news review
Bellwether market for power management semiconductor chips rebounds
AFTER a drastic decline in the last three months of 2011, the market for power management semiconductors recovered somewhat at the beginning of 2012. The last quarter has seen even better growth, driven primarily by an expansion in the consumer and industrial sectors.
According to the “IHS iSuppli Power Management Tracker” report, revenue for power management
semiconductors will reach $8.0 billion in the second quarter, up 6.7 % from $7.5 billion in the first quarter.
IHS believes this increase is the first palpable sign of growth since industry revenue plunged sharply at the end of last year. The market had enjoyed seven straight quarters of growth until the fourth quarter of 2011, when sequential revenue plummeted by a sizable 10.7 %, as shown in the figure below.
However, the market has been on the mend since then, posting flat revenue at the start of the year but not declining further. The projected increase for the second quarter is also expected to continue in the second half of this year. IHS says total power management semiconductor revenue for 2012 is
expected to reach $32.8 billion, up 2.8 % from $31.9 billion last year. And although conditions this year will be weaker compared to the strong growth of 2009 and 2010, at least no losses are projected on a yearly basis in 2012. “Power management semiconductors are employed in a broad range of products, with devices ranging from computers, to cell phones, to energy systems all requiring management of their electrical supplies,” says Marijana Vukicevic, senior principal analyst for power management at IHS.
“The rising emphasis on portable electronic devices, including the booming sales of media tablets and smartphones, is highlighting the importance of power management semiconductors, which are
essential for achieving the heat dissipation, weight and size requirements for such products.” IHS notes that due to seasonality variations, the power management market usually experiences a decline in the fourth quarter of each year. However, the scale of the contraction in the fourth quarter last year was a serious indication of an especially depressed market for these semiconductors.
Several conditions had conspired to bring about the decline. Including, the disruption to manufacturing after the Japan earthquake-tsunami disaster in March and then the heavy floods in Thailand during October. A worldwide slowdown in consumer spending and a pullback in many government-run and supported programs also made matters worse. So, by the end of last year, a decline in growth had been experienced by almost all power management semiconductor markets.
Now though, growth is expected to continue in another area where power management semiconductors have been strong. This is in the industrial electronics and alternative energy (covering wind, solar and geothermal applications) markets.
Jury award $123 million against Mitsubishi
A SILICON VALLEY jury has found Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc. guilty of violating an April 2001 non- disclosure agreement with a small technology company, Grail Semiconductor, Inc. The case involved pioneering technology for a unique memory chip design sold by Mitsubishi’s sister company Renesas Electronics Corporation of Tokyo, Japan.
After a three week trial and 4 days of deliberation, the 12 person jury found that Mitsubishi had illegally used and disclosed Grail’s confidential technical information for an inductive-capacitive memory chip to its affiliate Mitsubishi-Japan and to the jointly-owned Japanese company, Renesas, awarding $123,898,889 in damages to Grail. Renesas is one of the
6
www.siliconsemiconductor.net Issue 2 2012
world’s largest manufacturers of memory chips with annual sales topping $8 billion.
The two Renesas products at issue in the case are its SUPER SRAM (also known as Advanced Low Power SRAM) and it’s embedded MONOS-FLASH microcontroller units (MCU’s). Annual
sales of the two product families exceed $4 billion.
“This is a great victory for the little guy against companies like Mitsubishi and Renesas, who, in this case, decided to simply take technology rather than pay for it” said Raymond P. Niro of Niro, Haller & Niro, lead trial counsel in the case.
Attorney’s fees and prejudgment interest could be added to the $123,898,889 judgment. “We feel vindicated” said Ron Hofer, CEO of Grail: “the real impact of this case could be a possible injunction against the Mitsubishi companies and Renesas prohibiting use of our technology.” Grail also has a separate suit against Renesas for patent infringement pending in Federal Court in San Francisco.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40