IN THE NEWS

Business and technology news from the semiconductor and design tool industries.

Fabless News

The Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA, Dallas, TX) has announced the results of the first ever measure of wafer demand for the fabless segment of the semiconductor industry. The FSA estimates 1994 revenues for the fabless segment at just under $4 billion, and projects a 50 percent revenue growth in 1995.

Nearly half of all fabless companies in the United States participated in the FSA Wafer Demand Survey.

Hambrecht & Quist (San Francisco, CA) reviewed the survey, and estimated revenues for fabless companies may approach $10 billion by 1997 and $20 billion by the end of the century. They further predict fabless revenue would exceed 10 percent of the worldwide semiconductor revenue.

Several trends were noted, including the following:

• Fabless wafer needs are expected to increase nearly 75 percent by 1997. Needs for 1996 will exceed 1995 demand by 43 percent where unit demand is normalized to 6-in. wafer equivalents.

• CMOS will continue to be the predominant technology. It is expected to represent over 90 percent of fabless requirements.

• Smaller geometries are in greater demand. Demand for feature size at 0.4µm should grow from 100k in 1995 to over 900k by 1997.

• Seventy-five percent of requirements will be for smaller geometries with more than two layers of metal.

Hambrecht & Quist point out that there are 10 eight-inch wafer factories scheduled for construction over the next two years in Taiwan, with an estimated total capacity of 266k wafers per month. They further note some 120 new fabs in varying stages of planning or completion for companies such as IMP (San Jose, CA), Orbit Semiconductor (Sunnyvale, CA), and SMOS-Systems (San Jose, CA).

"The wafer foundry business looks like a profitable business so far," says Mel Phelps, advisory director for Hambrecht & Quist, "which should encourage continued investment and result in an on-going supply of reasonably priced wafers."

IncAlliance forms

The incAlliance plans to educate end-users in the applications of various LAN/WAN industry standards. They will provide a roadmap for upgrading networks to CTI without requiring major changes in the existing physical transport layers. The incAlliance includes companies from every market segment needed to provide a CTI solution that integrates voice, video, and data in a seamless LAN-WAN-LAN architecture. A partial listing of members in the incAlliance includes Apple Computer (Cupertino, CA), IBM (Fishkill, NJ), National Semiconductor (Santa Clara, CA), Pacific Bell (San Francisco, CA) and Siemens (Cupertino, CA).

For more information on the incAlliance and a complete information brochure, contact The Ardell Group at (619) 792-7964.

NewsBytes

Wescon is now on the World Wide Web at http:wescon.com/wescon/. Information on exhibitors, the conference, hotel and travel, special events are available. The Wescon OEM electronics exhibition and conference will be held in San Francisco, CA, Nov. 7-9.

EDA standards organization CFI (Austin, TX) joined forces with Sematech (Austin, TX) to coordinate Sematech's focus on standards and interoperability with CFI's programs. The agreement allows mutual access to requirements, project plans, and documentation, leading to industry coordination on EDA standards.

Cypress Semiconductor (San Jose, CA) has won a class action lawsuit brought against the company by plaintiffs arguing that Cypress should have disclosed beforehand an upcoming fall in stock value after two disappointing quarters in 1991 and early 1992. The judge pointed out that the plaintiff's case was based on hindsight. There was no way Cypress could be held liable for not being able to predict the future, as the market outlook was favorable when Cypress's forward-looking statements were issued. "No reasonable jury," concluded U.S. District Court Judge Robert P. Aguilar, "could find any of Cypress's statements were false or misleading."

Ascent Logic (San Jose, CA) has announced the formation of a client/server strategic business unit. This business unit's focus is to help customers move their legacy mainframe applications to a client/server environment. Ascent has also formed a telecommunications strategic business unit.

Silicon Valley Research (SVR, Mountain View, CA) and CrossCheck Technology (San Jose, CA) have entered into an agreement whereby CrossCheck will develop the interface for integration of SVR's gate array place and route tool, SVR GARDS, with CrossCheck's ArrayTest test and debug solution.

Designers and customers of IBM (Fishkill, NY) will use Design VERIFYer from Chrysalis Symbolic Design (N. Billerica, MA) for ASIC design formal verification, according to an announcement by Chrysalis.

Epic Design Technology (Santa Clara, CA) has signed a letter of intent to acquire Archer Systems (Santa Clara, CA).

AT&T Microelectronics (Berkeley Heights, NJ) announced the addition of two ASIC design centers. One is at SAND Microelectronics (San Jose, CA) and the other is at IN-SYSTEM Design (Meridian, ID).

LogicVision (San Jose, CA) announced a multiple seat sale of its ASICTEST test automation suite of tools to Bell-Northern Research (Ottawa, Canada), the R&D subsidiary of Northern Telecom (Mississaugua, Ontario, Canada).

Movers and Shakers

Larry Howard has joined Ascent Logic (San Jose, CA) as head of their new client/server strategic business unit. Their new telecommunications strategic business unit is to be headed by John Cox.

Charlie Cheng of Aspec Technology

Charlie Cheng has joined Aspec Technology (Sunnyvale, CA) as their new director of marketing.

Jerry L. Rolling has joined Stanford Telecommunications (Sunnyvale, CA) as director of domestic sales for the telecom products group.

Crosspoint Solutions (Santa Clara, CA) has named Michael Ingster vice president of U.S. sales.

LogicVision (San Jose, CA) has added three members to their staff. They are Robert P. Smith, vice president of marketing and business development; Jeffrey L. Langner, director of marketing; and Dr. R. Chandramouli, director of ESTA products and the RASSP project.

Cadence Design Systems's Alta Group (Foster City, CA) has named Misha Burich vice president of engineering.

integrated system design  August 1995