标签: intel corp.

Here's what an analyst is speculating: Intel Corp., whose x86 architecture is locked in a struggle for supremacy with the ARM architecture, could actually be a perspective buyer of Texas Instruments Inc.'s (TI) line of ARM-based applications processors. For several weeks, rumors have been circulating that TI is attempting to sell off its OMAP division. Most recently, the technology news site Semiaccurate reported Tuesday (Aug. 16) that Broadcom Corp. is considering the acquisition of OMAP.  Predictably, TI won't comment on whether or not OMAP is for sale. A company spokesperson gave the standard-issue "no comment" when asked about the speculation, citing a long-standing company policy not to discuss rumors or speculation about mergers, acquisitions or divestitures. As many have pointed out, the divestiture of OMAP might make sense for TI, particularly since the company has hitched its wagon more tightly to analog than ever before. Analyst Craig Berger of FBR Capital Markets recently downgraded TI's stock to "market perform" from "outperform," in part because TI is borrowing money to finance its $6.5 billion acquisition of National Semiconductor Corp. So, the $1 billion or so that OMAP might fetch would probably come in handy. In downgrading TI, Berger also noted that Nvidia Corp. has the early lead in applications processors for tablets with its Tegra 2. But OMAP hasn't exactly been a flop. OMAP design wins include Research in Motion Ltd.'s Blackberry Playbook and Motorola Mobility Inc.'s Droid smartphones, and rumor has it that OMAP 4 will be used in the reference platform for the next version of Google's Android operating system (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich). That's all well and good, but where exactly does Intel fit in? According to Will Strauss, principal analyst at market research firm Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.), if OMAP is indeed in play, Intel is a possible suitor. Here's why: Strauss believes that smartphone and tablet OEMs will increasingly look to leverage SoCs that integrate both the applications processor and the cellular baseband on the same die. Since TI is phasing out its baseband operations, the firm may have an even tougher time notching OMAP design wins going forward, Strauss believes. Intel, on the other hand, finalized the acquisition of Infineon Technologies AG's wireless chip business earlier this year, and might be interested in an ARM-based applications processor that it could marry with the baseband technology. Strauss, who emphasized that he was speculating, noted that the price that OMAP would fetch, which he estimated at certainly $1 billion or more, means there are only a handful of companies who could pull off a deal. "People are looking at alternatives to Intel ," Strauss said. "Maybe Intel should, too." Intel, of course, has marketed ARM-based processors in the past. But the company sold the XScale line to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and has phased out other ARM-based products in its catalog in favor of those based on x86. Strauss noted that another frequently rumored suitor for OMAP—Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)—might also be interested in a deal, but that such an offer would likely be a merger as opposed to a cash buy because AMD doesn't have Intel's deep pockets. Strauss noted that AMD has dabbled in non-Intel-architecture chips before, taking a license from MIPS in 2002. But AMD sold its MIPS-based processor line to Raza Microelectronics Inc. in 2006. "I thought they really missed the boat on that one," Strass said. AMD has been widely criticized for being slow to bring to market processors for tablets and smartphones. Getting its hands on OMAP through merger or another arrangement would give the company a big boost in that department. But in addition to not having the resources to make a straight cash buy of OMAP, any attempt by AMD to get its hands on OMAP is complicated by another matter. More than seven months after showing CEO Dirk Meyer the door (some say for being to0 slow to bring to market processors for tablets and smartphones) AMD is still looking for its next permanent CEO. It's hard to imagine AMD pulling off a deal of this magnitude without the sign off of the person who will be running the show, eventually.   Dylan McGrath EE Times  

What's not to love about a storyline that matches off semiconductor process technology leaders Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) against one another in a race to achieve some high-level technical goal? Last week, a report by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), a nonprofit organization promoting trade with Taiwanese firms, did just that, issuing a report that tantalizingly suggested that TSMC might beat Intel to the punch in bringing "three-dimensional chips" to market. EE Times and other news organizations quickly seized on the report and published stories based on it. The problem, as many EE Times readers promptly pointed out, is that the report was deeply flawed and based upon a false equivalency. While Intel is preparing to later this year bring to market chips with 3-D transistors (known as tri-gate transistors by Intel), TSMC and others have been working to develop 3-D technology based on through-silicon vias (TSVs), vertical connections that pass through die to connect different layers of a chip within the same package. While the language of the TAITRA report was not totally clear, a minimal amount of investigation quickly revealed that the report was comparing apples to oranges, setting up a "race" between Intel's delivery of tri-gate devices with TSMC's offering of chips with TSVs. The only thing that these technologies have in common, essentially, is that they are both technologies that can be described as 3-D, one of the most popular buzzwords in technology these days. The race between Intel and TSMC imagined by the TAITRA report is not unlike musing about competition between swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt at the upcoming 2012 Olympics: two world-class competitors gunning for high-level achievements in completely different sports. The TAITRA report cited an anonymous source within TSMC saying that TSMC's schedule for 3-D chip rollout matched that of Intel, which has said it expects its tri-gate devices to be ready for volume production by the end of the year. The report did not get into the specifics of the TSMC 3-D technology, instead using language similar to that which Intel used during the tri-gate launch in May to describe 3-D chips in general. TSMC is developing its own 3-D transistor technology, known as FinFET, which is similar to Intel's tri-gates. But TSMC said as recently as February that it does not expect to put FinFET devices into production until 2015 or 2016. In other words, it's highly unlikely that TAITRA's anonymous TSMC source was referring to TSMC's FinFET technology being in volume production by the end of this year (which would have made it more of an apples to apples comparison). TSMC has not provided an official production schedule for its TSV technology. In April, TSMC did not provide an update for its TSV roadmap at its annual technology symposium, as the foundry giant has done in the past. TSMC was low key about TSVs this year and said TSV development was "still in the early stages." Nevertheless, it's far more likely that TAITRA's anonymous source was referring to TSV devices being in production by the end of the year than FinFETs. The TAITRA report quoted Shang-Yi Chiang, senior vice president for RD at TSMC, saying the company has been working closely with packaging and design software providers to commercialize the technology. Intel, by the way, is also developing 3-D chip stacking through TSVs, as are a host of other semiconductor firms, including Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Elpida Memory Inc., IBM Corp., Toshiba Corp. and chip packaging provider Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc., among others. It's not yet known when any of these companies plan to put chips with TSVs into production. Last summer, at the International Interconnect Technology Conference, several experts agreed that the technology was some ways away from commercialization. To sum up: TAITRA circulated a deeply flawed report that falsely equivocated two completely different technologies that have only one thing in common, the fact that they are both described as 3-D technology. Let's assume that this was an honest mistake by TAITRA, based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the technologies. (TAITRA's press agents did not immediately respond to a request for an interview about the creation of the report). It was a mistake by EE Times (specifically, sloppy journalism by yours truly) to lend credence to the TAITRA report by publishing a story based on it. A good portion of our coverage is based on relevant reports produced by third parties. But journalistic standards demand that we kick the tires of these reports and assess their credibility, and in this case that was not done adequately.     Dylan McGrath EE Times

What's not to love about an account that plays off semiconductor process technology leaders Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) against one another in a race to achieve some high-level technical goal? Last week, a report by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), a nonprofit organization promoting trade with Taiwanese firms, did just that, issuing a report that tantalizingly suggested that TSMC might beat Intel to the punch in bringing "three-dimensional chips" to market. EE Times and other news organizations quickly seized on the report and published stories based on it. The problem, as many EE Times readers promptly pointed out, is that the report was deeply flawed and based upon a false equivalency. While Intel is preparing to later this year bring to market chips with 3-D transistors (known as tri-gate transistors by Intel), TSMC and others have been working to develop 3-D technology based on through-silicon vias (TSVs), vertical connections that pass through die to connect different layers of a chip within the same package. While the language of the TAITRA report was not totally clear, a minimal amount of investigation quickly revealed that the report was comparing apples to oranges, setting up a "race" between Intel's delivery of tri-gate devices with TSMC's offering of chips with TSVs. The only thing that these technologies have in common, essentially, is that they are both technologies that can be described as 3-D, one of the most popular buzzwords in technology these days. The race between Intel and TSMC imagined by the TAITRA report is not unlike musing about competition between swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt at the upcoming 2012 Olympics: two world-class competitors gunning for high-level achievements in completely different sports. The TAITRA report cited an anonymous source within TSMC saying that TSMC's schedule for 3-D chip rollout matched that of Intel, which has said it expects its tri-gate devices to be ready for volume production by the end of the year. The report did not get into the specifics of the TSMC 3-D technology, instead using language similar to that which Intel used during the tri-gate launch in May to describe 3-D chips in general. TSMC is developing its own 3-D transistor technology, known as FinFET, which is similar to Intel's tri-gates. But TSMC said as recently as February that it does not expect to put FinFET devices into production until 2015 or 2016. In other words, it's highly unlikely that TAITRA's anonymous TSMC source was referring to TSMC's FinFET technology being in volume production by the end of this year (which would have made it more of an apples to apples comparison). TSMC has not provided an official production schedule for its TSV technology. In April, TSMC did not provide an update for its TSV roadmap at its annual technology symposium, as the foundry giant has done in the past. TSMC was low key about TSVs this year and said TSV development was "still in the early stages." Nevertheless, it's far more likely that TAITRA's anonymous source was referring to TSV devices being in production by the end of the year than FinFETs. The TAITRA report quoted Shang-Yi Chiang, senior vice president for RD at TSMC, saying the company has been working closely with packaging and design software providers to commercialize the technology. Intel, by the way, is also developing 3-D chip stacking through TSVs, as are a host of other semiconductor firms, including Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Elpida Memory Inc., IBM Corp., Toshiba Corp. and chip packaging provider Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc., among others. It's not yet known when any of these companies plan to put chips with TSVs into production. Last summer, at the International Interconnect Technology Conference, several experts agreed that the technology was some ways away from commercialization. To sum up: TAITRA circulated a deeply flawed report that falsely equivocated two completely different technologies that have only one thing in common, the fact that they are both described as 3-D technology. Let's assume that this was an honest mistake by TAITRA, based on a fundamental lack of understanding of the technologies. (TAITRA's press agents did not immediately respond to a request for an interview about the creation of the report). It was a mistake by EE Times (specifically, sloppy journalism by yours truly) to lend credence to the TAITRA report by publishing a story based on it. A good portion of our coverage is based on relevant reports produced by third parties. But journalistic standards demand that we kick the tires of these reports and assess their credibility, and in this case that was not done adequately.   Dylan McGrath EE Times