News & Analysis
Top 10 shifts in chips, comms
Rick Merritt
12/17/2012 8:32 AM EST
The Losers: Elpida, Nokia, AMD, Renesas, ST, TI
The tough year had its share of losers. Elpida called it quits in another round of consolidation for the company and memory sector generally. It was one of the few big companies to actually exit the industry.
Many giants faltered but did not fall. Among them former cellphone king Nokia could not seem to stabilize its business with a new generation of Lumia handsets using Microsoft’s Windows Phone. Similarly, AMD refreshed its executive suite and strategy, but by year’s end it was still handing out pink slips in record numbers.
Renesas and STMicroelectronics were dogged by calls for strategic shifts through the year. By the end of 2012 their futures remained cloudy.
Texas Instruments bit the bullet and exited the market for consumer smartphone and tablet processors, unable to compete as No. 3 to Qualcomm and Nvidia. Just how Amazon’s Kindle group will react to the shift at its Omap supplier is not yet clear, but TI has set a direction more deeply into embedded and analog markets.
Related stories:
TI steering OMAP to embedded
AMD lays off 15 percent, eyes embedded push
ST to exit ST-Ericsson in 2013
Micron-Elpida merger would redraw DRAM market
Ten shifts in chips, comms:
Elpida Memory Inc. President Yukio Sakamoto speaks during a news
conference in Tokyo last February after Elpida filed for bankruptcy.
The tough year had its share of losers. Elpida called it quits in another round of consolidation for the company and memory sector generally. It was one of the few big companies to actually exit the industry.
Many giants faltered but did not fall. Among them former cellphone king Nokia could not seem to stabilize its business with a new generation of Lumia handsets using Microsoft’s Windows Phone. Similarly, AMD refreshed its executive suite and strategy, but by year’s end it was still handing out pink slips in record numbers.
Renesas and STMicroelectronics were dogged by calls for strategic shifts through the year. By the end of 2012 their futures remained cloudy.
Texas Instruments bit the bullet and exited the market for consumer smartphone and tablet processors, unable to compete as No. 3 to Qualcomm and Nvidia. Just how Amazon’s Kindle group will react to the shift at its Omap supplier is not yet clear, but TI has set a direction more deeply into embedded and analog markets.
Related stories:
TI steering OMAP to embedded
AMD lays off 15 percent, eyes embedded push
ST to exit ST-Ericsson in 2013
Micron-Elpida merger would redraw DRAM market
Ten shifts in chips, comms:
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rick.merritt
12/17/2012 11:17 AM EST
What big shifts have you felt this year?
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Kuckoo
12/17/2012 11:34 PM EST
Hate self promotion, but I would like to mention that shifts like ARM a winner in smartphone silicon and mobile cloud becoming a major trend were anticipated in my book "Smartphone" published in December 2011. It also provided details of how Windows world is changing in the post-PC era.
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sranje
12/18/2012 9:45 PM EST
Rick - excellent summary - thank you
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giriscitek
12/18/2012 11:19 PM EST
Micro-Processor design prowess shifting towards ultra-low power design phase.
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