CCID: China’s IC Market worth US$79.53 bn in 2007
According to CCID Consulting, a leading market research company in China, China’s IC market pulled in sales revenue of 562.37 billion Yuan (approximately US$79.53 billion) in 2007, up 28.6% over 2006.
Three major fields ---- computer, consumer and network communications ---- accounted for 88.1% of China’s IC market in 2007, with computer products taking the largest market share. Despite a reduction in printer output, the notebook PC market saw rapid development, driving fast growth in China’s computer IC market in 2007, for a growth rate of over 20%.
In the network-communications IC market, demand for mobile phones and other products drove communications products up, for an overall growth rate of 19.2%. With a decrease in the output of complete systems, growth in the consumer IC market was 15.6%. Interestingly, although growth in the auto electronics market has been slowing, it achieved growth of 38.2% in 2007.
Memory accounted for the largest share of the IC market. Although the prices of memory products showed huge fluctuations, driven by NAND Flash and DRAM, and as supply exceeded demand for DRAM products, DRAM products exhibited a sharp fall in price in 2007. CPUs and embedded processors maintained higher growth rates. Affected by price reductions and waning demand, growth in the analog IC segment slowed.
There were no changes in the ranking of the top four manufacturers in China’s IC market. Intel still accounted for the largest market share. Although affected by price reductions for DRAM products, Samsung and Hynix performed well. Affected by price reductions in analog ICs, however, TI’s growth rate slowed.
With better representation in flash memory and the consumer market, Toshiba rather than AMD ranked fifth. In an inferior position in its competition with Intel, AMD saw a reduction in market share. With better representation in mobile phones, MTK successfully entered China’s top ten enterprises. Affected by price reductions in DRAM, Qimonda was not in the list of China’s top ten enterprises in 2007.
With a slowdown in the transfer of production capacity and growth in the output of finished products gradually decreasing, China’s IC market has been seeing a continuous decrease. However, China’s IC market will reach a peak in 2008, and the rate of growth will exceed that of last year.
Major factors driving higher growth in 2008 include the 2008 Olympics, and the application of digital TV and 3G. However, the output of complete systems will stay at a high level, and the IC market will see a trend towards saturation. Therefore, China’s IC market will slow in the future.
China Digital TV, Intel collaborate on CA solution
China Digital TV Holding Co., Ltd., a leading provider of conditional access (“CA”) systems to China’s rapidly growing digital television market, is to collaborate with Intel Corporation on the development of advanced digital television products.
Under the terms of the agreement, China Digital TV and Intel Corporation will cooperate to enable China Digital TV’s CA solution to use the Intel CE 2110 Media Processor.
“Advanced, high-definition technology is the future of China’s digital television industry, and we are pleased to take the next step with Intel to bring next-generation digital television solutions to market in China,” said Jianhua Zhu, China Digital TV’s chief executive officer.
Zhu added that, “Intel’s unmatched expertise in chip design coupled with our local knowledge and extensive partnerships with set-top box manufacturers creates a unique opportunity for us to bring the most advanced, highly secure and reliable digital home entertainment products to China. This collaboration also allows our experienced R&D team to leverage its talents with the world’s premier provider of chip technology, and we look forward to deepening our relationship with Intel.”
Mr. Zhu added that the relationship fits with the company’s strategy of expanding into value-added services that will require more advanced processing capabilities, as it prepares for increased digital television penetration in China.China Digital TV will modify its CA software to run optimally on the Intel CE 2110 Media Processor, a complete system-on-chip that features an advanced processing unit supporting MPEG-2 and H.264 hardware video decoders, a DDR2 memory interface and 2D/3D graphics accelerators. The cooperation will allow China Digital TV to package its CA software with the Intel CE 2110 Media Processor to sell to China’s set top box manufacturers. The integrated solution will enhance the system’s ability to encrypt and decrypt signals for digital television systems.
Founded in 2004, China Digital TV is a leading provider of conditional access (“CA”) systems to China’s rapidly growing digital television market. CA systems enable television network operators to manage the delivery of customized content and services to their subscribers. China Digital TV conducts its CA-related business through its subsidiary, Beijing Super TV Co., Ltd., and its affiliate, Beijing Novel-Super Digital TV Technology Co., Ltd., and its value-added services business through its subsidiary, Beijing Novel-Super Media Investment Co., Ltd.
For more information, please visit the Investor Relations section of China Digital TV’s website at http://ir.chinadtv.cn.
Synopsys, SMIC deliver enhanced 90nm design flow
Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in software for semiconductor design and manufacturing, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), a leading semiconductor foundry in China, have released an enhanced 90-nanometer hierarchical, multi-voltage RTL-to-GDSII reference design flow that benefits from advanced synthesis, design-for-test (DFT) and design-for-manufacturing (DFM) capabilities. Key features of the reference flow include topographical synthesis in the Design Compiler Ultra product, scan compression in the DFT MAX product and critical area analysis in the IC Compiler place-and-route product. Together these capabilities help to lower the cost of implementing and testing systems-on-chip (SoCs).
“We have worked closely with Synopsys to enhance our 90-nanometer reference flow. The latest iteration builds upon the previous flow’s low power consumption, DFT and DFM capabilities,” said Paul Ouyang, senior fellow of Marketing & Sales at SMIC. “The new flow reduces synthesis iterations and lowers test costs, providing our customers a path to significant cost savings and lower design risk.”
The enhanced reference design flow 3.2, based on SMIC’s 90-nm low-leakage process and Synopsys’ Pilot Design Environment, has been validated on Synopsys’ Galaxy Design Platform with the ARM low power design kit developed for SMIC’s 90-nm process. The reference flow uses Design Compiler Ultra topographical technology to accurately predict post-layout timing, power and area during synthesis, thereby reducing costly design iterations between synthesis and layout. Advanced capabilities for low power design include insertion and placement optimization of isolation cells, creation of multiple voltage areas and power meshes, and synthesis of multiple voltage-aware clock trees.
To help reduce standby leakage, the design flow utilizes power gating techniques that shut off areas of the chip when they are not needed for a function. DFT MAX synthesizes scan compression circuits that substantially lower costs by decreasing the data and time required for manufacturing test. The tool reduces the number of scan chain connections that cross voltage domains, lowering the area impact of DFT by reducing the number of required level shifters and isolation cells.
Commented Rich Goldman, VP of Strategic Market Development at Synopsys, “Our work with SMIC enables us to provide the right advanced tools and techniques required by our joint customers to deliver first-pass silicon success.”
Reference Design Flow 3.2 is available now.
SMIC has a website at www. smics.com, and Synopsys at www.synopsys.com.
CEVA, NBICC add China’s AVS standard to codec portfolio
CEVA, Inc., a leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, is to collaborate with the Ningbo CAS (Chinese Academy of Science) IC Design Center (NBICC) to add China’s Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) to the portfolio of codecs available for CEVA’s MM2000 programmable multimedia platform. The addition of AVS to CEVA’s multimedia software offering for the Mobile-Media family will allow SoC designers to target emerging AVS based applications with highly competitive products for the Chinese market.
AVS is China’s national audio/video codec standard and offers a cost-effective alternative to the industry’s rival advanced standards such as H.264 and VC-1. Initial deployments of AVS-based applications in China are targeting IPTV services, where China Netcom, one of the country’s largest wired-telecom companies, selected AVS for their IPTV deployment. Other applications for AVS include mobile TV and portable multimedia players.
The implementation of the NBICC AVS codec on CEVA’s fully programmable MM2000 platform will enable both new and existing customers to rapidly develop and deploy AVS-based products. For MM2000 customers, the AVS codec can be licensed and implemented on their MM2000 based application processors via a simple software upgrade, without requiring any modifications to the hardware. With the addition of the AVS standard to its portfolio of codecs, CEVA’s MM2000 platform now supports the most video codecs of any fully programmable multimedia solution, including H.264, MPEG4, DivX, RealVideo, H.263 and VC-1.
“CEVA’s decision to add our AVS codec software to their fully programmable multimedia platform offering is an important step in the promotion of the AVS standard in China,” said Wang Honglong, product marketing manager of NBICC. “NBICC was an early member of the AVS Workgroup and we are a strong believer in the technical benefits and market potential of the standard. We are pleased to cooperate with CEVA to allow SoC designers, and their ODM/OEMs customers, to accelerate the development and deployment of AVS-based applications.”
The CEVA Mobile-Media family is designed around a single DSP core without requiring any accelerators or dedicated engines for video processing, and is supported by development tools.
These two factors simplify the software development process and minimize development time for multimedia products. In addition, the general-purpose open DSP core at the heart of the Mobile-Media solution enables designers to integrate extra functionality in addition to video on the same solution.
