Globalizer

  Today I read an excellent article from semiconductor fabtech to analyze TI's transformation. TI will close KFAB and move equipments into analog fabs to increase analog chip capacity. TI will become fabless in digital and IDM in analog. here, I don't want to make comments on TI's strategy, but I would like to talk about the influence on semiconductor industry of this trend (maybe it's a new trend for IDM giants).

  1) If more and more IDM giants turn into fabless, who will be affected most?

  for foundries like TSMC, UMC, etc, it's a good news to see TI's transformation. obviously their fabs' utilization will go higher. but for IC design startups and SMEs, it's not a good news. if more and more IDMs outsource manufacturing business to foundries, there are no spare foundry capacities to satisfy small design houses. unwittingly, extra cost will be added on these small firms and furtherly impact their survival in this intense industry. I think executives in chip design startup and SME should pay attention to this problem and make smart strategy.

  2) which model is good for next generation semiconductor industry?

  when technology node overcome 90nm, 65nm and more, the development and manufacturing cost soar tremendously. many IDMs can't afford it. so alliance and manufacturing outsourcing are good ways to reduce the cost. but I think these IDMs should be bolder and must not be a fence-sitter! in my humble opinion, one hand, IDM needs to build solid alliance for process development; on the other hand, oursource manufacturing to foundries or spin off manufacturing business to be an independent foundry business. as a result, alliance can guarantee seamless DFM(design for manufacturing) and foundry can save big investment on equipments and cleanroom. I think this model is a sustainable way. 

 3) foundry's market positioning

  if the above 2nd point becomes true, it's very important for foundry to position itself. ask yourself, will you serve fabless giants or fabless SMEs? in a sense, foundry's strategy will decide the future of semiconductor industry.

  Last one, independent research organizations will play a very important role. I hope more IMEC-like institutions will come up.