New camps promise exciting times ahead in memory market

The last few weeks of this month witnessed some interesting developments in DRAM. No, there are not signs of a recovery, yet. Instead, the appearance of new DRAM camps, as well as a new memory interface working group, does generate some interest.

However, first, the stats. DRAMeXchange recently reported that the Q1-08 revenues of the branded DRAM makers, impacted by continual low DRAM prices, fell by roughly 5.8 percent compared to Q4-07. Likewise, the contract prices and the spot prices fell 19 percent and 11 percent respectively.

DRAMeXchange further reported that barring Elpida and Powerchip, all other DRAM makers experienced a decline in revenues. Both Elpida and Powerchip witnessed slight increase in their market share during Q1-08.

Categorizing the DRAM industry market share by countries, Japan only increased by 0.9 percent from 13.5 percent to 14.4 percent, as Elpida's revenue increased in Q108. Taiwan's share increased by only 1.1 percent from 13.6 percent to 14.7 percent, as Powerchip gained market share. Korea sustained the same market shares -- 47.2 percent, as in Q4-07.

However, America and Germany lost share. America's share slipped from 13.6 percent to 13 percent, while Germany's share fell from 12.2 percent to 10.8 percent, respectively.

In a recent investor conference, Samsung announced it will increase its Bit Growth Rate from 70 percent to 100 percent, an indication of its desire to continue reigning as a DRAM market leader.

Now, to the really interesting developments. First, Nanya and Micron signed an agreement to create MeiYa Technology Corp., a new DRAM joint venture. One of Nanya's 200mm facility in Taiwan will be upgraded to 300mm starting this year, with the facility going online for production in 2009. Besides MeiYa, Nanya and Micron will co-develop and share future technology.

If this wasn't enough, close on the heels of the Micron-Nanya JV, Elpida Memory and Qimonda AG, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a technology partnership for jointly developing memory chips (DRAMs), and accelerate their roadmap to DRAM products featuring cell sizes of 4F2.

Analysts at DRAMeXchange believe that the Qimonda-Elpida alliance re-shuffles the DRAM competitive landscape. It is also a sign of Qimonda's determination to develop stacked process.

Lastly, ARM, Hynix Semiconductor Inc., LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Image Inc., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, and STMicroelectronics announced the formation of a working group, the Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT), which is committed to creating an open standard for next-generation memory interface technology targeting mobile devices.

SPMT, a first-of-its-kind memory standard for DRAM, is said to enable an extended battery life, bandwidth flexibility, significantly reduced pin count, lower power demand and multiple ports by using a serial interface instead of a parallel interface commonly used in today's memory devices.

Handset vendors have joined the fray as this technology will not only extend battery life, it will allow high-performance media-rich applications as well, that are likely to be the norm on next-generation mobile phones.

Surely, these developments and the emergence of new camps promise some exciting times ahead in the memory market.

WDS helps meet top needs of CIOs

Riverbed Technology recently launched a new version of its product – Riverbed RiOS 5.0. According to Apurva Dave, Director of Product Marketing, with RiOS 5.0, Riverbed enables even faster performance for enterprise applications and enhances the manageability to deliver its market-leading WDS solution.

Riverbed accelerates the access to information to improve processes and make businesses more agile. With improved network flexibility, security and ease of management for large-scale deployments, it has extended the wide-area data services (WDS) solutions leadership, and helps data and businesses move faster. Significantly, Riverbed's growth rate outpaces the industry.

Davé, said: "CIOs realize this to be an absolute part of their investment. People have seen bandwidth savings in major applications." Citing globalization as a major challenge, he added that organizations needed to solve applications performance.

Network flexibility
Riverbed provides flexibility for organizations that want to enable end-to-end transparency of WAN traffic by IP address and port or by port only. Steelhead appliances enable full IP or port-only address visibility on the WAN for optimized connections in addition to their default correct addressing mode.

The security functionality in RiOS 5.0 builds on Riverbed’s extensive work in building solutions that ensure the security and integrity of enterprise data. With RiOS 5.0, Riverbed has enhanced the implementation of SSL acceleration, with new functionality for ease-of-setup and management. The QoS capability provides granularity, as well as simplified management for complex environments.

The company's Steelhead products accelerate applications to branch offices and mobile workers. Apparently, Steelhead products cut bandwidth usage by 60-95 percent.

Meeting top CIO priorities for 2008
CIOs are said to trying to design around four principles -- to support an agile enterprise. These are -- flexibility, simplicity, continuity and security. So what are the top priorities for CIOs in 2008? As per a December 2007 Goldman Sachs CIO Survey, the top 20 priorities for CIOs are:

1. Business intelligence; 2. Application integration; 3. ERP software; 4. BPM/workflow software; 5. Security; 6. Storage hardware (disk arrays, appliances, etc.); 7. DR/BCP; 8. Server virtualization; 9. Server consolidation; 10. Data center consolidation; 11. Web application development, including portals; 12. Wireless networking; 13. Mobile computing/remote access; 14. Compliance/risk management; 15. WAN optimization; 16. Storage management software (including backup); 17. SOA; 18. Cost cutting; 19. CRM software; 20. Thin client computing.

And where does WDS fit in with CIO priorities? In all of them, barring All of them, except nos. BI, BPM/workflow software, storage hardware and storage management software! WDS is based on accelerating the enterprise applications!

The Riverbed Optimization System takes care of data streamlining -- optimize WAN bandwidth utilization, prioritize applications' bandwidth use, and accelerate large-scale disaster recovery jobs; transport streamlining -- eliminate transport protocol inefficiencies, support secure traffic acceleration (SSL); application streamlining -- optimize application WAN performance and reduce protocol chatiness; and management streamlining -- enable transparent deployment, provide additional best-of-breed services, and facilitate central management and reporting.

The enterprise can eliminate bandwidth constraints. In fact, it can enjoy up to 5x more bandwidth without additional network costs. Applications can be accelerated over the WAN to mobile users or branch offices up to 100x times faster. Make it simple to deploy and manage 15 minutes for basic deployment enable consolidation. WDS is said to have a tangible, fast payback. An IDC study finds 7.3 month payback for Riverbed implementations.

Top features in RiOS 5.0
Riverbed's RiOS 5.0 delivers choice for enterprises through market-leading features. Two very significant features are accelerating Exchange and the RiOS Services Platform (RSP).

In RiOS 5.0, only one module may be run in the RSP, and not all services may be currently available. The RSP runs in a protected zone and does not impact the resource allocations dedicated to maintain peak Steelhead operations.

Dave elaborated: "We have created an area on our software where users can deploy best-of-breed services. In the first release, we will allow only one among print services, streaming media and networking (DNS/DHCP). In the next phase, we will enable a broad range of services." Enterprises can therefore leverage the WDS footprint further and also use best-of-breed services from other vendors.

Riverbed has also been very focused on Web based applications. He added: "We have introduced new features that are Web applications. In rel 5.0, we have added three applications/features."

Encouraging developments in 22nm!

Suddenly, but steadily, there seems to be lot of work going on in the 22nm space. This can only be encouraging for the global semiconductor industry.

Savor these! This week, SEMATECH researchers presented trend-setting research results in extending the CMOS logic and memory technologies at the International Symposium on VLSI Technology, System and Applications (VLSI-TSA), which ran from April 21-23, at Hsinchu, Taiwan.

According to SEMATECH, the new materials, processes and concepts discussed in a series of seven research papers describe how current semiconductor technologies can benefit from performance-enhancing features for future scaling needs.

The papers discuss leading-edge research into areas such as high-k/metal gate (HKMG) materials, flash memory, planar and non-planar CMOS technologies, including new finFET designs, which offer additional control on the channel or body of the device by using a controlling gate wrapped around a thin silicon "fin".

Early this month, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world's top dedicated foundries, announced the extension of its joint development collaboration with IBM to include 22nm bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology.

IBM and AMD have also been collaborating on the development of next-generation semiconductor manufacturing technologies since January 2003. In November 2005, the two firms announced an extension of their joint development efforts until 2011, covering 32nm and 22nm process technology generations. Intel has been working on 22nm for quite some time now.

And last July, PULLNANO, a project sponsored by the European Commission within the 6th Framework Program (FP6), reported several important results related to the future-generation 32nm and 22nm CMOS technology platforms, including the realization of a functional CMOS SRAM demonstrator built using 32nm design rules.

PULLNANO also proposed an innovative new architecture that could provide even higher performance at 32nm and 22nm, using the so-called 'air gap' technique.

Late last year, I attended a Semiconductor International Webcast, where one of the analysts, Carl Johnson of Research Infrastructure, had said that lot of consolidation was happening within the fab space. Mid-level players are consolidating. The customer base is clearly narrowing.

He said: "The cost of designing some of these leading-edge devices, and getting them to market, and then following it up with another product, if you don't want to be a one-product guy, is a real challenge. That is limiting the number of players that are going into the mega fabs. So, the field is narrowing in 65nm, and 45nm, and as we get to below 45nm, the field is going to get much, much narrower."

Perhaps, there will be fewer players after all, in the 22nm space. However, all of the encouraging developments mentioned above augur well for the semiconductor industry.

Apple shocks industry with PA Semi buy!

According to The Unofficial Apple Web Blog (TUAW), Apple has stunned the industry by acquiring P.A. Semi, a Santa Clara based chip company founded by Dan Dobberpuhl, the former lead designer of the DEC Alpha and StrongARM processors, for US $278 million.

The Computerworld Blog reported that Apple had 'shocked' everyone with this move. P.A. Semi is a fabless chip designer that specializes in super low power PowerPC processors.

This move surely raises questions about Apple's future association with Intel, which has been courting Apple since long to adopt its Atom low-power processor family. It also remains to be seen whether Apple will use these super low power PowerPC processors in embedded devices, such as high end iPhones, iPods, etc.

Interestingly, the PA Semi Web site is displaying a message: This account has surpassed its bandwidth allocation at the present time. You may reach the account administrator. Maybe, too many folks are trying to access the site to find out more about this company.

The Apple buyout of PA Semi was possibly first reported by Forbes. Since then a whole lot of articles have appeared on the Web.

According to the site, Apple spokesman Steve Dowling reportedly said, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purposes and plans." He is also said to have declined to comment on the value of the deal, which a person familiar with the deal suggested was done for $278 million in cash.

Apple later announced its quarterly earnings Wednesday. As per Apple's financial results for fiscal 2008 second quarter ended March 29, 2008, the company posted $7.51 billion revenue and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share.

These results compare to revenue of $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million, or $.87 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 32.9 percent, down from 35.1 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's revenue.

Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. It sold 10,644,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 1 percent unit growth and 8 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 1,703,000.

As per another Forbes reports, Apple has promised to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008 on a call with analysts Wednesday. Watch this space, as Apple is surely going to be in news for most of this year.

Indian design services to hit $10.96bn by 2010

This is a continuation of my previous blog on the Indian design services segment.

Revenues for the VLSI, board design and embedded software market in India are likely to touch US $10.96bn in 2010, according to an ISA-IDC study titled India Semiconductor and Embedded Design Market, 2007-2010. This market will grow from US $6.08bn in 2007 to US $7.37bn in 2008, on to US $8.97bn in 2009, respectively.

The total design services market in India is said to have grown at 21 percent year on year (y-o-y), as against a global growth of 6 percent y-o-y. According to Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC (I) Ltd, the impending recession in US and sheer volume of work from US will put pressure on man-month rates and they will increase marginally. Currently there are close to 200+ companies active in India.

Touching upon the market trends for 2007 in the India semiconductor and embedded design market, he added that India will continue to be the preferred destination of choice for companies interested in embedded design and development.

There will also be an increased emphasis on IP development, as third-party design services companies look to move up the value chain. Next, localization of products design and manufacturing from India will drive significant investments by product and design services companies leading to a further fueling of growth.

However, he cautioned that the industry will continue to face significant challenges in managing the demand and workforce churn. The industry will also have to constantly evolve, upgrade and innovate, while keeping the costs down in order to stay cost competitive in the global market. Future trends in this industry will further witness the increasing proximity between the third-party service providers and OEMs for end-to-end product design.

Indan design services industry snapshot
The Indian VLSI design services contributed approximately 13 percent to the overall revenues and 11 percent to overall workforce. There has been an increase in consumer and portable/wireless segment, that has indirectly contributed to the growth of the VLSI design service industry in India. Spec to tape-out designs are gradually increasing as well, largely contributed to by the captive units. The IP development will continue to grow steadily during the forecast period.

The Indian hardware/board design industry contributed to 7.2 percent of the overall technical workforce in the design services industry. The trend of VLSI design houses transforming into one-stop design houses has increased the activity in the hardware/board design area. Growth is likely to come from consumer electronics and portable/wireless product segment in 2008. Product development activities for the Indian market will further boost growth.

The Indian embedded software industry is by and large, the most significant contributor. Embedded software contributed approximately 81 percent to the overall design services revenues and 82 percent to the overall workforce. Having a local manufacturing ecosystem will boost this segment with end-to-end product development and roll-out happening from India. Singh said that middleware/embedded applications along with testing will drive the growth in the market.

Two vectors for industry
Singh added that there were two vectors that the industry could go to. One, focus on export revenue and go closer to markets -- to their customers' markets and be part of product development. And two, focus on product development, as it would drive semiconductors and embedded design. He termed the growth achieved in the last three decades as version 1.0 and said India was ready to move on to version 2.0 in the coming years.

In version 2.0, the dynamics between the semiconductor industry ecosystem players would be transformed in the coming years. Also, there will be a disruption, which will see the entities shift their strategies, align and engage with each other within this ecosystem in a manner that will take them up one level in the overall product value chain.

E.K. Bharat Bhushan, director general, STPI, commented: "India is a very important destination. A wide range of design activities are now going on here. Semiconductor design has made rapid strides. India currently has strengths in areas such as IP development, and core advantages in terms of talent and local domestic market."

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."

Staying ahead of clock a habit at Magma!

EDA is a complex industry to be in, what with process geometries changing all the time and EDA firms compelled to keep up with those changes. Magma Design Automation Inc. has been one of those, which has kept ahead of the changes and also managed good growth. In other words, Magma has managed to beat the clock consistently and stayed ahead, and continues to do so.

According to Rajeev Madhavan, chairman and CEO, Magma Design Automation Inc.. Magma has been outperforming the EDA industry by 2x globally. He touched upon the drive toward consumerization. Whle it was driven by PCs during the 1980s, mobile phones and PDAs are now the growth drivers for the common man. The consumer space is driving semiconductor applications as well. These are in form of devices with smaller form factors, where power is an important issue.

As an example, Madhavan highlighted the fact that 75 percent of the chips in the iPhone type of complex cell phone has been done using Magma. "We enable such points to happen. Consumer applications are driving EDA, and we are providing that change."

According to him, India is a major center for Magma. An entire business line of products are now being driven out of India. The physical verification units – DRC, etc., -- are all done here. Magma is consistently developing new products and product lines. Any MNC in India has an opportunity to build relationships with the EDA powerhouse.

EDA is all about integration. With operating margins getting slimmer, most companies have been moving to Fab-Lite. India has great expertise in design knowledge. India should shift its focus on developing the intellectual knowledge side, contended Madhavan. As for fabs, as and when those happen in India, they will definitely create jobs. "Fab-lite is actually good for EDA. It means more design productivity. Leading firms such as TI, NVIDIA, Broadcom, etc., are our customers," he said.

Magma is now looking at more value addition and faster development. It has covered the entire EDA domain. Magma has a culture of rewriting its software a lot more and also covers all new process geometries. According to Madhavan, Magma is constantly in touch with leading foundries such as TSMC.

It is said that right now, around 75 percent of the chips in 45nm currently use Magma. Magma is also working with a customer in 32nm. Madhavan said: "You have to develop the tools as the processes change. At Magma, we need smart people who can understand electrical engineering and computer science. Growth comes in identifying and building the talent pools.”

As for product lines developed in India, Magma's Quartz Formal has been developed largely in India. Most of the development work is happening in NOIDA, near Delhi. Work on DRC is being done out of Bangalore. “Every single product from Magma has some footprint in India,” he said. The complexities of chips have been growing and those require more automation.

Magma intends to grow from $178 million to $211 million during 2008. Madhavan felt that as the eco-system units come up in India, the company can move forward. Magma is hopeful that more design companies will be getting into India.

90nm designs major in India
Ricky Bedi, Senior Director, Application Engineering, Magma Design Automation India Pvt Ltd, added that the EDA industry had moved on from being optimizers. India too has to now move forward from being outsourcers to enablers.

He said, "When that happens, India will play a bigger role and offer more services. For example, Wipro, etc., are now doing full turnkey solutions." Magma India is now working with over 32 universities, regional engineering colleges (RECs), IITs, etc. The intent is to facilitate VLSI programs in all of those places.

However, he agreed that the innovation has not really kicked off in the country. As of now, 90nm designs are in the majority in India, and in comparison, 65nm designs are lesser. Magma has already gone into 45nm, and even into 32nm. Bedi said: "Right now, yield is imperative in 45nm. Innovation will continue in the smaller geometries. Innovation has to focus more on predictability, etc."

There is another trend worth mentioning -- about re-usable IPs. According to Magma, there will be even more of re-usable IPs. As the designs themselves get complex, designers need to achieve those in shorter timeframes as the time-to-market (TTM) is crucial. Replication of blocks is also happening. Implementation of re-usable IPs will go up a notch, added Bedi.

While the EDA tools are now catching up with the advances in semiconductors, it has not been smooth sailing for language. Bedi added: "As far as language is concerned, language itself does not blend so easily. It takes great effort to move from Verilog to VHDL."

Yatin Trivedi, director, Industry Partnership Program, Design Implementation Business Unit, Magma Design Automation Inc., touched upon the aspect of power. He said: "In the EDA format, it is important that the power format is accepted by as many vendors. The difference should be in the usage, not the format. In any design flow -- from RTL to GDS -- any design that is implemented must be simulated. Power information is now an integral part of the design. Leakage can destroy a die."

MHEG-5 headed for India

MHEG-5 is an open standard middleware solution, an application program interface (API), designed specifically for low-cost memory constrained devices -- particularly suitable for digital interactive TV (iTV) services and is platform agnostic. Simply put, MHEG-5 is a simple object-orientated programming language.

MHEG-5 was initially adopted in 1998 by ONDigital in the United Kingdom (rebranded as ITV Digital) for use in the world’s first pay-TV digital terrestrial television (DTT) network. ONDigital lead the industry wide specification and development task of the first MHEG-5 profile, which subsequently (after the collapse of ITVDigital) formed the basis for deployment of interactive services on the UK DTT platform (Freeview).

Developed by the ISO-MHEG group and DAVIC in 1995, it is intended as a UI for DAVIC interactive services and VOD. MHEG-5 has been standardized in ISO 13522-5 and adopted by the UK DTG in 1997.

Going by its history on IMPALA (The International MHEG Promotion Alliance), MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group) originally developed and standardized by Working Group 12 (WG12) of the ISO -- officially known as ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG12. It was developed in the mid 1990s as part of the DAVIC (Digital Audio Video Council) standardization effort to support interactivity and navigation of multimedia services on various small footprint devices.

WG12 issued a suite of documents (MHEG parts 1-8) as part of MHEG standard covering extensions for scripting language (MHEG-6), testing and interoperability (MHEG-7) and support for encodings in XML format (MHEG-8). Part 5 of the standard, officially known an ISO/IEC 13522-5, or more commonly know as MHEG-5 that is of primary relevance to interactive DTV.

So what's hot about MHEG-5? Well, the standard's profile evolved to UK Profile 1.06 (current); ETSI standard ES 202184. And now, new international profiles extend the UK profile. These include: New Zealand -- extra Maori characters and EPG key; Hong Kong -- Traditional Chinese font; Singapore/China - simplified Chinese font. Certain other extensions are said to be under development within DTG for possible deployment in 2008. These include IP interaction channel (return path), improved graphics, HD compatibility and support, and PVR support.

Heading for India?
What's more significant is that MHEG-5 is said to be launching in India and in Hong Kong in 2008! Trials and evaluations are reportedly ongoing in Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, India and Russia. There is said to be interest from other countries in Europe and Asia as well.

MHEG-5 has no known essential IPR. The MHEG middleware software is typically less than US$1 per receiver. It has had wide integration into iDTVs in Europe. Finally, MHEG is proposed as the UI for new Common Interface spec (CI+), as well.

I hope to be speaking with IMPALA sometime soon about its plans for India and update you appropriately!

Will the solar bubble really burst in 2009?

Will this actually happen? Will the solar bubble burst in 2009 as supply exceeds demand? I don't know, but I came across this news and am pleased to share with you.

According to Lux Research, the overall solar industry revenues will grow to $70.9 billion in 2012, but oversupply and new technologies will squeeze today’s leaders! This has been reported in its new report titled "Solar State of the Market Q1 2008: The End of the Beginning."

As per Lux Research's study, the solar industry has been having a remarkable run, attracting the attention of all stakeholders. However, all of this activity has also led to the growth of a bubble, which will most likely burst some time soon.

Lux Research says that while growth will continue to be robust -- solar industry revenues will grow at a brisk 27 percent annual rate to reach $70.9 billion in 2012, up from $21.2 billion in 2007 -- the solar industry will look very different just two years from now!

"Government subsidies in countries like Japan, Germany, and Spain have helped make large-scale solar a reality, with annual installations reaching 3.43GW in 2007," said Lux Research Senior Analyst Ted Sullivan, the report’s lead author. "During this period, solar demand has consistently outpaced supply. But the market is now approaching a tipping point. We project that the supply of solar modules will exceed demand in 2009, leading to falling prices and a shake-out among companies that aren’t prepared to thrive in this new environment -– particularly crystalline silicon players that haven’t invested in new thin-film technologies."

Interesting comments! At the recently concluded ISA's Vision Summit, it was disclosed by Jairam Ramesh, union minister of state for Commerce, that the Indian government had received seven confirmed investments in the Hyderabad Fab city, with a total value of $7 billion for 10 years.

Five firms have been given principle approval with $1 billion investment. Proposals of three other firms -- Videocon, Moser Baer, and Hindustan Semicon Manufacturing Corporation (HSMC), have yet to be considered.

Reliance is said to have put forward a proposal for solar/PV manufacturing facility with an investment of $5 billion in Jamnanagar. This proposal is under consideration. The majority of firms proposed to set up in Fab city are mainly focused on solar/PV.

As I said in that blog, the last bit is the interesting part. If everyone focuses on solar/PV, who will focus on the other ancillaries required to complete the semicon ecosystem? What about the LCD, OLED plants, etc., that were mentioned in the semiconductor policy? Now, with the Lux Research report predicting a squeeze next year, these Indian companies investing in solar/PV fabs need to be careful about how they go about setting up their businesses.

The solar business will surely be a space worth watching over the coming years!

Top 25 semicon vendors of 2007

Here are the top 25 global suppliers of semiconductors, according to iSuppli. First up, there are no surprises in the top 5 -- Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics retain their spots for this year too. The surprises occur in the second rung -- or, in the next five spots.

Renasas and Hynix exchanged places, with Hynix moving up from 7th position in 2006 to 6th position in 2007, and Renasas dropping from 6th last year to 7th. This is very interesting, because, despite memory market pains during 2007, South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor and Japan's Toshiba and Elpida Memory achieved memory-chip revenue growth of 15, 14.5 and 8.8 percent respectively in 2007, as per iSuppli.

Infineon, Sony major movers
The next three positions are the major surprises of the year. Well, the 10th position was no surprise to me -- AMD, dropping from 8th in 2006 to 10th in 2007. Sony and Germany's Infineon Technologies have been the biggest gainers of the year!

According to iSuppli, Infineon acquired TI's DSL CPE chip business and its wireless baseband semiconductor unit, boosting its revenue. Qimonda, which spun off Infineon, dropped from 12th in 2006 to 16th this year. This split had seen Infineon go out of the top 10 last year.

As per iSuppli, logic application specific integrated circuits (application specific standard products and ASICs) enjoyed the strongest performance among all semicon segments in 2007. Sony and Toshiba were key drivers of growth in this segment due to their sales of semiconductors for the PS3.

Fabless is surely in
The presence of Qualcomm and nVidia in the top 25 list speaks volumes of the power of fabless companies. Qualcomm moved up from 16th to 13th position this year, while nVidia moved up from 25th to the 20th position this year. There is every chance that we will see a fabless company in the top 10 next year! There is an even better chance that more fabless companies will make it to the top 25 companies next year and in future.

All other key players dropped in their rankings. NXP dropped from 9th to 11th; NEC dropped from 11th to 12th; Freescale from 10th to 14th; Micron from 13th to 15th; Elpida moved up from 19th to 17th; while Matsushita and Broadcom dropped a place each.

An iSuppli release says: "Overall, the top 25 semiconductor suppliers significantly outperformed the combined performance of companies ranked lower than them in 2007. The Top-25 as a group achieved revenue growth of 4.5 percent in 2007 while the combined growth of all other semiconductor suppliers was only 0.8 percent."

On a personal note, I would love to see names like SemIndia and HSMC making it to the list. If not now, then at least sometime in the near future. However, it seems from certain published reports that the Indian fab story has gone all wrong. I'll take up this topic in a future blog for sure!

NXP India achieves RF CMOS in single chip

NXP Semiconductors India has developed the PNX4902, an ultra low-cost GSM/GPRS single chip, which was announced this February. The highlight -- the entire analog and RF work done has been in Bangalore! You might wonder what's so unique about this!

Well, let's start with what is tough about RF CMOS in single chip! CMOS is primarily a digital process. The analog circuit design in CMOS is tough, and the RF circuit design in CMOS is even tougher. Now, the co-existence of RF CMOS circuits with noisy digital in a single chip was (and is) considered the holy grail of chip design.

Next, cellular standards (such as GSM, EDGE) and specs are much tougher than other comparable standards like FM, Bluetooth, etc. Also, some key cellular parameters like RX sensitivity become tougher for single chips aimed at emerging markets. Especially, we all know that base stations are sparse in rural areas. Taking all of these as a whole -- RF design in presence of digital noise is the biggest challenge in a single chip!

Factors enabling single chip design
There are said to be three factors. One, RF CMOS is the high quality analog/RF design in CMOS. The high-performance RF blocks like LNA, mixers, etc., used to be the domain of BiCMOS, a higher cost technology. Next, fine-line CMOS (0.18mm and lower) provide high fT and lower noise.

Two, there are new architectures that minimize analog signal processing. Chip designers to convert the analog signal to digital -- so they might as well do it early -- analog-to-digital conversion at the IF, instead of at DC. There's also a need to move the final down-conversion and filtering into digital domain.

Three, the use of DSP to calibrate the analog performance. Things like temperature and process sensitivities in analog circuits need adjustments. Also, the digital engines can provide the ability to 'lock-in' the performance. Finally, a strong 'engineering culture' is a MUST to execute on complex chips.

Factors enabling AeroFone single chip design
NXP had acquired Silicon Labs Wireless group in 2007. Silicon Labs was a leader in RF CMOS, and so it also acquired numerous patents and trade secrets. Trade secrets for integration of RF CMOS circuits with noisy digital provide an edge over competitors as the integration intensifies.

Thereafter, NXP went on to form the NXP India single-chip design team. As single chip products are designed for emerging economies, NXP India invested heavily to develop the design expertise in Bangalore. The seed group of chip leads and system leads relocated from USA to India to start an analog/RF competency center for developing highly integrated chips.

The NXP India single chip design team has the vision to be the best center of competence in architecture and design of highly integrated circuits (ICs) for emerging market products. It is building the best analog/RF group in India.

VLSI as a career in India

It is a great pleasure to find people, most of whom I don't even know, either leave comments on my blog, or even leave a post asking for help. First of all, I would like to thank all of those who read my blog posts. Two, I would like to thank a reader, Paul, for his best wishes pertaining to my recovery. Thank you friend!

I would also like to address a query left by a young reader R. Shrivatsan. It is my pleasure to let you all know that he is going to do a PG course in VLSI in Bangalore. There are lot of opportunities in the VLSI space in the country, and it would do India a lot of good if more such youngsters took to this line. India needs people with experience in VLSI!

I am not a career consultant, nor am I qualified enough to give VLSI tips to people. However, I will try and list some sites who can offer that kind of guidance to people interested in VLSI as a career.

A very good place to start looking for VLSI related information is the VLSI Society of India. This is the site that covers all that is related to VLSI. There are some related sites as well, and I am sure it would help those interested in pursuing VLSI as a career. The India Semiconductor Association is also a good place to ask around for VLSI related information.

I'd like to add that the VLSI Society of India signed an MoU with the Visweswaraya Technological University (Belgaum, Karnataka) and the India Semiconductor Association in June 2005 to spread and improve the quality of VLSI education. Under the aegis of this MoU, colleges that offer M.Tech programs in VLSI Design and Embedded Systems have been identified as centers where champions from the industry will work in close cooperation with faculty champions to improve the quality of M.Tech programs.

I also came across certain sites offering some valuable information. The VLSI Chip Design site lists some of the leading ASIC and VLSI design companies in India. Then, there is this nice little blog -- India VLSI -- which also has some good indications as far as VLSI companies in India are concerned.

Next, there's a nice site -- VLSI Chip Design -- which also offers lots of answers, as well as news, jobs and views about the semiconductor industry in India.

Further, there a host of very good verification companies in India, such as EVE, Tessolve, etc. Lot of work is going on in this space as well. I also came across EDA 101 -- a new community for electronic design engineers, managers, students and consultants whose career includes use or management of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools in modern digital and analog design.

There is lot of information going around on opportunities in VLSI in India. My best wishes to Shrivatsan, and hope that India gets a great VLSI engineer.

Lastly, I would like to invite knowledgeable people to send me links, etc. on any good sites, education institutes in India, pertaining to VLSI. I will publish the links and information on my blog and also acknowledge those people. Many thanks!