Expert Testimony with Ron Maltiel

My expertise in semiconductors, process, and circuits have led to some really interesting places. Thanks for having me on your show Max for a fascinating

Ron

Insightful, timely, and accurate semiconductor consulting.

Semiconductor information and news at - http://www.maltiel-consulting.com/

TSMC, MediaTek and Hynix,Sales >20% in 2014

IC Insights report on top 20 Semiconductor sale leaders below. TSMC is benefiting from manufacturing A7 for Apple iPhone.

MediaTek from low price smart phones and its merge with MStar. More about MediaTek in January 2013 blog Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact) .

Hynix maybe is benefiting from it recovery from last year Fab fire.

As usually SanDisk is not included in this IC Insights which already had $5.66B sales in 2011. More about SanDisk in earlier blog Top 25 2011 Semiconductor Sales Ranking




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

Nine of the Top 20 Semiconductor Suppliers are Forecast to Register Double-Digit Growth in 2014!

TSMC, MediaTek, and SK Hynix’s sales are each expected to jump by >20% this year.

Later this month, IC Insights’ November Update to The 2014 McClean Report will show a forecast ranking of the 2014 top 25 semiconductor suppliers with the companies’ sales broken down on a quarterly basis.  A preview of the forecast for the top 20 companies’ total 2014 sales results is presented in Figure 1.  The top 20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 2014 includes eight suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Japan, three in Europe, three in Taiwan, two in South Korea, and one in Singapore, a relatively broad representation of geographic regions.

This year’s top-20 ranking includes two pure-play foundries (TSMC and UMC) and six fabless companies.  Pure-play IC foundry GlobalFoundries is forecast to be replaced in this year’s top 20 ranking by fabless IC supplier Nvidia.  It is interesting to note that the top four semiconductor suppliers all have different business models.  Intel is essentially a pure-play IDM, Samsung a vertically integrated IC supplier, TSMC a pure-play foundry, and Qualcomm a fabless company.

IC foundries are included in the top 20 ranking because IC Insights has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not as a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases semiconductor sales are double counted.  With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers.  Foundries and fabless companies are clearly identified in Figure 1.  In the April Update to The McClean Report, marketshare rankings of IC suppliers by product type were presented and foundries were excluded from these listings.

As shown, it is expected to require total semiconductor sales of over $4.2 billion to make the 2014 top 20 ranking. In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales are forecast to increase by 9% this year as compared to 2013. However, when excluding the two pure-play foundries (TSMC and UMC) from the ranking, the top “18” semiconductor companies’ sales are forecast to increase by 8% this year, the same rate as IC Insights’ current forecast for total 2014 worldwide semiconductor market growth.

Figure 1

Outside of the top six spots, there are numerous changes expected within the 2014 top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking.  In fact, of the 14 companies ranked 7th through 20th, 10 of them are forecast to change positions in 2014 as compared with 2013 (with NXP expected to jump up two spots).

14nm FinFETs Technolgy

In the upcoming IEDM Intel will talk more about their 3D transistors using FinFET for the 14nm generation (see below). 

"Intel will reveal its processing secrets including its doping technique to prevent current leakage under the fins and to maintain very low doped fins, resulting in mitigation of variation, its use of two levels of air-gap-insulated interconnects at 80-and-160nm minimum pitches, yielding a 17% reduction in capacitance delays; eight layers of 52nm pitch interconnects embedded in low-k dielectrics"

Also IBM will discuss at IEDM adding SOI to FinFETs, which reduce their capacitance. SOI has been used by IBM for other processes, however it complicate designing circuits on the chips.

See more about FinFETs from May 2011 at - Tutorial: Intel 22nm 3D Tri-Gate FinFETs Transistors  

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

Intel, IBM Dueling 14nm FinFETS

IEDM reveals diametrically opposed approaches

R. Colin Johnson

10/21/2014 06:26 PM EDT 

PORTLAND, OR — Every digital semiconductor manufacturer and foundry in the world is trying to build 3D FinFETS that rival Intel, which is so far leading the pack by several years. Hot on Intel's heels is IBM, which just signed a deal to turn its fabs over to GlobalFoundries (which has already licensed Samsung's FinFET process that, according to Rick Doherty, research director of The Envisioneering Group, told EE Times stems from early IBM/GlobalFoundaries discussions). TSMC, AMD, Freescale, and others claim to be hot on Intel's and IBM's trail, but have yet to prove it.
With that background, the "dueling technologies" session over FinFET designs being held at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM, December 15 until December 17, 2014, in San Francisco) looks to be a knock-down, drag-out fight.
"The IEEE's use of the phrase 'dueling technologies' is right!" Doherty told us. "Engineers at IEDM will pass muster on the amazing advances of IBM and Intel first with applause, and later, with purchase orders."

The size of transistor gates and "fins," especially to interconnection, were reduced by more than a third from the previous generation of technology.
(Image: Intel)

Envisioneering believes the IBM FinFET details to be revealed at IEDM lean towards bolstering the Samsung/GlobalFoundaries FinFET technologies already being integrated into Global’s 14 nanometer processes.
"The combinations of dense memory, scalable power budgets and SoCs up to 600 square millimeters strongly point to these IEDM features being available on IBM silicon from Global," Doherty told us. "And possibly available to broader Global customers. What is not yet known is whether these technologies will be build upon the Samsung suite, or might become an alternative FinFET offering from Global."

Built on a fully depleted SOI technology base, IBM's 3D, FinFET architecture retains the advantages of SOI over bulk-based planar technologies, which IBM claims is a simpler manufacturing process, with isolation by structure, not doping, low-voltage operation, and lower power.
(Image: IBM)

Either way, Doherty told us that the winners here are customers of both Global and Intel.
"At the IEDM, system and silicon architects will start determining the best applications and markets for each. Intel has given a clear commitment to its novel FinFET designs," Doherty told us. "Global’s choice of two FinFET techniques will likely attract SoC, mobile and high performance users looking for custom solutions."
The biggest difference between IBM's and Intel's approach is that Intel -- as usual -- has taken the traditional bulk silicon approach to developing its FinFET design resulting in a a two- to four-year lead on its competitors in perfecting its approach. Intel has been manufacturing FinFETS in volume since 2011 starting with its 22nm Ivy Bridge and later Haswell micro-architecture processors. More recently it announced successfully transferring of the technology to its 14nm Broadwell micro-architecture which it is the centerpiece for its latest Core M processor family.
IBM, on the other hand, has take a more experimental approach using more expensive silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates that it claims simplify the manufacturing process, allow lower-voltage operation, which means lower-power chips in the long run.
FinFETS were designed to mitigate the leakage effect of short-gate transistors, and have proven to work with or without SOI. By wrapping the gate around the "fin" channel it is possible to fully or nearly-fully deplete the channel when its off leaving very little leakage current to overheat chips.
According to IEDM, Intel will reveal its processing secrets including its doping technique to prevent current leakage under the fins and to maintain very low doped fins, resulting in mitigation of variation, its use of two levels of air-gap-insulated interconnects at 80-and-160nm minimum pitches, yielding a 17% reduction in capacitance delays; eight layers of 52nm pitch interconnects embedded in low-k dielectrics; an embedded 140Mb SRAM memory with a tiny cell size of 0.0588 square micrometers. The fully saturated drive currents are significantly higher than for Intel's 22nm first-generation FinFETs (improvements of 15% for NMOS and 41% and PMOS transistors. Intel will also discuss how it achieved such high-aspect ratio rectangular fins only 8nm wide and 42nm high, according to IEDM. All Intel transistors are operating at a supply voltage of only 0.7 volts.
IBM counter argument
IBM will describe its SOI approach to building 14nm FinFETs, emphasizing that its insulated substrates are worth the extra money the wafers cost because of the processing steps they reduce to isolated devices from one another. Its latest 14nm FinFETs are 35% faster than its planar 22nm transistors and use an operating voltage of 0.8 volts.
IBM will also claim the world's smallest and densest DRAM cells ever demonstrated, taking up just 0.0174 square micrometers. IBM will also describe its unique dual-workfunction process, for both low power and high speed, by virtue of optimizing the threshold voltages of both NMOS and PMOS transistors without mobility degradation in the channel, according to IEDM.
IBM will also brag about its 15 levels of copper interconnect to distribute power and clocks across an entire 600 square millimeter complex SoC for everything from video game consoles to corporate-caliber data centers.
Intel's paper will be called "A 14nm Logic Technology Featuring 2nd-Generation FinFET Transistors, Air-Gapped Interconnects, Self-Aligned Double Patterning and a 0.0588µm2 SRAM Cell Size."
IBM's will be called "High Performance 14nm SOI FinFET CMOS Technology with 0.0174µm2 Embedded DRAM and 15 Levels of Cu Metallization."
— R. Colin Johnson, Advanced Technology Editor, EE Times

Smartphone: MediaTek Overtaking Qulacomm

The increasing importance of emerging markets to the smartphone market is helping MediaTek to gain on Qualcomm in term of shipment volume as is discussed in the article below.

More on MediaTek growth (from January 2013) with the help of "Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE surged ahead of Apple.."




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

 

 

 

Commentary: Qualcomm likely to be dethroned by MediaTek as the largest handset solution vendor

Cage Chao, Taipei; Steve Shen,  [Wednesday 24 July 2013]

 

With the planned release of LTE-enabled and 8-core SoCs in the fourth quarter of 2013, MediaTek will advance one-step further to beat venerable rival Qualcomm to become the world's largest supplier of smartphone solutions in terms of shipment volume.

 

Already taking up an over 50% of the solution market for the entry-level to mid-range smartphones in China and other emerging markets, the launch of LTE and 8-core CPUs will help ramp up MediaTek's share in the high-end smartphone solution market.

 

Additionally, the developments of application CPUs by Apple and Samsung Electronics, in-house for their high-end smartphones have worked to limit Qualcomm's growth potential in the high-end smartphone solution market as Apple and Samsung were previously the two major high-end smartphone solution clients for Qualcomm.

 

The outstanding performance-price ratio of MediaTeks' smartphone solutions combined with market proven records of China-based branded and white-box smartphone vendors to launch differentiated models by optimizing MediaTek solutions have enabled the Taiwan-based fabless IC house to push sales of its smartphone solutions to Sony Mobile Communications, LG Electronics and Motorola Mobility, and therefore further expanding its share in the global handset solution market.

Latest Transistor Channel (Moore Law Getting Too Expensive)

Moore law is getting too expensive to maintain the scaling march toward smaller devices. There are efforts to change the transistor channel as discussed below.

 

Some background on Fin-FET.

 

 

Ron

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

 

 

Changing the Transistor Channel

Ending silicon’s central role in transistors could maintain the march of Moore’s Law

By Richard Stevenson / 24 Jun 2013 | 20:50 GMT

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/changing-the-transistor-channel

 

Illustration: Harry Campbell

The transistor isn’t shrinking the way it used to. The best ones we have today are a patchwork of fixes and kludges: speed-boosting materials that push or pull on the silicon center, exotic insulators added to stanch leaks, and a new geometry that pops things out of the plane of the chip and into the third dimension. Now, to keep Moore’s Law going, chipmakers are eyeing another monumental change in transistor architecture.

This time, they’re taking aim at the current-carrying channels at the very heart of the device, replacing the silicon there with germanium and compound semiconductors known as III-Vs. If all goes well, these materials could usher in a new generation of speedier, less power-hungry transistors, allowing for denser, faster, cooler-running chips.

But for alternate transistor channels to be accepted, engineers must find a way to build them on industry-standard silicon wafers. That’s no small feat. The atoms in the alternative semiconductors are spaced farther apart than in silicon, making the crystals difficult to grow without creating device-killing defects.

Still, industry experts say, it is quite possible that silicon fabs will ramp up production of these transistors as early as 2017. One promising approach, under development in Belgium, saves on materials and minimizes defects by precisely depositing the new materials into nanometer-scale trenches etched into standard silicon wafers. The resulting chips could trim energy consumption at data centers, boost the battery life of mobile devices, and help keep Moore’s Law going well into the next decade.

Modern transistors are built into silicon wafers through the addition of trace amounts of other materials, called dopants. Dopant atoms alter the electronic properties of the material in order to form the three core parts of the transistor: the source and drain regions, which spit out and receive charge carriers, and the current-carrying channel, which runs between them. More at  Transistor Channel Future

30% Faster Smartphone w/FinFET Atom (Intel)

Mysterious Android device with Intel's Bay Trail (FinFET Atom) chip establishes AnTuTu benchmark records (43,416 points)

Today, a mystery Android 4.2.2 device running Intel’s next generation of mobile processors – Bay Trail (FinFET Atom) – has surfaced, which blows those chart-topping numbers clean out of the water. The smartphone or tablet posted an unheard so far score of over 43,000 (43,416 points). This is apparently at 1.1GHz, while running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The first benchmarks of Intel’s upcoming Bay Trail SoC is around 30% faster than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 clocked at 2.3GHz, the fastest ARM chip on the market. By comparison, the latest Galaxy S4 with LTE-Advanced support, with the Snapdragon 800, scores 31,491. To round out the comparison, Exynos 5 Octa (in the Galaxy S4) scores around 26,275, and Snapdragon 600 scores around 24,716. Bay Trail-T is Intel’s upcoming 22nm tablet-oriented SoC with four Silvermont cores, due out sometime this year (probably fall).

How good would the battery life be?

More on FinFET

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

 Mystery device running on Intel’s Bay Trail thrashes competition

http://techivian.com/015-mystery-device-running-on-intels-baytrail-thrashes-competiton/

If you thought Snapdragon 800 is the summit at which mobile processing power is going to peak for at least 2013, wait until you read this. No it’s neither Tegra, nor Exynos that we’re talking about. Instead, the Snapdragon 800 might soon be dethroned by none other than an Intel Atom processor.

A mystery device codenamed byt_t_ffrd10 was spotted on popular benchmarking tool, AnTuTu. The device featured an Intel Bay Trail processor (that will be the successor to Clover Trail+) and was clocked at just 1.1GHz instead of its usual speed of 2.1GHz. Now this is where it gets exciting. The device managed to attain a score of 43416 on AnTuTu running on Android 4.2.2. To give a fair idea of how huge that number is, the recently launched Xperia ZU and Galaxy S4 LTE-A with Snapdragon 800 could only achieve close to 34,000 points in the benchmark test. Snapdragon 600 and Exynos 5 Octa fall even behind with close to 24,000 points and 26,000 points respectively.

Now the only concern remaining would be the power usage of Bay Trail processor. Of course if Intel could master that as well, we wouldn’t have to tell you what you can expect on Galaxy S5 or probably other flagships from LG and others.

41.6% Worldwide Growth of Smartphones in First Quarter

Statistics about operating system market shares of smart phones in first quarter of 2013 are detailed below.

"Android OEMs shipped 162.1 million handsets in the quarter, giving the platform a 75% share of total worldwide shipments, while Apple’s 37.4 million devices"

More Smartphone/ OS Market share: Apple, Samsung, HTC...

Samsung Galaxy S4 will increase Androids' second quarter market shares. 

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

IDC: Android OEMs Shipped 162M Smartphones In Q1, More Than 4X Apple’s Rate; Windows Phone Now In (Distant) Third

INGRID LUNDEN  posted yesterday

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/16/idc-android-oems-shipped-162m-smartphones-in-q1-more-than-4x-apples-rate-windows-phone-now-a-distant-third/

IDC today was the latest to publish its numbers on smartphone market shares after the major handset makers released Q1 earnings, and like Gartner,Strategy Analytics and the rest, it underscores the power of Google’s Android platform at the moment: Android OEMs shipped 162.1 million handsets in the quarter, giving the platform a 75% share of total worldwide shipments, while Apple’s 37.4 million devices put it at an increasingly distant second position at 17.3%. Microsoft’s Windows Phone, driven primarily by its partner Nokia (79% of all WP shipments), grew the most of all platforms, with a rise of 133.3%, but that still puts it at a single-digit share, 3.2% on 7 million devices shipped.

That meant that Microsoft has now overtaken BlackBerry, which declined by just over 35% with 6.5 million shipments, ending with a 2.9% market share.

Important to note that IDC specifies that this is devices shipped, not sold. Some analysts have told me that the two are effectively interchangeable terms, but shipped is also potentially a more optimistic figure: it points to how well retailers and carriers think certain models are likely to sell in the quarter ahead. Occasionally these can lag compared to how well certain handset makers are actually doing if a device ends up selling worse than expected.

What “shipped” numbers like IDC’s say is that Android and iOS continue to, more or less, remain the only games in town in terms of how confident sales channels feel about shifting devices, with other platforms relegated to niche status. This is something that companies like BlackBerry are trying to change, as evidenced by a recent deal to extend a $256 million loan to Telefonica for purchasing BlackBerry devices.

IDC’s numbers show that together these two platforms accounted for nearly 200 million units (199.5 million) shipped, up 59% over a year ago. The smaller players are not to be dismissed, though. Not only is Windows Phone the most rapidly rising of all platforms at the moment, but IDC notes that BlackBerry’s BB10 new range have hit 1 million shipped devices this quarter.

But turnaround will only come with that kind of growth being sustained. “Given the relatively low volume generated, the Windows Phone camp will need to show further gains to solidify its status as an alterative to Android or iOS,” writes Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC.

For the time being, the message to users, and to app developers, is that these are the platforms where you want to be. Considering how key content has been as a route to attracting users to these devices, that will continue to pose a challenge for the smaller players.

As with Strategy Analytics’ numbers yesterday detailing the profitability of different smartphone platforms in the quarter, IDC notes that Samsung is by far the “clear leader” in Android. It notes that it had a 41.1% market share. As a sign of the ongoing fragmentation of players on the platform, no other single OEM had more than a single-digit percentage market share after that, “and an even longer list of vendors with market share less than one percent.” The fact that it’s still “free” to license Android, and relatively easy to modify it for a more custom experience, will mean that it will continue to be the platform of choice for OEMs looking for more revenues from the ongoing boom in smartphones.

As we saw in Apple’s earnings earlier in the quarter, the company’s sales of iPhones are at an all-time high, but in comparison to the growth of the rest of the market, it’s actually off, with market share down nearly six percentage points. There is some feeling that part of this is due to the fact that the platform appears stale compared to all the change going on elsewhere with software and hardware features, news handsets and more. “Although demand remains strong worldwide, the iOS experience has remained largely the same since the first iPhone debuted in 2007,” IDC notes, pointing to a “massive overhaul” that appears to be on the cards with iOS 7.

IDC also notes that over the last year, shares of the biggest platforms have fluctuated, although Android’s current 75% is the highest in a year. Against that, the last time that Android approached 75%, in Q3 2012, Apple’s share was only 14.5% as people held out for a new iPhone model. That shows that Apple’s growth this quarter was at the expense of declines for other smaller platforms.

photo: flick
r

Smartphone/ OS Market share: Apple, Samsung, HTC...

It will be interesting to see how Samsung Galaxy S4 will impact second quarter market shares. See below results from first quarter 2013.





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

comScore Reports March 2013 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share

Android Phone and iPhone Now Combine for 91 Percent of U.S. Smartphone User Base

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/5/comScore_Reports_March_2013_U.S._Smartphone_Subscriber_Market_Share

RESTON, VA, May 3, 2013 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry during the three month average period ending March 2013. Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 39 percent OEM market share, while Google Android led as the #1 smartphone platform with 52 percent platform market share.

Smartphone OEM Market Share

136.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (58 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in March, up 9 percent since December. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 39 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 2.7 percentage points from December). Samsung ranked second with 21.7 percent market share (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by HTC with 9 percent, Motorola with 8.5 percent and LG with 6.8 percent.

Top Smartphone OEMs 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Dec. 2012 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	Dec-12	Mar-13	Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Apple	36.3%	39.0%	2.7
Samsung	21.0%	21.7%	0.7
HTC	10.2%	9.0%	-1.2
Motorola	9.1%	8.5%	-0.6
LG	7.1%	6.8%	-0.3

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 52 percent market share (71.1 million subscribers), while Apple’s share increased 2.7 percentage points to 39 percent (53.3 million subscribers). BlackBerry ranked third with 5.2 percent share, followed by Microsoft (3 percent) and Symbian (0.5 percent).

Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Dec. 2012 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
	Dec-12	Mar-13	Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers	100.0%	100.0%	N/A
Google	53.4%	52.0%	-1.4
Apple	36.3%	39.0%	2.7
BlackBerry	6.4%	5.2%	-1.2
Microsoft	2.9%	3.0%	0.1
Symbian	0.6%	0.5%	-0.1

About MobiLens
MobiLens data is derived from an intelligent online survey of a nationally representative sample of mobile subscribers age 13 and older. Data on mobile phone usage refers to a respondent’s primary mobile phone and does not include data related to a respondent’s secondary device

1st Time Smartphones Outsold Feature Phones

The article below documents the fast pace of smartphones' growth and shows that for the first quarter of 2013, the sales of smartphones surpassed feature phones. Smartphone growth is driven by access to fingertip computing anywhere, anytime (see 2010 article Four Billion Cell Users : Computing Power Anytime, Anyplace).

between the five top vendors, Apple loss market share and had the smallest increase of growth between 2012 and 2013. This is due to the growth in emerging countries where the iPhone is too expensive relative to other smartphones. It is not likely that Apple will introduce an inexpensive iPhone in China considering the tough price competition it would face from the much cheaper Android phones. People in emerging countries are more price conscious. Apple will want to maintain its high quality brand and its higher pricing and is likely to repeat its Mac vs PC history see the 2008 story -Are iPhone and Android Smart Phones Repeating the History of Mac vs. PC in the 80s

The fast growth of smartphones in 2012 and 2013 by Huawei, ZTE, CoolPad, and other companies in emerging countries was made possible by the chips manufactured by MediaTek (see January story about MediaTek Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact)).

Ron

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

 

Smartphones outpace feature phones for first time ever

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57581566-94/smartphones-outpace-feature-phones-for-first-time-ever/

by Jonathan Skillings , April 26, 2013 5:29 AM PDT

 

In the first quarter of 2013, smartphones accounted for more than half of phone makers' shipments worldwide. Samsung remained the top dog, but LG, Huawei, and ZTE all saw big gains.

LG returned to IDC's smartphone Top 5 in the first quarter of 2013 with record-high shipments, riding a strong interest in its LTE-enabled devices, including the Optimus G.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

It seemed inevitable, and now it has happened: for the first time ever, feature phones have taken a backseat to smartphones in terms of quantities shipped.

In the first quarter of 2013, device makers shipped 216.2 million smartphones worldwide, a volume that accounted for 51.6 percent of total global shipments and that marked the first time smartphones have claimed more than half of all quarterly shipments, according to market researcher IDC.

The smartphone market grew 41.6 percent compared with the first quarter of 2012, but declined 5.1 percent from the shipment tally for the fourth quarter of 2012. The first quarter of the year typically sees a slowdown, especially in comparison with the holiday-shopping-filled fourth quarter.

The first quarter saw a total of 418.6 million mobile phones -- both smartphones and the less-powerful feature phones -- shipped worldwide, IDC said Thursday.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets," IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said in a statement. "The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away."

(Credit: IDC/Screenshot by CNET)

See more additional table and statistic about the whole mobile vendors

Thinner Wafers Improve Power IC

Infineon ships power ICs from floppy 300-mm wafers

http://www.eetimes.com/design/power-management-design/4407170/Infineon-ships-power-ICs-from-floppy-300-mm-wafers


LONDON –Infineon Technologies AG has claimed it is the first and only company worldwide to produce power semiconductors on 300-millimeter thin wafers and that this will bring the company both a technical and cost advantage over its competition. Infineon (Munich, Germany) has been working on the technology for several years and in February 2013 received first customer clearances to ship CoolMOS family products made on a 300-mm production line at Villach, Austria, which uses thin wafers. The chips are now being shipped worldwide, Infineon said. As power flows vertically in a power MOSFET the reduced thickness lowers resistance and losses and allows heat to be removed more effectively. Infineon has worked with thinned wafers or thin epitaxial structures on top of wafers for more than a decade. However, transferring such a process to 300-mm wafers sets additional challenges. Infineon did not indicate what power ICs are the first to ship from 300-mm wafers but is reported to have been working on power MOSFETs and insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs). A wafer is typically 350-microns thick prior to being diced into individual chips. At the 200-mm wafer size Infineon typically thins power wafers back to 60-micron and even 40-micron thicknesses. The technology is used for IGBTs) and high-and low-power MOSFETs for a range of applications from automotive engine control through to power packs and induction hobs. The larger size of 300-mm wafer compared to 200-mm wafers used as standard for power IC production means two-and-a-half times as many chips can be made from each one providing a cost advantage to Infineon. "Infineon put its faith in this manufacturing technology very early on and continued to invest even in economically difficult times," said Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon, in a statement. "The qualification of our entire 300-millimeter line represents a veritable leap ahead of the competition," he added. Infineon plans to add the approval of its back-end packaging site in Malacca, Malaysia and then to expand production to its front-end site in Dresden, Germany, where a fully automated 300-mm production line will focus on high volume production. The technology transfer to Dresden is running on schedule and qualification of the first CoolMOS products will be completed in March 2013, Infineon said. Meanwhile Villach will work on transferring more power semiconductor technologies to 300-mm production.

Apples' Cook in China (MediaTek Impact)

Apple is having hard time competing in emerging market due to MediaTek.

Apple CEO Cook Returns to China Amid Falling Market Share

The New York Times article below expands about MediaTek rise.

"Despite having reported record sales of the iPhone 5, the U.S. technology giant’s presence on the mainland flagged in 2012; it was pushed out of the top five smartphone makers in that market during the third quarter, with just 8 percent of the market, according to the research firm Canalys.

As Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE surged ahead of Apple, a major force behind their success was MediaTek, a Taiwanese chip maker...entered the smartphone business late, introducing its first chipset in 2011 inside a Lenovo phone. But within a year and a half, analysts say, MediaTek has taken 50 percent of China’s market for smartphone chips.

That success has come with the adoption of what MediaTek calls a “turnkey solution.” Rather than simply provide a chip, the company also offers instructions on how to build a phone, the software architecture to run it and dedicated consultants to advise phone makers through the production process"

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

Providing a Template to Challenge Apple

By LIN YANG, January 6, 2013

TAIPEI — In the China smartphone market, Apple has seen better days.

Despite having reported record sales of the iPhone 5, the U.S. technology giant’s presence on the mainland flagged in 2012; it was pushed out of the top five smartphone makers in that market during the third quarter, with just 8 percent of the market, according to the research firm Canalys.

As Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE surged ahead of Apple, a major force behind their success was MediaTek, a Taiwanese chip maker whose products have drastically reduced the cost for manufacturers of getting new phones to market.

The company entered the smartphone business late, introducing its first chipset in 2011 inside a Lenovo phone. But within a year and a half, analysts say, MediaTek has taken 50 percent of China’s market for smartphone chips.

That success has come with the adoption of what MediaTek calls a “turnkey solution.” Rather than simply provide a chip, the company also offers instructions on how to build a phone, the software architecture to run it and dedicated consultants to advise phone makers through the production process. MediaTek’s chief financial officer, David Ku, describes this as a franchise model in which all the clients have to do is “turn on the burner.”

Peter Liao, an analyst at Nomura Securities who covers the industry, said MediaTek saved phone makers the often prohibitive cost of research and development.

“It typically takes a lot of money and time to develop a new handset model, but MediaTek comes in and provides a total solution,” Mr. Liao said.

The company has proved wildly popular among Chinese phone makers. Besides supplying Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE, MediaTek also supports lesser-known manufacturers, including those that make so-called bandit phones that imitate premium models from Apple, Samsung and HTC.

TCL Communication Technology Holdings, a Chinese phone maker that sells phones primarily in Europe and Latin America, uses MediaTek’s chips. Its chief operating officer, Wang Jiyang, said that when his company works with MediaTek, its only major design tasks are to make the software more user-friendly and to tailor the look and feel of the phone.
“In general, with MediaTek’s help, we’re able to achieve almost twice as fast time to market, compared to other solutions,” Mr. Wang said.

MediaTek was founded in 1997. It started out making chips for home entertainment electronics like DVD players and televisions before moving into components for CD and DVD-ROM devices. In 2004, it began making chips for small mobile phones.
MediaTek estimates that it will lead the Chinese market by selling 110 million smartphone chips in 2012, up from 10 million chips a year ago.
By comparison, Qualcomm, the global leader in smartphone chips, is expected to finish 2012 in second place in China with 82 million chips shipped, according to the research firm DigiTimes.
MediaTek has been powered by consumers like Zhang Ying, 31, who want to try the latest technology but not pay a premium for it. Mr. Zhang, a Shanghai resident, bought a knockoff HTC phone last year. “Every person has a price point,” he said. “At a time when some of my friends were buying Samsung or iPhone, I wanted to show that I can keep up with them. A lot of domestic phones are cheap and of fairly good quality.”
People who think like Mr. Zhang are dominating sales, especially among first-time smartphone buyers. In a September report, McKinsey, the global consulting firm, estimated that 69 percent of all smartphones sold in China would cost less than 1,500 renminbi, or about $240, by the second half of 2013.
And MediaTek is taking its business model to other emerging markets. The company’s products support features that are popular in developing countries, like noise-reducing speakers and slots for two SIM cards.
In India, local brands like Spice and Micromax are rolling out lower-priced smartphone models using MediaTek parts. In Brazil, phones by Motorola Mobility, as well as local brands like Gradiente and Multilaser, will also have MediaTek chips.
“The markets we target have 5.8 billion people, whereas the U.S. and Europe have less than one billion,” said Mr. Ku of MediaTek. “I need to aim at a global market, not just developed countries.”

MediaTek also released a chip last year for building basic smartphones that work in regions without mobile data networks. Users of these phones rely on Wi-Fi connections to download multimedia. These phones can cost as little as $50, or 312 renminbi.

Those chips now account for 40 percent of MediaTek’s smartphone chip sales, according to the company.

Mark Hung, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, calls the network-less chip one of the “fastest-growing smartphone segments,” as many consumers are looking to switch from their simple mobile phones to basic, low-cost smartphones.

“This is a fairly new phenomenon, and as you can expect, mostly in emerging markets, including China,” Mr. Hung said.

For now, Apple has signaled that it has no intention of competing on price. The iPhone 5, released in China on Dec. 14, cost 300 renminbi more than the two previous models, the iPhone 4S and 4, on their release days. More than two million units of the iPhone 5 were sold during its first weekend.

By contrast, Coolpad, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung and ZTE have rolled out new phones with similar performance at a third of the iPhone 5’s price of 5,288 renminbi, and sometimes less.

“We believe that emerging countries should also be able to enjoy the use of information technology with the same computing power,” said Tsai Ming-kai, chief executive of MediaTek.

As the world’s largest market for smartphones, China is quickly becoming a bellwether for the progress of sales wars globally. The Chinese experience may show that any leading market position can be fickle, and new brands can appear seemingly out of nowhere to capture significant market shares.

Apple remains No. 2 in smartphone shipments worldwide after Samsung, but its position could be threatened as the competition expands to more consumers and more price points.

“Emerging economies are getting stronger,” Mr. Tsai said. “The industry dynamic is always evolving. Anything can happen.”