Apple Watch battery life, A5-caliber CPU inside

Apple watch battery life is a key factor in how useful this new computer interface will be in our lives. Some information is discussed in the article below. 

"Apple opted to use a relatively powerful processor and high-quality screen for the Apple Watch, both of which contribute to significant power drain. Running a stripped-down version of iOS codenamed SkiHill, the Apple S1 chip inside the Apple Watch is surprisingly close in performance to the version of Apple's A5 processor found inside the current-generation iPod touch,"

More about A5 power consumption is in May 2012 article Apple's A5 Die Shrink, Improve Battery Life, Cut Cost .

 Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Apple targets for Apple Watch battery life revealed, A5-caliber CPU inside

Although Apple has said that the Apple Watch will need to be charged nightly, the company has not disclosed any details on how long the wearable's battery will last. For the first time, people with knowledge of the Apple Watch's development have provided us with the specific performance targets Apple wants to achieve for the Apple Watch battery, but the actual numbers may fall short of those targets.

According to our sources, Apple opted to use a relatively powerful processor and high-quality screen for the Apple Watch, both of which contribute to significant power drain. Running a stripped-down version of iOS codenamed SkiHill, the Apple S1 chip inside the Apple Watch is surprisingly close in performance to the version of Apple's A5 processor found inside the current-generation iPod touch, while the Retina-class color display is capable of updating at a fluid 60 frames per second.

Apple initially wanted the Apple Watch battery to provide roughly one full day of usage, mixing a comparatively small amount of active use with a larger amount of passive use. As of 2014, Apple wanted the Watch to provide roughly 2.5 to 4 hours of active application use versus 19 hours of combined active/passive use, 3 days of pure standby time, or 4 days if left in a sleeping mode. Sources, however, say that Apple will only likely achieve approximately 2-3 days in either the standby or low-power modes…

Apple has also been stress-testing the Apple Watch's battery life with pre-bundled and third-party applications. Our sources say that Apple is targeting 2.5 hours of "heavy" application use, such as processor-intensive gameplay, or 3.5 hours of standard app use. Interestingly, Apple expects to see better battery life when using the Watch's fitness tracking software, which is targeted for nearly 4 hours of straight exercise tracking on a single charge.

As Apple is positioning the Apple Watch as a timepiece, the company has conducted numerous tests to determine how long it can run purely in time-keeping modes. We're told that the Watch should be able to display its clock face for approximately three hours, including watch ticking animations, if nothing else is done with the device. However, it's unlikely that most people would actually keep the Apple Watch clock face turned on for even three hours straight in a single day. When the Watch screen is not in use, the display is powered off, and the clock demands much less energy.

Considered separately, the active use app, clock, and fitness numbers sound very low, but the reality is that people will passively wear the Apple Watch for most of the day, actively interacting with it only for short periods of time. That's why the Watch will be able to last the average user roughly a day on a single charge. We're told that Apple has been shooting for roughly 19 hours of mixed usage each day, but that the company may not hit that number in the first generation version.

Sources tell us that battery life has remained a source of concern for Apple over the past year, and was a contributing factor for Apple pushing back the retail launch from an originally planned late 2014 to early 2015. To test real-world performance in a variety of conditions, the company has circulated a surprisingly large number of test units of the Watch: nearly 3,000 are said to be currently roaming around, mostly the stainless steel variant.

Apple has also been working to perfect the MagSafe-based inductive charging mechanism for the Watch, which sources indicate was responsible for slower-than-expected recharging times that hopefully will be fixed in time for the product's release. The company has developed both plastic and stainless steel versions of the circular charger, potentially one for the $349 aluminum and plastic Apple Watch Sport, and the other for the higher-end models. It's unclear at this point whether the company will sell multiple versions of the charger, as Apple has only shown the metal variant, though the Apple Watch Edition is said to ship with a special box and charging dock that may incorporate the stainless steel MagSafe connector.

As of earlier this month, the Apple Watch is on track to ship by the end of March. We previously detailed how the Watch will integrate with the iPhone via an iOS 8.2-based Companion application.

Chinese $80 Billion Fabless IC

Latest survey of Top fabless semiconductor IC shows the result of a large effort by China to increase the number of IC companies (see below).

 Between 2009 and 2014 the number of Chinese fabless IC companies in top 50 increased from one (HiSilicon) to nine (HiSilicon, Spreadtrum, Datang, Nari Smart Chip, CIDC,  ZTE, Rockchip, RDA, Allwinner) .

"In 2014, the Chinese government described new semiconductor industry programs that will utilize investment by both the Chinese national government ($19.5 billion) and local government and private equity investors ($97.4 billion).”

Already "Chinese fabless IC suppliers held 8% of the top 50 fabless IC market ($80.5 billion) in 2014 and currently hold twice as much top 50 fabless IC market share as the European and Japanese companies combined! Nineteen U.S. companies were represented among the top 50 fabless suppliers in 2014, and they accounted for 64% of the total top 50 fabless company IC sales.  In 2014, Japan held less than 1%”

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

China Charts New Course in Targeting Worldwide IC Industry—Fabless!

January 08, 2015

Chinese companies held 9 of the top 50 spots in the 2014 fabless IC company ranking, up from 1 in 2009.

Later this month, IC Insights’ will release the 2015 edition of The McClean Report, which includes a ranking of the top 50 fabless IC suppliers for 2014.

China’s ambitious late-1990s plan to create numerous high-volume indigenous IC manufacturers in the pure-play foundry segment did not come to fruition, but the Chinese government is still very serious about keeping China and Chinese IC suppliers relevant in the future IC industry.  In 2014, the Chinese government described new semiconductor industry programs that will utilize investment by both the Chinese national government ($19.5 billion) and local government and private equity investors ($97.4 billion).  IC Insights believes that these outlays have to potential to significantly change the future IC supplier landscape.

As Chinese IC design houses continue to advance, IC Insights expects an increasing number of China-headquartered companies to move up in the ranking of top fabless IC suppliers.  As shown in Figure 1, there were nine Chinese companies among the top-50 fabless companies in 2014 as compared to only one company in 2009.

In total, the Chinese fabless IC suppliers held 8% of the top 50 fabless IC market ($80.5 billion) in 2014 and currently hold twice as much top 50 fabless IC marketshare as the European and Japanese companies combined! Nineteen U.S. companies were represented among the top 50 fabless suppliers in 2014, and they accounted for 64% of the total top 50 fabless company IC sales.  In 2014, Japan held less than 1% and the “other” countries (e.g., South Korea, Singapore, etc.) represented only 6% of the market held by the top 50 fabless IC suppliers.

Although its original plan of establishing numerous large indigenous IC manufacturers in China was not successful, it is obvious that the Chinese government still intends to create a dynamic environment in the China-based IC industry, including placing additional emphasis on establishing new fabless IC suppliers.  IC Insights believes that the Chinese government’s commitment to creating a more powerful Chinese presence in the future IC industry is alive and well and should be taken seriously.

                       

Figure 1

More details on the 2014 top 50 fabless IC suppliers and China’s future role in the IC industry will be provided in The 2015 McClean Report.

More or Less Patents?

Whether a company should own a few or many patents is not a simple question. The article below suggests that a trend started of having few good patents instead of a large basket of patents. 

The problem with few solid patents is that they can be perceived as too broad and would be narrowed down in litigation.  One of the benefits of having a basket of patent related to a specific technology is that different patents will cover facets of the technology through well crafted set of claims. Often it is very difficult to locate a prior art with the same specific structure.

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Patents Strategy Shift Predicted

Quality not quantity to be focus, says expert

Rick Merritt

1/13/2015 09:00 AM EST 

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Patent strategies will shift from a focus on quantity to quality over the next few years, according to one expert. At least one analyst expressed skepticism, predicting the big-numbers game in intellectual property will continue for the foreseeable future.

Today companies file for patents by the basket, gearing up for battles with competitors doing the same. But a new set of realities will change the dynamic to a "flight to quality," in which a few good patents are more important, said an intellectual property expert who asked not to be named.
The new factors include:

• Recent Supreme Court decisions such as Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank reducing opportunities for spurious patents
• Emerging natural-language processing tools that can help automate the process of measuring the quality of large numbers of patents
• New processes at the US Patent and Trademark Office for challenging a low quality
• An open market for patents that companies can purchase when threatened with specific suits

One early sign of the shift may be coming from China. That country's patent office reportedly granted a whopping 850,000 patents in 2014, down 3-5% from the prior year. It was the first such dip after many years of 10% or greater increases, the expert said. "Folks in China think it many to continue to decline."
Some observers disagree with the analysis. Larry Cady, an analyst at IFI Claims Patent Services who tracks patent grants, said the rate of increase in US patents granted each year has been slowing down, hitting 8% in 2014, but is likely to shoot up again.
"The trend of companies piling up large defensive patent portfolios has been going on for many years, and I don't see it shifting," Cady said. "There's been a slight slowdown in the growth of patents in the last few years… but that's due to the cyclical nature of the economy."
Companies tighten their belts in down years such as after the 2008 recession. It takes an average of three years to get a patent granted, so reduced filings will take time to filter through the system.
"Now that economic growth has resumed, I suspect we will return to historical norms of increased patent grants in 2016-17," Cady said.
In any case, patent reform is expected to bubble up in the US Congress again as one of the biggest stories in intellectual property in 2015.
One side advocates legislation that tweaks a system that is coming to grips with major changes from court decisions and the America Invents Act, which passed in 2011. Another side says major changes are still needed.

— Rick Merritt, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, EE Times

SSD Controllers, Still Secret Sauce (Silicon Motion)

Silicon Motion controllers gain acceptance and is integrated by Hynix, SanDisk, and maybe by Intel (see below).

"SM2256 also features Silicon Motion’s proprietary NANDXtend technology, which utilizes three levels of error correction and data protection to effectively triple the program/erase cycle count for TLC NAND.  Combined with global wear-leveling algorithms, the lifespan of an SSD utilizing the SM2256 is significantly extended.  It also features real-time AES256 encryption, as well as being TCG Opal compliant."

More about Silicon motion (2nd article below) - Silicon Motion Penetrating NAND Flash Fabs - SMI on the Rise

Also See June 2012 ( Flash Memory Controller is the Secret Sauce) 

"Controller is a key edge in designing fast and low power flash memory systems.....even though by 2012 ....5 SSD controller company acquired recently:

* In March of last year OCZ acquired Indilinx 
* In may 2011 SanDisk bought Pliant
* LSI acquired SandForce in October 
* December brought Apple's acquisition of Anobit 
* Now SK Hynix has acquired Link_A_Media"

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Silicon Motion Announces SM2256 SSD Controller WithSupport For TLC NAND — CES 2015 Update

We were privileged yesterday to meet with Robert Fan, Vice President and General Manager of Silicon Motion to discuss their latest SSD controller, the SM2256, which features support for TLC NAND.  Historically, TLC NAND has had a reputation of having low endurance and reliability, and hence was not suitable for use in solid state storage devices.  Fast-forward to today, and we are seeing new technology and software/firmware tools that are able to increase both the reliability and endurance of TLC NAND, now making it a viable alternative to the more expensive MLC NAND for use in certain SSDs.

The SM2256 supports a wide variety of NAND chips, including ONFI 3.0, toggle 2.0 and asynchronous NAND.  It also supports the latest process geometries, including 1x, 1y, and 1z NAND from all major NAND suppliers, and includes 3D NAND.  The SM2256 is a 4-channel controller, yet offers performance that rivals that of 8-channel controllers.  It supports up to 32 NAND devices, which gives it the capability to support up to 1TB of flash storage.  The SM2256 also features a 16-bit wide DRAM interface at DDR3/DDR3L speeds.

As an OEM solution, the SM2256 offers controller and firmware from a single source, simplifying its usage.  The firmware is both customizable and upgradeable. The SM2256 supports both device sleep mode (DevSleep) and PHY sleep mode (CFast PHYSLP), as well as TRIM functions.  It also features S.M.A.R.T. drive performance and health monitoring attributes.

In the above image, we see a trio of engineering samples that are utilizing the Silicon Motion SM2256 with various NAND configurations. In the close-up shot below, we see the SM2256 residing on the PCB of a 512GB SSD utilizing 19nm TLC NAND and a 512MB DDR3 DRAM chip from Hynix.

The SM2256 also features Silicon Motion’s proprietary NANDXtend technology, which utilizes three levels of error correction and data protection to effectively triple the program/erase cycle count for TLC NAND.  Combined with global wear-leveling algorithms, the lifespan of an SSD utilizing the SM2256 is significantly extended.  It also features real-time AES256 encryption, as well as being TCG Opal compliant.

Performance of the SM2256 is augmented by utilizing an SLC cache.  Real world performance numbers from qualifying OEMs put sequential read speeds at a range from 514MB/s to 545MB/s.  Qualifying sequential writes range from 458MB/s to 477MB/s.  Random 4K read speeds are averaging 97,000 IOPS, with random 4K write speeds averaging around 40,000 IOPS.  The screenshot below shows similar results.

Silicon Motion has enjoyed widespread adoption of their previous SM2246 controller, which is being utilized by over 30 OEMs as shown in the graphic below. For additional information click on “SM2256″ in the selection guide here at Silicon Motion’s website.  This will take you to the product page for the SM2256.

Silicon Motion Penetrating NAND Flash Fabs - SMI on the Rise

Silicon Motion Penetrating NAND Flash Fabs with their innovative new controllers (NASDAQ: SIMO)

By: Chris Ramseyer Jan 8, 2014

CES 2015 - Over the last year we've often discussed Silicon Motion's rise in the SSD controller space. The fabless semiconductor's SM2246EN controller was well received, first by smaller SSD manufacturers, and now by NAND flash fabs.

This week, SanDisk announced the new SSD Plus that is priced less than $70 in 128GB. The SSD Plus won't break any performance records but is clearly designed to break price barriers. SanDisk didn't brief media before introducing the SSD Plus at Storage Visions 2015, but since that time we've learned that Silicon Motion is inside with a custom variant of the SM2246EN controller.

Getting one NAND fab company to use your controller is a big step for a controller maker that was virtually unheard of one year ago. Getting two is big news for investors. Just days after the SanDisk announcement, Crucial, a division of Lexar and also a NAND flash manufacturer, announced the new BX100. Again, this new low cost consumer SSD with 16nm MLC flash is managed by a Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller.

They say when it comes it comes in threes. Analysts have recently come forward to state that Intel, a partner with Micron/Crucial/Lexar, has chosen a Silicon Motion controller for an unannounced consumer SSD that should break cover in the coming months. Most likely Intel will brand the new product in the 300 Series family, a low cost series that again is designed to increase the adoption rate of solid state storage technology, replacing mechanical hard drives.

None of this is all that radical when you know the history of the SSD market. SandForce quickly came to power but acquisitions and long product delays have left the door open for Silicon Motion to get a foot in the door. Now that Silicon Motion is sitting at the table, we think the real objective is for the company to use SM2246EN as a stepping stone for SM2256EN, a flash controller that takes advantage of new 3bit per cell technology that will further reduce the cost of solid state storage technology to consumers.

NAND Flash, DRAM 2015 Trends

Speed, band width and low power continue to be key goals for semiconductor DRAM memories. The article below discusses DDR4, LPDDR4, and GDDR5, DIMMS, and JEDEC standards. 

Some of the same issues are also key concerns for NAND flash memories. However, 3D NAND fabrication processes are closer to production.

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Memory Trends: A Look Ahead

Janine Love

1/7/2015 11:00 AM EST 

As 2014 was winding down, there was still a lot of talk about 3D memory, mobile memory, high-performance memory, and "next-gen" memory. So what trends and challenges will make the most noise in 2015? EE Times recently spoke with Jennie Grosslight, the memory test product manager at Keysight Technologies, about what she thinks will be the prevailing memory trends in 2015.
As the memory test product manager, Grosslight is responsible for Keysight's logic analysis and compliance test tools for memory applications. With 25 years of experience and an electrical engineering degree from the University of Colorado, she has worked as an R&D engineer, technical marketing engineer, and product marketing engineer. She has been focused on helping engineers analyze and validate memory systems for the past 11 years.

What can we expect for memory in 2015? What are the trends you see?
Price, power, and performance will continue to be the driving features of memory deployment. Both DDR4 and LPDDR4 offer impressive performance improvements and power savings. DDR4 will see broader deployment to replace DDR3 in servers and begin "trickle-down" deployment in high-end desktop workstations. This will improve cloud performance and save power. LPDDR4-based products will hit the market, and mobile memory will take over as the technology driver for the memory industry overall. As DDR4 and LPDDR4 DRAM sales increase, prices will decrease, driving even more design starts with these technologies. Finally, universal flash storage-based products will be formally introduced, laying the foundation for a quantum jump in mobile systems performance and price/performance.
If you could tell engineers one thing about memory test, what would it be?
DDR memory is at the heart of today's cloud computing servers -- most of them having at least 24 DIMMs across four channels. With some data centers reporting that DDR memory is the second-highest failure they experience, the need for robust testing of designs continues to grow. To increase margin and overall performance and create a reliable and robust system, close attention to physical layer and functional testing, characterization, and debug to validate that the system is operating within JEDEC specifications is a critical step.
What has surprised you most about memory development over the past 3-5 years?
In the industry, the biggest surprise has been the emergence of the "Memory Wall" as a fundamental issue, its impact on computing architectures, and the incredible burst of innovation it has stimulated. For the past 10 years, memory has progressed along an evolutionary path, with DDR succeeding SDR, then DDR2, DDR3, and DDR4. Now, everything from 3D silicon cubes to distributed memory architectures and completely new signaling methods are in development with some already deployed. Every few months a new possibility seems to emerge for consideration. It's the most interesting time to be involved in memory in the last 20 years. Along this evolutionary path, lower power and increased data rates in LPDDR technologies for mobile applications continues to push the limits. The LPDDR specification in mobile applications now has the performance of DDR technologies in computing.
From a memory test perspective, it is surprising to see that there are servers being shipped without testing to specifications. Simply designing to recommended guidelines and running software tests to validate system operation doesn't validate that the system is operating within specifications. When systems violate functional or parametric specifications for DDR/LPDDR memory, the system may not fail with each violation. However, as the number of violations increase, so does the rate of memory failures. The degree of difficulty in testing different DDR or LPDDR memory is highly dependent on the layout of the system under test and associated subsystem verification. To ensure this verification has occurred, data centers should consider requiring qualification reports.
What are the major stoppers/technical hurdles for mobile memory? Storage?
Reducing power consumption, total memory channel throughput, and signal density are the key requirements and hurdles. Interfaces need to get faster, wider, denser, or some combination of these to improve channel throughput. Packages need to pack more signals, and this increased signal density causes cross-talk effects. Traditional single-ended signaling beyond 3Gbit/s is very hard and power hungry. Very wide I/O using 3D silicon stacking is still exotic and expensive. Combining these multiplies the difficulties. A lot of experimentation, analysis, and advancements will be required to figure out the best way to overcome these challenges. Both DDR4 and LPDDR4 specifications include multiple enhancements in these areas.
Editor's Note: DesignCon 2015 takes on these topics. If you have an interest in this, see Track #7: Design Parallel and Memory Interfaces.
Are standards keeping up? Do we need more/fewer?
The standards are keeping up for the most part. The main decision is what to standardize. Until now, the memory standards have been defined by the main application: desktop/server, graphics, mobile, and mass storage. The latest generations have borrowed heavily from each other to get the best performance. DDR4 has many features first done in GDDR5. LPDDR4 looks more like its desktop cousin, DDR4, than any previous generation. Going forward, standards may be classified more by the core technology, signaling system, and interconnect method than the traditional scheme. At some point, the parallel interface with DDR memory may not be able to keep up with the faster data rate. Serial lane interfaces could be considered to address that. Continued leadership and participation with JEDEC in writing and reviewing the memory standards by companies such as Keysight and their partners, such as FuturePlus Systems, will be a key part in ensuring the necessary test specifications are being created.
How does testing differ for the various memory types? Are some memory types easier to test than others? Why?
First, read and write data separation is a very challenging task in a memory designer's work. At lower speeds, the phase difference between DQS and DQ is very obvious. Read is edge aligned with data, and write is centered aligned with data. At higher speeds, especially with LPDDR4, the phase difference between the read and write cycle is not obvious, and the preamble patterns are similar. Separating read and write cycles at higher speeds is more difficult. The use of different tools helps resolve this. For example, you can use a mixed-signal oscilloscope to trigger on the command using the command truth table.
Second, probing continues to become more and more difficult in memory test. For functional testing, using a DIMM or SODIMM interposer provides the fastest and easiest access. Access for chip down or PoP [package-on-package] designs requires BGA rework or designing probing into the system. For physical layer testing, since JEDEC standards are defined at the balls of the DRAM, the size and location of the DRAM dictate the difficulty of probing access.
How will memory test have to evolve to satisfy emerging trends?
Memory test is constantly evolving. Physical layer and functional layer testing must continue to keep up with the JEDEC standards and data rates. Creation of standards and test specifications, along with the early design of hardware and software test solutions to support them prior to new memory technologies being introduced into end products, will continue to be a priority, so customers always have the latest equipment for memory testing.
One example is the U4154A/B. When it is combined with the FS2510 DDR4 DIMM interposer with FS1070 conversion from our channel partner FuturePlus Systems, we can capture the entire DDR4 bus; run functional compliance testing; follow the signal flow of address, command, and data; and view bus-level signal integrity with 5ps x 5mv resolution.
Another test evolution is protocol analyzers. Protocol analyzers, such as the FuturePlus Systems DDR Detective, are targeted to look at only the address and command signals for functional memory specification parameters, power management and performance metrics, and give engineers real insight into these complicated protocols.
For physical layer and parametric testing, the mixed-signal oscilloscope is used to decode command protocols for reliable read and write data testing. The test can be done automatically with DDR compliance test software and debug tools.
What challenges will designers have to overcome in order to achieve success?
As chipsets scale to smaller processes, designers will have to move from DDR or DDR2 to DDR3, 50MHz flash to 200MHz flash, and LPDDR2 to LPDDR3. The low-speed design capacitance and fanout concepts that have worked for years in flash memory will need to be updated to high-speed digital flows based on transmission lines and precise timing. Host testing may begin to be incorporated. Memory tests have always been device and not host (memory controller) focused. Host and channel specifications would be equally important and the need to characterize both would become necessary.
Probing has always been a challenge and will continue to be. We are meeting that challenge with our new DDR4 BGA interposers like the W4633A DDR4 x4/x8 probing solution. DDR4 BGA interposer products are reliable and give a connection to the address/command/control and the DQ data signals to the U4154B. Similar new BGA and PoP probing technology that is proven to achieve data rates of 3.2Gbs is available for LPDDR4.
Finally, if the interface eventually moves to serial to enable continued increases in speed, there are existing serial standards that can be adopted. High-speed designers will have to learn serial speed concepts like bit error rates, eye masks, and dual dirac jitter/noise modeling. Test equipment that has been relied on for years will have to be upgraded and new measurement techniques applied. The concepts and products to support this are proven but will need to be mastered by a whole new group of designers.

Top Semiconductor in 2014 and 2015?

The article below summarizes results of Gartner's top semiconductor vendors in 2014. It is interesting that a 26% growth was shown by Hynix, due to strength in DRAM memory chips market (which accounts for about 80% of its revenues). Also Micron had a very large growth. Micron acquisition of Elpida strengthens their DRAM position.  DRAM memory is currently about 70% of its revenue.

Intel will continue to have largest semiconductor revenues for at least several more years since it will be hard for Samsung to grow fast while Apple has been reduces its dependence on Samsung chips in the last few years for the iPhones (see October 2012 Next iPhone A7 Made by TSMC not Samsung. 

Would MediaTek (see January 2013 - Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact) or SanDisk make the top 10 in 2015 ( Top Semiconductor Ranking for 2013 )?

Ron
Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.
Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

Boom in RAM helped chip sales grow 7.9 per cent in 2014, as Gartner lists Top 10 vendors

Summary:Intel held on to its chip industry leadership in 2014, but it faces a challenge from Samsung and, in the long run, perhaps from Qualcomm, as smartphones and tablets compete against traditional PCs.

By Jack Schofield for Jack's Blog | January 6, 2015 -- 23:41 GMT (15:41 PST)

Thanks to booming memory chip markets, worldwide semiconductor revenues grew by 7.9 percent to $339.8 billion last year, according to preliminary numbers that Gartner released today (Tuesday). The top 25 chip vendors did even better, with revenues up by 11.7 percent compared with 2013.

Things didn't go quite as well for Intel, the biggest chip manufacturer by revenues, in spite of the PC industry's mini-recovery. However, it managed to grow sales by 4.6 percent in 2014, which contrasts with the 10.1 percent decline it suffered in 2013.

According to Gartner, "Intel continued to gain market share from AMD" in laptops and desktops, and it was also "on pace to reach its goal of 40 million tablet processors in 2014, although these processors are being shipped at significantly discounted prices with incentives." Many of these chips are appearing in 7in and 8in Windows 8.1 tablets that cost less than $100/£100.

Intel held its place as the No 1 semiconductor company for the 23rd consecutive year, with 15.0 percent of the market, though it remains to be seen how much longer its lead will last. Samsung, the No 2 chip vendor, grew revenues by 15.1 percent last year, and it's currently spending $15 billion on a new fab in South Korea to expand sales. Qualcomm took third place with growth of 11.5 percent as its Snapdragon processor continued to dominate the smartphone market.

However, Gartner said: "SK Hynix and Micron Technology benefited the most from the strong memory market, with the strongest growth of the top 10 vendors". Micron Technology's sales grew by 41.0 percent and SK Hynix's by 26.1 percent. DRAM chips accounted for about 80 percent of SK Hynix's revenues and about 70 percent of Micron's, with Micron shifting more production to NAND (Flash memory) chips.

With STMicroelectronics and Renesas Electronics losing ground - both saw sales decline by around 9 percent - we could well see MediaTek in the 2015 table. If so, it will be the first Taiwanese company to make the Top 10.

Finally, for AMD fans, the company saw its chip revenues slide by more than 9 percent to $4.67 billion, and it came 15th in the table with a market share of 1.4 percent.

Gartner provides more information about the top 25 semiconductor vendors in its latest report, Market Share Analysis: Preliminary Total Semiconductor Revenue, Worldwide, 2014.