Semiconductor Innovation in an Investment Constrained Economy
Updated: 2012-02-29 18:54:27
The current innovation climate in the semiconductor industry is alive and well but entrepreneurs have to adjust to the realities of the current economic situation and investment trends. The world's governmental economic development agencies have always looked at Silicon Valley with envy and paid big money to try to find the key which would unlock the secrets

An implantable sensor that provides surgeons with detailed, real-time information from a surgery site could lead to more accurate assessments of a patient’s recovery.
Developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by Faculty Researcher Eric Ledet, the sensor is attached to commonly used orthopaedic musculoskeletal implants such as rods, plates or prostheses. Scalable, tunable and easy to configure, [...]
Clearly one of the market trends proving troublesome in the traditional ASIC value chain is the lack of silicon correlated custom IP. And make no mistake, semiconductor IP is a critical decision since it drives both chip level and system level technology differentiation. Under the traditional ASIC model, vendors had their own IP, silicon-proven and tuned to their own fabs. This was a good thing as it assured a fast ramp to volume and more predictable yield curves. The downside was that IP catalogs were somewhat limited which constrained product differentiation. And now a staggering 49 fabs were shut down in 2009-11 as traditional ASIC vendors and IDMs continue to go fabless. View the full article HERE