDA to grow 7.8pc!

That's about it! If there's anything I've missed out, kindly let me know. Thanks for all your continuing support, dear readers. It is very humbling and touching.

ASPs stabilizing, fab spend lower than expected

Future Horizons recently released the May WSTS results on the global semiconductor industry, which indicate that the chip market is slowly starting to buzz again. With the 'hum back among the chips', it was important for me to quiz Malcolm Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons, in the UK, to find out why this was happening!

Now then, why is the chip market exactly humming? What has actually happened? Well, nothing specific! It is merely an overall step-by-step general improvement in everything, helped along by the normal seasonal improvement in business in the second half of the year!

So many forecasters and firms have their own forecasts. What happens now if some of these forecasts are cut or revised? Will that affect the market overall market? The answer is simple -- a forecast is simply just that -- a forecast -- not fact!

Penn says, "The market will judge whether the other forecasters' analyses of the market were right, as it wll indeed judge whether we are right too!"

Earlier, I had written about Future Horizons forecasting 12 percent growth in 2008 for the global semiconductor industry. Keep an eye on that one!

Further, have the ASPs stabilized, as those are indeed a dodgy lot? Penn feels, "We believe yes, although, there will still be the normal month-on-month variations and wobbles."

Now, where does all of this leave the DRAM and NAND markets? According to the forecast, prices have already stopped falling as fast as they were this time last year.

However, they do fall and will fall; this is what they do! The question is: by how much? In other words, is the current fall above or below the long-term trend line? This will be analyzed in the long run as well.

Finally, what's happening with the semicon equipment capex? Again, it is continuing to fall! "Right now we are in the middle of an underinvestment period, which means a capacity shortfall in 12 month's time," notes Penn.

No 'fab' times for fab spends
Is the fab spend going to see any change then? Well, unfortunately, no luck there! At least, not yet. Penn adds that fab spend is lower than expected at the beginning of the year.

He says: "The call then was for a 10 percent reduction, and this is now getting to be closer to 20 percent. In fact, Mike Splinter of Applied Materials is quoted as saying that he thinks that fab spend will end up 30 percent down."

It is good to see that the global semiconductor industry is starting to hum a little bit more than what it was doing last month. Sincerely hope that the rest of the year pans out well!

Chip market is beginning to hum again!

Future Horizons has released the May WSTS results today on the global semiconductor industry, which indicate that the chip market is slowly starting to buzz again.

Malcolm Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons, points out that as shown in May's WSTS results, March's sale figures romped home with a vengeance – reversing February's lacklustre performance – with IC sales up 10.8 percent on February and 8.2 percent on the same time last year.

More importantly, the ASPs were up 13.3 percent on February and 2.1 percent on March 2007.

While the increase on February 2008 is merely part of the normal month 3 versus month 2 quarterly patterns, the increase over the same period last year is much more statistically -– and structurally -– significant.

"Finally, the chip market is starting to hum. Now is NOT the time to cut back on the 2008 forecast," he adds.

Now then, why is the chip market exactly humming? What's actually happened? Well, nothing specific! It is merely an overall step-by-step general improvement in everything, helped along by the normal seasonal improvement in business in the second half of the year.

So many forecasters and firms have their own forecasts. What happens now if some of these forecasts are cut or revised? Will that affect the market overall market? The answer is simple -- a forecast is simply just that -- a forecast -- not fact! Penn says, "The market will judge whether the other forecasters' analyses of the market were right, as it wll indeed judge whether we are right too!"

Earlier, I had blogged about Future Horizons forecasting 12 percent growth in 2008 for the global semiconductor industry. Keep an eye on that one!

Further, have the ASPs stabilized, as those are indeed a dodgy lot? Penn feels, "We believe yes, although, there will still be the normal month-on-month variations and wobbles."

I shall continue this story in my next blog... so keep reading folks! My very warm regards and thanks to all of you who do stop by to read and comment.

Indian design services to cross $7.37bn in 2008

The Indian semiconductor and embedded design services market has grown consistently over the last five years and market is likely to cross the US$ 7.37 billion in 2008.

This was the key finding of the "India semiconductor and embedded design service industry (2007-2010): Market, technology and ecosystem analysis", a study jointly released today in Bangalore by the India Semiconductor Association (ISA), and IDC (India) Ltd.

Some key findings of this comprehensive report include:

* The total design market in India for 2007 was estimated at US $6 billion. Eighty-one percent of the revenues were in the area of embedded software, followed by VLSI design (13 percent) and hardware/board design (6 percent).

* The total workforce employed in the design services industry in India was estimated at 130,000 in 2007.Of this the bulk of the jobs were in embedded software 82 percent followed by VLSI design (11 percent) and hardware/board (7 percent).

* The industry was estimated to grow at a CAGR of around 21.7 percent between 2007-2010.

* The geographical focus of the industry indicates that US has a share of 70 percent; Europe at 30 percent; and the emerging economy is that of Japan.

Key factors that determine the growth of the design sector in India are: the growing expertise and capabilities in complex end-to-end design; strong IP development and talent. The Indian domestic market is one of the fastest growing in Asia as well as globally.

Commenting on the Indian design market, Poornima Shenoy, president, ISA, said: "The Indian semiconductor design industry, with over 200 companies, is on a strong growth trajectory. Our growth is nearly 22 percent which is three times the global growth rate of around 7 percent. We are looking eastward for business and collaboration heralding a new era in the future of the sector."

Announcing the findings of the ISA-IDC report, Kapil Dev Singh, added: "The Indian semiconductor and embedded design services market has grown consistently over last the five years and market is expected to cross the US$ 7.37 billion in 2008. The domestic semiconductor and embedded design services industry is all set to enter a new phase -– Ver 2.0, following on from where Ver 1.0 left off. To achieve this next phase of growth, the industry needs to focus on the availability of quality manpower, higher productivity and more value creation."

Semiconductor outlook 2008: EDA to grow 7.8pc; semicon 6-11pc

Forecasters at the panel discussion the 2008 Semiconductor Industry Forecast webcast presented by Semiconductor International were guarded in their predictions -- which were a mixed bag -- with the majority predicting semiconductor growth in the range of 6-11 percent during 2008.

However, some other panelists predicted 2008 to be flat year or a year of negative growth. There are fears of a possible recession in 2008, along with concerns surrounding consumer spend that could be hit by higher oil prices and the US mortgage crisis. Hence, the need for forecasters to be watchful with their predictions.

EDA playing catch-up; to grow 7.8pc
The EDA industry is said to be lagging behind the semiconductor industry at the moment, and is in the catch-up mode, according to Gary Smith, President, Gary Smith EDA, while commenting on the forecast for the EDA industry.

On the outlook for the EDA market, Smith said the EDA industry is in a lttile unusual position. He said: "The market's been flat for the past four years. Tools for 65nm, 45nm silicon dsign have also been delayed." The R&D was not put in because of the recession. "Right now, we are in a position of lag in the market," he added.

EDA tools cover two process generations. The industry is just starting to introduce 65nm and 45nm tools. That generation is being called the DFM generation tool. Smith said: "It is even more important to the semiconductor industry as we run into manufacturing problems that they are relying on design tools to solve, rather than on semiconductor equipment." That's a major shift in the market!

According to him, the industry is now now into a pretty good growth area. "We were 11 percent last year, 10.2 percent to come in this year. We will be a bit down next year at 7.8 percent," he forecast. This has been attributed mainly to the EDA industry's lag in the market. "Some are moving to 32nm. And certainly, a lot of work is being done in 45nm," he added.

Smith noted: "The EDA industry is in the catch-up mode. We will lag them. We're expecting the downturn to really hit us in 2009. However, we're not an industry that goes negative often. No matter what you guys do, you still have to design something. So, when you go into recession, typically, the way you get out of recession is you generally design yr way out!"

DFM, ESL, parallel computing EDA growth drivers
He said that DFM, parallel computing and ESL were the growth drivers. Among the drivers is the DFM issue, which is increasingly getting more complex. There is said to be a move to restrict the design rules that is in place now for 45nm. "We're going to see major changes in 32nm; that'll have impact on tools," he added.

The other issue is parallel computing that has become a major task for the EDA industry. "With signal threading, we can no longer handle designs over 100 million gates. Of course, at 45nm, you can do a 100mn gates. That rewriting process is another issue that is also slowing out down. That's a full three-year re-write," Smith said.

Further, EDA is also starting to move up into the ESL. The ESL is going to shift the EDA market more into the systems market, and serve less on its dependency on the semiconductor world.

As for the inhibitors, an issue hitting the EDA industry right now is that, in 2007, the cost of designing or developing the embededded software for an SoC actually passed the cost of desgining the SoC itself. "So, we're in the middle of a software crisis that's going to hit the entire electronics ind in the next five or six years," he added.

Next, the industry has been also going to muticore, multiprocessor architecture. That demands a completely new programming model. According to Smith, what was unthinkable six months ago, is now a major topic of discussion -- that is abandoning C as a programming language! That's going to be a major shift in the industry.

Tariff concerns in Europe
Earlier, in a discussion regarding concerns about tariffs in Europe, and how will it impact the industry, Anne Craib, Director of Market Research, International Affairs and Finance, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), said: "We are working on a number of policy initiatives that we see as potential challenges in consumer sector." In Europe, there is an effort to re-classify goods that have business and consumer funtionalities, as consumer products not covered by tariff-free agreement.

As we see continued convergence, for example, the cell phone will be covered, so, there are questions as to whethe a cell phone has a cam or an MP3 player, and will that be considered as a consumer device or a business device. The result could be the imposition of fairly steep tariffs in the mid to high teens. "When you start to increasing your pricing to that level, it could potentially affect consumer demand. We havent seen that happen yet, but it's an issue that we are quite concerned," she added.

SIA is also concerned about some efforts in other parts of the world to put in place proprietary standards that could drive up the cost for manufacturers for accessing those markets -- by requiring to make devices that are specific to certain markets -- that wouldnt be interoperable. Most of them could affect the downstream products, but not semicon specifically. However, there are areas that the industry also needs to be aware of.

Stay tuned for full report later!

Importance of power awareness in chip designing

Power awareness is said to be crucial for portable applications. It determines the battery lifetime, and there's an increased amount of computation involved as well.

The other factor is that power awareness is extremely crucial for high-performance applications. This determines cooling and energy costs as well. Many chip designs today are power limited and still require maximum performance.

Battery storage has been a limiting factor as well. The reasons are manifold. For one, battery energy doubles in a decade! It does not follow Moore’s law! Next, there has been little change in the basic battery technology. A battery stores energy using a chemical reaction. Hence, the energy density/size safe handling are limiting factors as well for batteries.

Low power challenges in VLSI domain
There are low power challenges in the VLSI domain. The challenge is four-fold in nature. The devices are leaky. Further, more integration means more W/cm2, while the EDA tools used are not that good in the low-power domain and also doesn’t co-relate sometimes with the silicon. Finally, the variability of the device parameters simply make things worse.

Power dissipation is of two types -- static and dynamic. Static power dissipation can be minimized by reducing the operating voltage and using fewer leaking transistors. Dynamic power dissipation can be minimized by reducing the operating voltage, and by less switching capacity, and less switching activity.

Several leakage mitigation techniques are currently in use, such as lower operating voltage, cell sizing, dual Vt, power gating, non-minimum size gate lengths, VTCMOS and stack effect.

According to Jayanta Lahiri, director, PIPD, ARM, the company uses two methods -- IEM and PMK.

ARM Artisan power management kit uses power gate components, which can switch between 'global' and local rail. It makes use of VDD Header and VSS Footer switches, and high-Vt switch for low off-current leakage. It also uses coarse-grain power gates for multiple cells, which are available in different sizes.

Another ARM Artisan power management kit uses state retention components. The 'global' power rails to retention latch. It has power-switched primary master/slave latches, and high-Vt switch for low off-current leakage. It also makes use of the single-pin retention control (RETN), which can save the state on falling-edge of RETN and also restore state on rising-edge of RETN.

Power gated memory facilitates the standby mode, the retention mode and the shutdown mode. In the standby mode (HALT), the CEN disables the memory and leakage only standby current.

In the retention mode (SRPG), power is supplied to the core array to retain state. Power is off for periphery for reduced leakage and the outputs are clamped to zero.

In the shutdown mode (OFF), power is off for the core and periphery for reduced leakage, and the outputs are clamped to zero.

This is possible through both integrated MTCMOS power-gates as well as separated power sources for the core and periphery.

Top 10 semicon firms of 2007 by revenue

According to Gartner, the top 10 semiconductor firms for 2007 by revenue are: Intel, Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Infineon Technologies (including Qimonda), Hynix Semiconductor, Renesas Technology, NXP Semiconductors, and NEC Electronics.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $270.3 billion in 2007, a 2.9 percent increase from 2006, according to preliminary results from Gartner Inc.

Vendor performances were mixed with two vendors in the top 10 that experienced double-digit growth and two vendors that showed declines in revenue.

"Semiconductor vendors need to watch the performance of their end customers even closer as a major part of the industry becomes increasingly tied to consumer spending patterns," said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner. "Loss of market share in an end-user application, such as a mobile phone, by a customer (a mobile phone manufacturer) can have a dramatic effect on a vendor's business."

Intel grew revenue more than twice as fast as the semiconductor market average, and it is likely to edge up its market share to 12.2 percent in 2007 from 11.6 percent in 2006.

Intel’s growth came primarily from strong shipments of mobile PCs. Armed with a strong product lineup for enthusiast desktops and servers, Intel regained lost share in those markets from AMD.

While the global market for dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) is expected to decline in 2007 due to a severe drop in prices caused by oversupply, Samsung Electronics is likely to increase its revenue by slightly higher than the overall global semiconductor market growth rate (DRAM is one the firm's main products).

Samsung's growth is driven by steady revenue growth in NAND flash memory and strong revenue growth in nonmemory areas such as application processors, media integrated circuits (IC), complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor, smart card ICs and LCD driver ICs.

Toshiba’s revenue increased 27.8 percent in 2007 to $12,504 million, gaining three places in the rankings and moving into third place. The rapid gains mainly came from NAND flash memory.

Toshiba also increased production of CMOS image sensors for mobile phones and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)/application-specific standard products (ASSPs) revenue for digital consumer electronics, including LCD TVs, next-generation DVDs (HD DVDs) and video game consoles.

Outlook for Indian semiconductor industry in 2008

S. Janakiraman, president and CEO –- R&D Services, Mindtree Consulting, and chairman, India Semiconductor Association (ISA), is quite bullish on the advantages of India and the opportunities provided in the Indian semiconductor industry. Here are some notes on the outlook for the Indian semiconductor industry in 2008.

Indian semiconductor industry to grow 25-35 percent in 2008
There has been an increasing trend of an increasing brand value for semiconductors within India. MNCs, especially are looking at semiconductor related outsourcing from India. We are also seeing lot of traction, from third-party service providers, like us -- Mindtree, Wipro, Sasken, etc., as well as captive centers of MNCs like STMicroelectronics, NXP, etc.

In terms of growth plans, all leading MNCs, like NXP, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, etc., are planning to grow significantly from their India centers. They are strongly building partnerships with Indian designers.

From the design side, India is also seeing an increase in various activities, such as more complex analog designs and more complex digital designs. We are seeing more of physical designs happening, and even taking those designs up to the foundries are increasing as well. "We foresee 25-35 percent likely growth in the Indian semiconductor industry during 2008," said Janakiraman.

Software is very critical to succeed. Various Indian providers, including Mindtree, are developing software for semiconductor-related products that are being designed by the overseas semiconductor companies.

Fab policy -- More of ATMP
The fab policy announced by the government of India is really attractive and mostly on par with other countries. A semiconductor fab requires very high capital-intensive investment. In 2008, we will be probably seeing more of the assembly, testing, marking and assembly (ATMP) happening in India.

The fundamental fabs are still a little far away. Most companies are likely to start off by initially testing waters by making some level of investments in ATMP before moving on to fabs. One cannot also rule out the prospect of some leading Indian company investing in fabs.

Lot of the big MNCs have been moving to Fab-Lite, having already announced Fab-Lite strategies. They are moving to manufacturing to with people like TSMC, Chartered, etc. If manufacturing happens in the fabs, it would not be from any of the integrated device manufacturers (IDMs). It may also happen from Indian companies who are into manufacturing.

Electronics manufacturing has already moved on to the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) vendors. Similarly, chip vendors are also moving on to third-party providers. MNCs like TI, LSI Logic, etc., are moving away from manufacturing and moving that to Charter, TSMC, etc.

Fab companies will also look at India as the fab policy will look attractive to them. "Those questioning India's need for fabs would feel terribly missing out on the opportunities currently being provided by India, by 2015," said Janakiraman.

Product companies in India
Over the next one to two years, we are likely to see more product companies emerging from India. Companies like Tejas are already present in India. Down the line, this will percolate into semiconductors. Opportunities are bound to emerge. It means, first, there will be companies manufacturing electronics products, which will later move on to the emergence of semiconductor product companies.

As for Indian companies into manufacturing electronics products, the ISA chairman feels that there would be more of high-complexity, medium volume products. These would probably be manufacturing networking, automotive, navigation products, etc., which are more rich in software, but are medium volume in production.

Impact of semiconductor policy
According to Janakiraman, the interest in India has only increased since the announcement of the semiconductor policy. As per the announcement, the government of India will bear 20 percent of the capital expenditure during the first 10 years for units located inside SEZs and 25 percent for those located outside.

For semiconductor manufacturing (wafer fabs) plants, the policy proposes a minimum investment of US $625 million. The minimum investment for for ancillary plants is US $250 million. The government's participation in the projects would be limited to 26 percent of the equity portion. The key benefit is the grant of the SEZ status.

The Indian semiconductor policy is applicable for manufacturers of all semiconductors, displays – including LCDs, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), plasma display panels (PDPs), and any other emerging displays, storage devices, solar cells; photovoltaics; other advanced micro- and nanotechnology products; assembly and test.

Advantage India
India is now presenting a great opportunity to the world, in fact, offering triple advantages. India has a very rapidly growing domestic market, growing at a CAGR of 30+ percent. India has achieved global recognition for back-end services -– having become a proven case for IP, embedded systems and IC designs.

India is also an attractive destination for manufacturing investments. It further boasts of a highly skilled employee base, and a fast and upcoming modern infrastructure –- SEZs. India also enjoys proximity to the EU and the MEA markets. It also boasts of freight cost, said to be 20 percent cheaper than China, leading to faster delivery and lesser pipeline inventory.

Indian ecosystem maturing
India is aligning itself with the global semiconductor market by creating high value work in VLSI, and board design and embedded software. Companies with domain expertise are driving Indian businesses. India has become the world’s destination for semiconductor design and embedded software, and is increasingly becoming the source as well.

In terms of consumption, the India semiconductor total available market (TAM) revenues are likely to grow by 2.5 times, while the total market (TM) is estimated to double in revenues by 2009. India's semiconductor market share is likely to be 1.6 percent of the global market by 2009 in comparison to 1.1 percent in 2006.

Regarding the growth drivers for electronics manufacturing in India, telecom and IT & OA (office automation) segments will account for almost two-thirds of the semiconductor TAM by 2009. Telecom's share has been estimated to grow from 21.2 percent in 2006 to 41.1pc by 2009.

According to ISA estimates, TAM revenues are likely to grow by 2.5 times and TM revenues are likely to double their revenues by 2009 as against 2006. Growth of TAM revenues is 35.8 percent compared with just 26.7 percent for TM revenues, thereby signifying an increasing manufacturing index for different electronics products in India.

The decline in ASP (average selling price) of semiconductors and hence, of electronic products, is largely offset by the higher unit sales of different electronics end use products.

Indian electronics industry -- 2010 scenario
India will have a very strong electronics scenario by 2010. The installed base of mobile phones will go up to 500 million. The installed base of PCs will move up to 65 million. The IT enabled services (ITeS) and software exports has been estimated at US $60 billion.

There will likely be about 40 million new Internet connections, with at least 50 percent of those being broadband connections. The nationwide TV broadcast is likely to become digital by 2015, beginning 2010. In that scenario, there would be significant opportunity for set-top boxes (STBs) consumption and manufacturing. There will also be an estimated over US $10 billion investment in e-governance initiatives and the national ID card.

Convergence driving technology trends, says Sasken chief

Sasken Technolgies was earlier known as SAS and it was focusing on product development. Later, it moved on to services. Speaking about this shift, Rajiv C. Mody, chairman and CEO, said that Sasken has always been, from day one, working on both simultaneously.

Sasken initially started out in the EDA space and had one product in the simulation space. It was writing a simulator, addressing large complex designs and methods to simplify the designs. Simultaneously, Sasken was also doing a lot of services for large telecom companies in the areas of designing. This was continued and eventually, Sasken expanded in the area of telecommunications.

Subsequently, Sasken started building products in the telecom space. However, one significant difference is that anything that it does, it impacts Sasken's customers' top line as Sasken address the R&D side of the business.

Not so long back, Sasken were also a VLSI player. It decided to disband the design tool part of the business and focus completely on communications. Now, Sasken does a lot of business in chip design, which is part of VLSI. Today, it is among the leading providers of semiconductor design, working on all kinds of complex system-on-chip (SoC), as well as 65nm design.

Sasken has filed for 39 patents so far, of which 16 have been granted. Those remaining are in the process, and typically, once a patent has been applied for, it takes four years before being granted.

It has invested close to Rs 40 crore in R&D in 2007. In the first two quarters of this financial year, it has invested about Rs 15 corers in R&D. Sasken focuses on next-generation technologies, which would shape up the way things are to come in this new, converged world.

Mody said: "The fundamental thing driving this entire change is convergence -- essentially entertainment, media, news, information -- all of it being available at push medium as well as pull medium. Wireless is also playing a very significant role."

All of these combinations are creating newer opportunities - starting with, say, for example, in the service provider-side, new billing methods have to be put in place because it's going to be triple- and quad-play kinds of situations.

Simultaneously, on the handset side, with more and more computing power being made available, newer kinds of applications have started playing significant role. As a result, Sasken is now scanning the entire gamut to position itself and take advantage.

Sasken will continue to invest in products in the mobile handset space. It also has a significant role to play on the multimedia and the application frameworks. Mody added: "To give you an idea, for the mobile handset, direct broadcast is going to play a significant role. People are already talking about high definition (HD) on mobile. You will see all those kinds of interesting things coming about, and we will participate."

Sasken had also acquired a Finnish firm. This acquisition has worked extremely well and its full integration has been done. Mody said: "We have significant engagements because of our presence in Finland and the capabilities that they bring, not only with the existing, but also with the new costumer base. We are thriving and this has given us the capability to do full end-to-end handset design and testing."

Pick video IP as close as to "plug-and-play" for SoC integration

While designing, it is critical to pick the appropriate codec or formats that can be handled by a video IP to support any given application. It is also very important to select the correct video IP with proper and standard interfaces so that it can be as close as possible to 'plug-and-play' in terms of System on a Chip (SoC) integration.

Ravishankar Ganesan, VP, SoC IP Business Unit, Ittiam Systems, commenting on the selection of the video IP for SoC designs, said that SoCs use the divide and conquer strategy very well.

The SoC is today truly defining and integrating multiple specialized blocks or subsystems keeping the target application of the SoC in mind. Each one of these specialized subsystems needs to be the best in terms of its performance, area and power so that the SoC can be the best, competitive and well suited for the target market.

The video intellectual property (IP) is one of these specialized subsystems, and hence, critically important for SoCs, which are targeted for video based applications. Needless to mention, there is no one video IP that 'fits all' video SoCs.

So what should any SoC designer look for in terms of supporting video profiles and codecs? This really depends on the application(s) for which the SoC is likely to address. If you are targeting video IP for mobile TV application in a cellular phone, the profiles and codecs will get determined by the appropriate broadcasting system.

Similarly, if the SoC is targeting the high-definition ((HD) DVD player segment, the video codecs and their profiles/levels needs to be determined based on the video encoder configuration that was used to create the content on the DVD disc.

There has to be a way on going about selecting/understanding video codecs. In this context, it is very critical to pick the appropriate codec or formats that can be handled by the video IP to support the given application.

It is also very important to pick the video IP with the proper and standard interfaces so that it can be as close as to "plug-and-play" in terms of the SoC integration. The area and power dissipation are important as well, so that the SoC can be sold at a competitive price in the market.

At high pixel rates, what would be the situation with the video subsystem? Simply put, the higher resolutions result in the explosion of data. The video subsystem needs to be highly efficient in order to handle the high data movement. It also needs to have very efficient video processing engines to meet the real-time requirements.

As for the amount of off-chip video bandwidth that is actually needed by an IP block, Ganesan said that it depends a lot on the resolution that the video IP is likely to handle. The video resolution, profiles and levels will get determined by the application. Trade-offs between silicon real-estate and off-chip video bandwidth plays very critical role.

Improving video performance
Video performance is said to deteriorate as the off-chip memory latency increases. What can be done to improve this? Internal buffering will definitely help to reduce this impact. However, that can affect the silicon size of the device. Hence, care needs to be taken and trade-off needs to be done depending upon the Video system requirements.

Finally, let's examine how best can a designer integrate the video IP core into an SOC design. Depending upon the interfaces, the video IP can slide easily into the SoC. The IP could be just an engine, or processor core based soft IP or a combination of both.

So, the SoC designer needs to evaluate the application requirements, and determine the right interfaces and the appropriate processor core, along with the memory sub-system. There could be peripheral interface IPs [that are either part of the Video IP or separate], which also needs to be inserted as part of the SoC and the data flow on the device needs good management.

Semicon sales up in August really augurs well for CE industry

The global semiconductor industry can breathe a sigh of relief, hopefully, following the recent report by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), which has said that worldwide semicon sales were up sharply in August 2007.

According to the SIA press release, semicon sales grew to $21.5 billion in August 2007, an increase of 4.9 percent over August 2006, when sales were $20.5 billion, and an increase of 4.5 percent from July of this year when sales were $20.6 billion.

The release further adds that sales of NAND flash memory devices led the growth as supplies tightened and prices firmed. NAND flash sales were up by 48 percent compared to August 2006 and up by 19 percent from July of this year.

Yes, August is historically, the start of a long holiday season build by various manufacturers of electronics products, as SIA also mentions. This drives the demand for a wide range semicon related products.

Having spent considerable time in the Far East and Greater China region, I am well aware of the excitement that builds up starting September -- for a whole line-up of Fall Electronics Shows across Asia. CEATEC, Japan, KES, Korea, Hong Kong Electronics Show, China Sourcing Fair, Taitronics, Taiwan -- for Electronic Components and Finished (Electronics) Products.

There's CEATEC in Japan, which is currently going on at full steam at Makuhari Messe Chiba. CEATEC -- which is short for Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies － Providing Image, Information and Communications -- really lives up to its billing.

Already, Toshiba has somewhat rocked the world at CEATEC by announcing plans to manufacture CMOS camera modules for mobile phones in-house. It will be commencing the mass production of world's first CSCM (chip scale camera module) ultra-small camera module applying TCV (through chip via) technology. These modules are also being demoed at CEATEC.

Elsewhere, Broadcom has also fired a salvo, announcing breakthrough technology in form of the VideoCore 3 solution, which will likely be the first to deliver triple-play multimedia at ultra-low power levels for mobile phones. What this means is -- once this solution is applied, your mobile phone would be capable of playing high-definition (HD) video, sport a 12Mpixel digital camera, and deliver ultra-low power 3D graphics for world-class gaming experience.

These are just few examples of happenings in the semiconductor, consumer electronics and components. They do augur well for the industry at large. As the SIA President George Scalise, says, "The semiconductor industry will continue to outpace overall economic growth with consumer demand leading the way."

Challenges of selling used equipment in global secondary market

The recently concluded SEMICON TAIWAN had a very interesting session on: The Challenges of Selling Used Equipment in Global Secondary Market, by Michael Mihin, Global Account Manager, Broadway Engineering Services Teams Inc. (BEST).

According to Mihin, there are about 600 IC fabs worldwide in 2007 -- 47 in Taiwan, 42 in China, 35 in Korea, 19 in Southeast Asia, and 28 in rest of world, 182 in Japan, 89 in Europe and 158 in the USA. As a result, the challenges posed by used equipment exists worldwide.

Mihin put down these challenges as -- rebuilding OEM equipment to capabilities equal to OEM specifications; supplier response at factory location instead of single country location; providing capacity at a lower cost with recycled equipment; and project revenue to support local resources in country with fab locations.

As for the benefits meeting these challenges, those are said to be extending life of tools by refurbishing, lowering cost of ownership, local contact for warranty and maintenance, parts support with local partners, out of country tech support within 48 hours, and partnering with local resources to meet fab requirements.

Applications include rebuild company supplies refurbished tool, fab supplies tool and rebuild company refurbishes tool onsite at fab, rebuild company changes chambers on in fab tool to reflect new process requirement, and rebuild company supplies refurbished chambers and fab installs on tool. Time is the issue with 2X the time in fab.

Equipment opportunities exist such as providing refurbished equipment that is capable of meeting new equipment operating specifications, availability of donor tools as market requires, new equipment versus refurbished equipment value analysis, and refurbished parts versus new parts to complete the project.

As for the pricing challenges, these include dealing with refurbished tool that is 30-50 percent less than new, travel costs and expenses without margin adder, software upgrades without margin adder, rebuild field service engineer hourly rate less than OEM, and market price of donor tools influenced by supply and demand.

The 200mm tool supply is increasing, and the refurbish process takes eight to 12 weeks for most tools. Apparently, regional support/alliances are being developed. BEST offers USA phone support Monday to Friday, and parts support in 48 hours from USA.

Concluding, Mihin said that the world was operationally flat. Challenges were being met by alliances and consolidation of service providers. Legacy tool support was moving to certified rebuild companies. Finally, local capabilities were needed to meet language and communication requirements of a fab.

The challenges of selling used equipment could be a challenge in India too, as and when fabs come up, make no mistake.

Indian government announces policy to woo investments in semicon fabs

Better late than never, as the saying goes. The Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India, needs to be congratulated for coming up with the Special Incentive Package Scheme (SIPS)to encourage investments for setting up semicon fabs, and other micro and nanotechnology manufacturing industries in India!

The "ecosystem units" have been clearly defined as units, other than a fab unit, for manufacture of semiconductors, displays including LCDs, OLEDs, PDPs, any other emerging displays; storage devices; solar cells; photovoltaics; other advanced micro and nanotechnology products; and assembly and test of all the above products.

Just a week or two back, I was in conversation with some companies from Israel who were looking to develop business in India. Now, they, and others, have clear guidelines to follow. One of the companies, Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd, should feel happy that the definition of "ecosystem" includes assembly and test of products.

Nova develops, produces, and markets advanced monitoring, measurement and process control systems for the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Another well-known player, Tessolve, has been present in India since 2005 and would surely feel glad with the notification. At least, the media and others will take more notice of the company.

In Hong Kong, an ex-colleague and I used to cover OLEDs. When I first read about this technology back in the early 2000, I used to wonder whether India could have such a capability. Seems, it is now in a position to have OLEDs! I hope Lite Array (OLED) HK is watching and reading all of this.

Plasma display panels is another interesting line. The guidelines should interest LG, Matsushita, Sichuan Changhong Electric Co. Ltd, IRICO Group Corp. Panasonic, Asahi, Mitsui Chemicals, Nippon Electric, Samsung etc. Some of these firms are already present in India in one form or the other. It's just a matter of their being keen on developing PDP in India.

LCDs could be another big investment area. Taiwan's AU Optronics (AUO), Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), Sharp, Samsung, as well as other biggies like LG, NEC, etc., need to be wooed.

It really excites me to see all the possibilities in front of India. If this goes on well, India would be in for a great ride in electronics manufacturing, and in the semicon space.

In the same context, the Bangalore Nano 2007, which will be held in December, could not be better timed. There should be a whole lot of companies looking to be present at this show!

India's now on the threshold of major initiatives in the electronics manufacturing space. Some semicon fabs will also come up, and the number of fabless companies should likely increase. Maybe, TSMC and Tower could oblige with some foundries too. Should all of this happen at the right time, we are in for exciting times.

Does India need fabs? Worth a try!

A friend asked me whether India needs a fab. My answer quick and short was no! While it would be enchanting to see India join the global "fab club" or even have Indians comment "real men own fabs" for a change, I just don't see the ecosystem -- as people like to call it -- there. Maybe, once the odd fabs come up, that would develop as well. However, it can be quite some time away.

India, as most of us know, are strong in embedded and SoC related work. We are strong in design services. We are good at playing to our strengths. We should continue to do so. Note that we are not yet a one-stop design shop, though many people seem to see it that way. This is not exactly software and services!

However, to move up the so-called semicon value chain, India needs to do high-end designs and product development. The last one is currently the problem area.

How many Indian firms are involved in product development? Can you name them? Do you have the names on your fingertips? Most importantly, are those aimed for captive consumption (within the country) or are those serving the global markets? What are the product differentiators?

Right! Let's get back to the fab business. I asked in a earlier piece that whether everyone are aware of the kind of investment that is required for a fab. Do people even have an idea how long would it take for a fab to break even?

First, the investment. The fab is not going to be a small building built on some piece of land. If it's going to be a 300mm fab, the expenses are going to be huge. Let's keep this easy. For starters, there is going to be a fixed cost for maintaining the day-to-day running of a fab. That itself is going to be huge.

Two, most of the fab work would be automated. A fab won't exactly be hiring numbers running well over thousands. Even if huge numbers were hired, do we have people in the country with experience of working in green rooms? Let's assume there are!

Next, there are several other processes involved in developing wafer out of silicon. Do we have people with that kind of experience? Let's again assume that there are. Again, the operating costs for maintaining such personnel would be quite high.

Three, let's get down to the equipment required for a fab. That's going to be really expensive. Most importantly, all of it has to be in place, running, before the fab actually goes live. Next, a fab can't survive for long if it rests on using certain technologies. It has to use all possible latest technologies. Again, getting those would be expensive.

Finally, the wafers coming out have to be world-class and the yield, high, rather, very high. Those should be able to serve multiple product needs as well -- niche and vogue. Oh yes, the fab has to serve the global market. So, do add the marketing costs as well.

How long will it take for such a fab to break-even? Maybe, three to five years. Add the fact that technologies and process geometries would have also progressed a lot by that time. Which means, all of those need to be added on to the fab.

Well, it's worth a challenge. India is betting big on semicon. Let's have those fabs along with the fabless folks. We'll know who stands where, and whether India really has the capability to move up the semiconductor value chain.

Qualcomm rocks top 10! Is fabless the way ahead?

For the first time in semiconductors, a fabless company has cracked the Top 10! This honor has gone to Qualcomm, which broke into the Top-10 ranks of the global chip industry in the second quarter of 2007, according to iSuppli!

The list is consumed by the usual suspects, the giants -- Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics, Renesas, Hynix, NXP -- from no. 1 to no. 8, and then, Qualcomm -- the surprise entrant at no. 9, and finally, Infineon Technologies.

This leads to a question: is fabless the way ahead for the future? Maybe, there is! After all, iSuppli reports of an "Asian flu" -- read: all leading Asian semicon suppliers witnessing declines in revenues, even as Qualcomm moved up!

Here's what Future Horizons has to say in its monthly semiconductor forecast:

If May’s WSTS results were "disappointing", June's were a real proverbial kick in the pants, with 2Q07 down 2 percent on the 1Q07. Whilst we had anticipated in last month’s Report that the quarter would be down "at least 1 percent versus 1Q07", we had expected it to be closer to 1 percent, not 2. This year is turning out to be even more of a white-knuckle ride than normal, testing the industry’s vision and faith to new limits. With short-term industry momentum still refusing to rebound, all bets are still on for the second-half of the year. ASPs remain the underlying cause of the industry’s problem, given June’s IC units were up 11.8 percent on the same period last year. With first-half year units up a respectable -- and sustainable -- 7.7 percent year-on-year, the value growth limped in at only 2.6 percent, due to a 4.6 percent decline in IC ASPs.

While Qualcomm surged in the second quarter, Asian biggies such as Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, Sony and NEC saw semiconductor revenues decline. iSuppli reported Hynix and Toshiba as taking the biggest hits among the Top-10 suppliers.

What about India then, where you often hear cries for fabs? Does everyone know what kind of investment is required for a fab? And well, do people even have an idea how long would it take for a fab to break even?

Let's try something easier! Even if India currently has close to 200mn mobile phones and is growing, how many of those chips for mobile phones are currently being made in fabs located in India? Would a fab located in India only cater to the domestic market or should it cater to the overseas market as well? How many Indian companies are making those chips and how much is it all adding to India's GDP? Most importantly, are those fabs run by home-grown Indian companies? Are there any chances?

There are several fabless companies in India, especially in Bangalore. It won't take long to find them! There has been an endless debate on fabs vs. fabless. There's a reason why India has been stronger in semicon design!

However, to move up the value chain, India is being pushed hard to join the fab community. Given the current market dynamics, it may a long while before we get to see real success, should, as and when a fab or multiple fabs come up. Success may come, but it won't be easily achieved.

Shifts in top 20 global semicon rankings

If the recent preliminary results released by IC Insights is anything to go by, there have been some movements among the top 20 semiconductor companies of the world during H1-2007. This is best illustrated by the table below.



While the top three -- Intel, Samsung and TI, retain their positions, ST and Toshiba have exchanged the next two positions, as have Hynix and TSMC, while Renesas remains at no. 8!

Freescale has taken a big drop from no. 9 to no. 16, while Sony, NXP and NEC gained one place each. Infineon has climbed back up to no. 12, from no. 16, while Qualcomm occupies the no. 13 position, up from no. 17. AMD dropped two positions, from no. 13 to no. 15.

Will the semicon industry see a tight year ahead? As per reports, IC Insights said that there should be a "noticeable seasonal rebound" in overall IC demand beginning in September 2007, which may cause "significant changes" in the top 20 semiconductor ranking in the second half of 2007. Wait and watch this space!

Challenges for IC industry and Dr. Gargini's lessons

Those who were fortunate enough to attend the recently held SEMICON WEST in San Francisco had the pleasure of attending a great session on the past. present and future challenges for the IC industry by Dr. Paolo Gargini, Director of Technology Strategy at Intel.

For those who may not have the time to read this article, here's a snippet of what Dr. Gargini had to offer. The first lesson, he said, was that, "Something right may still happen even when everything seems to be going wrong.” However, challenges that were continuously posed also needed to be addressed at the earliest, in order to keep moving forward.

Many also predicted several times that some limit would be reached – that chip development would never get below ten nanometers, or below five nanometers. However, the industry was able to produce components with a gate oxide at about 1.2 nanometers.

Later, the game changed to scaling, which led to Gargini’s second lesson – “Predictors of engineering limits have always been proven wrong by the right improvements.” Shrinking silicon technology of the 1990s kept the industry moving forward.

His third lesson was, “It would be wrong to believe that the right fundamental limits don’t exist.” The fourth lesson was, “It is wise to look for the right solutions before things start going wrong.” Dr. Gargini recalled how Intel had announced that 45nm generation was ready. That it included high-k metal gates was only disclosed this January giving Intel the time to work on yields, enhancements, reliability problems, etc.

Gargini quoted Gordon Moore as saying that introduction of high-k metal gates was the single most important innovation in semiconductor manufacturing of the last 40 years!

Interestingly, a few weeks ago, the PULLNANO Consortium announced breakthrough results for 32nm/22nm. Among other things, the PULLNANO consortium has fabricated a functional SRAM using innovative MOS transistors whose device architecture differs significantly from that of transistors used in 45nm technology node.

These transistors are built using a low power consumption approach based on Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FDSOI), coupled with a gate stack composed of a high-K gate dielectric and a single metal electrode stack. This is said to be the first time that such a compact SRAM cell has been fabricated using FDSOI, high-k dielectric and metal gate together.

Coming back to Dr. Gargini, his fifth lesson was, "It would be wrong to delay taking action and not do the right thing at the right time." According to him, there was a need for re-examining the opportunities for reviewing “old” theories and techniques that didn’t work on silicon.

ISA initiatives bode well for semicon

When the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) started functioning from way back in Nov. 2004, it had three main objectives. These were: bringing the Indian semicon industry together; ensure that the Indian government paid enough attention to this sector; and finally, putting together a semicon policy.

ISA has since come a long way. S. Janakiraman, president and CEO – R&D Services, Mindtree, and chairman, ISA, says that the ISA is now transitioning into putting systems and processes in place.

The ISA also has three special interest groups, focusing on market research, technology and talent. The market research aspect is more in terms of reference data and in terms of opportunities.

As far as technology aspect is concerned, mixed-signal is fast becoming a reality. The process geometry of semicon has been shrinking from 90nm to 65nm and even 32nm.

Design and manufacturing used to be fairly independent earlier. However, they are fairly coupled now. All of these changes need to be addressed, according to Jani Sir. The ISA SIG on technology would be studying and recommending how to implement, keep track and stay ahead of technology.

Talent is an extremely critical area! The depth of knowledge is in danger of drying out soon! ISA feels that there is a need for a lot of faculty retraining and change in curriculum. The industry also needs to collaborate with the academia.

To address this, ISA has collaborated with the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Karnataka’s nodal body for engineering education to form the the ISA-VTU understanding. This is a comprehensive initiative, which seeks to catalyze talent generation through enhanced industry-academia interaction. The VLSI Society of India (VSI) will partner and support ISA on this initiative in specific areas.

Established in 1998, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) is headquartered at Belgaum. Presently there are 120 engineering colleges affiliated to VTU. Of these, five colleges offer a post graduate degree in VLSI design and embedded software.

Key aspects of the ISA-VTU initiative are as follows:

* Creation of a Semiconductor Research Consortium-like forum for India that would foster industry-oriented research;
* Facilitation of software acquisition in identified educational institutions;
* Create and support a repository of student projects;
* Faculty development through increased industry interaction and exposure; and
* Augmenting the curriculum evolved by SMDP/ VSI/ Universities in practicals and projects

The ISA also has another program, called the Si-Quest. The Si-Quest is a pioneering semiconductor campus awareness program aimed at talent generation from a broad-based quality talent pool in India. Its nationwide campus coverage, coupled with various awareness campaigns, will attract more and better candidates towards semiconductor industry. All of these bode well for the industry.