Online information source for semiconductor professionals
Editor's Blog
The blog is written by Semiconductor Fabtech's Editor-in-Chief, Mark Osborne. Mark is also the Senior News Editor for Photovoltaics International and the PV-Tech website. He has launched multiple technology titles in print and online covering manufacturing in the automotive, shipping, semiconductor and solar sectors in a publishing career spanning three decades. Mark started blogging in 2005, the first technology editor to do so and has worked online since 1996. A veteran manufacturing technology journalist and editor, Mark as been responsible for a series of innovative formats for delivering technical content to an engineering-based audience. More delisting on NASDAQ looms
24 March 2009
When the global stock markets started to dive from September last year, there were approximately eight semiconductor-related companies listed on NASDAQ that I had been tracking that were either just above or below the US$1.0 threshold for listing on the tech exchange. As the share sell-off continued, that number didn’t expand as rapidly as one might have thought.
Read more >>Is this the roots of recovery showing in IC ASPs?
12 March 2009
Bill McClean over at IC Insights is making hints that a recovery could be in the making for the beleaguered semiconductor industry, as the trend in falling IC ASPs seems to be on the cusp of changing course.
Read more >>Inventory? What inventory?
02 March 2009
The semiconductor industry got caught with its trousers down over excessive IC inventories when the dot com boom, bust in 2001. The double and triple ordering that took place fooled the industry into thinking business was booming and new capacity kicked in to meet the ‘demand.’ When the dust settled, the industry took more than a year to get inventory levels down, which delayed the eventual recovery.
Read more >>Splinter asks: “So, how bad is it?”
16 February 2009
There is little doubt that the current downturn is expected to be the worst the semiconductor industry has ever experienced - including that of 2001.
Read more >>Taiwan’s DRAM manufacturers split in the middle
11 February 2009
The continued manoeuvrings of increasingly desperate DRAM manufacturers in Taiwan would seem to be coming to a head, if news reports are to be trusted. The saga has played out for over a month and now (hopefully) will come to a close by the end of February.
Read more >>The US$10 billion bucket
29 January 2009
Front-end semiconductor equipment sales are expected to plummet in 2009 to around US$10 billion. Taking Intel Corp. and Samsung Electronics out of the mix leaves barely a couple of US$ billion for the rest of the equipment suppliers to fight for.
Read more >>Hynix hits bottom
12 January 2009
Hynix’s CEO Kim Jong-kap has claimed that the bottom of the current crisis in the memory industry ‘may’ have been in the fourth quarter of 2008. His rationale was that the drastic cut in capital spending across the industry, including that of Hynix, mean that 2010 should see a recovery.
Read more >>Can Aviza do a Tegal?
08 January 2009 | Comments (2)
With the seemingly endless downward revenue guidance adjustments being made by large and small companies within the semiconductor industry, news that Aviza Technology also gave an update to its next quarterly results shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Expecting the obvious, the pleasant surprise was that Aviza said that it expects to exceed guidance.
Read more >>Varian Semiconductor bitten by fab cannibalism
05 January 2009
Ion implant market leader Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates would seem to be the first semiconductor equipment supplier ‘officially’ bitten by the return of cannibalism in fabs.
Read more >>Top 5 blogs for 2008
28 December 2008
For several years now blogs written about AMD have proved to be very popular. 2008 was no exception as AMD struggled and finally offloaded its manufacturing arm. AMD’s asset-something or nothing plan turned out to be a saga and only concluding near the end of the year.
Read more >>