有人問我，半導體產(chǎn)業(yè)是否哪里出了問題，不然像是 SiliconBlue 、 PicoChip 等看來不錯、又擁有優(yōu)秀技術(shù)的公司，為何會以低于數(shù)年來所獲得的風險投資還低的金額賤價出售？我并不認為半導體產(chǎn)業(yè)有任何基本上的錯誤，該產(chǎn)業(yè)目前只是進入一個市場與技術(shù)、還有投資者期待的重整階段，在摩爾定律(Moore's Law)走下坡、即將到達終點的狀態(tài)下試圖轉(zhuǎn)型。 過去有許多大廠是利用摩爾定律取得領(lǐng)先的產(chǎn)品性能與降低成本，來取勝于對手；這在過去行得通，起始于某個所有芯片廠商都生產(chǎn)類似的功能區(qū)塊零組件的時期。因此，對于那段時間的芯片廠商來說，附加價值并不在于設(shè)計，而是在于制造專長。 確實在數(shù)年前，摩爾定律的制程微縮結(jié)果，似乎總是能帶來經(jīng)濟上的成功──整合組件制造商(IDM)進展至下一代制程節(jié)點的速度有多快，一款零組件就能多快以更低的價格取得設(shè)計案，也意味著對手廠商能在多快的時間內(nèi)設(shè)計出競爭產(chǎn)品。而且同時間全球電子產(chǎn)業(yè)與半導體市場都是以倍數(shù)成長。 但 現(xiàn)在，我們已經(jīng)非常接近摩爾定律的終點站，而且產(chǎn)品研發(fā)與生產(chǎn)的非重復性工程(non-recurring engineering，NRE)費用，已經(jīng)遠遠高過投資先進制程節(jié)點通?？扇〉玫慕?jīng)濟效益。少數(shù)的例外是那些非常大量生產(chǎn)的組件，例如內(nèi)存、處理器、 FPGA以及一些需求量很高的系統(tǒng)芯片。 還有一個翻天覆地的轉(zhuǎn)變是，對IDM廠商與無晶圓廠芯片業(yè)者來說，現(xiàn)在來自于設(shè)計的 附加價值多于制造。目前大部分芯片廠商都已經(jīng)或多或少達到了相同的CMOS制程節(jié)點，因此要在銷售成績上達成差異化，就是較優(yōu)異的設(shè)計，或者至少取得一家 大客戶的設(shè)計案、確保芯片的起始出貨量。 從另一個角度來看，現(xiàn)在摩爾定律可提供的功能性優(yōu)勢與單位成本優(yōu)勢遞減，但所需付出 的NRE成本卻是呈倍數(shù)增加；對大多數(shù)業(yè)者來說，是時候該走下摩爾定律“手扶梯”了。投資1,000~5,000萬美元就能以2.5億美元賣掉一家公司并 不值得驚訝，因為現(xiàn)在我們的成本與交易價值已經(jīng)翻轉(zhuǎn)。有些風險投資業(yè)者花了1億到5億美元，卻只能收回5,000萬美元，無怪乎這些風險投資業(yè)者最近幾年 紛紛轉(zhuǎn)頭離去，而不是繼續(xù)關(guān)注類似的投資機會。 好消息是，這種狀況的解決之道是明確的，而且已經(jīng)獲得全世界半導體廠商的接 受；有人稱之為“超越摩爾定律(More-than-Moore)”。在 2011年，國際半導體技術(shù)藍圖(The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors，ITRS)發(fā)表了一份內(nèi)容出色的白皮書，指出包括醫(yī)療照護、交通與能源等方面的部分應(yīng)用，將會受益于“超越摩爾定律”，而非制程微縮。 而雖然如ITRS所言，其它在安全、通訊、車用信息娛樂等方面的應(yīng)用也能獲益于單芯片上的數(shù)十億個晶體管，但顯然只有一到兩家很少數(shù)的公司能夠主導足以平衡所需成本的龐大芯片數(shù)量。因此對多數(shù)新創(chuàng)公司來說，關(guān)鍵就是該準備擺脫摩爾定律，自由出走了。 何不給你自己一個不再使用先進制程技術(shù)的成本優(yōu)勢，也別總只是在數(shù)字芯片上嘗試或推一些普遍常見的通訊標準等等；總而言之，傳統(tǒng)的創(chuàng)新都是來自于聰明的設(shè)計，以及在系統(tǒng)層級的功能方面做徹底的改善。這是也就是例如InvenSense (最近已IPO)這樣的公司以MEMS慣性傳感器與導航組件所做出的創(chuàng)新，還有游戲機廠商任天堂(Nintendo)以Wii體感控制為世界帶來的驚奇。 值 得注意的還包括，有不少MEMS廠商都能喊出不錯的收購價格。例如村田制作所(Murata Manufacturing)最近宣布已同意用200億日圓(約1.9億歐元或2.6億美元)并購芬蘭廠商VTI Technologies；以及Maxim Integrated Products以1.3億美元將SensorDynamics收歸旗下。 我們確實已經(jīng)看不到如過去十年的前半段時間發(fā)生之相同規(guī)模的風險投資案，但好點子依舊會獲得支持；這是因為無論如何，以其廣泛的表現(xiàn)形式來看，硅芯片、半導體與電子技術(shù)仍然是創(chuàng)造財富、提升全世界人類福祉的最佳途徑。 編譯：Judith Cheng 本文授權(quán)編譯自EE Times，版權(quán)所有，謝絕轉(zhuǎn)載 參考英文原文： Why the semiconductor industry will rise again，by Peter Clarke

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{pagination} Why the semiconductor industry will rise again Peter Clarke People ask me is there something wrong with the semiconductor industry if apparently good companies with good technologies such as SiliconBlue Technologies Inc. and PicoChip Ltd. are being sold for less than the venture capital invested in them over several years. I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the semiconductor industry – but it is in a process of resetting approaches to the market and technology, expectations of investors and transforming itself from something that was just hitching a ride down the escalator of Moore's Law in a race towards the bottom. What had happened is that many protagonists had got hooked on Moore's Law as a way to get superior performance and reduced unit cost and therefore as a way of making sales by displacing their rivals. This made sense in the past and started in a time when chip companies all made similar building-block components. So, for those chip companies back in the day, the added value was not in the design but in the manufacturing expertise. And indeed years ago the miniaturization that resulted from Moore's Law always seemed to bring economic success. The faster an integrated device manufacturer could get to the next manufacturing process node the more quickly a component could be designed-in through lower pricing and the faster a rival's component could be designed out. And it was also accompanied by exponential increases in the global electronics and semiconductor markets. But now we are getting very close the atomic bottom of that escalator and the non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs of research and production are going up far more than can be routinely justified by the economic benefit of working at those leading-edge geometries. The few exceptions are the very high volume mass-produced devices such as memories, processors, FPGAs and some high volume system-chips. And another flip around is that for IDMs and the fabless the added value is now more in the design than the manufacturing. Most companies are more or less able to get to the same CMOS process node and what makes a difference in sales is likely to be a superior design, or at least a design-win with a big system partner which guarantees the initial volume of chips. Getting off the Moore's Law escalator Another way of looking at it is that riding Moore's Law now offers diminishing functional benefits and unit cost benefits but has demanded exponentially increasing NRE costs. For most people it is time to step of the escalator. It should be no surprise that instead of spending $10 million or $50 million and being able to sell a company for $250 million we now have cost and deal values flipped around. Venture capital firms have spent $100 million to $500 million and more and in some cases can only realize $50 million in value. No wonder those VC firms started running away from rather than towards similar investment opportunities in recent years. The good news is that the solution is clear and is being adopted around the world. Some call it More-than-Moore. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) produced an excellent white paper in 2011 that pointed out that some applications based around health, transport and energy really benefit from More-than-Moore rather than from miniaturization. And while it is true that ITRS said other applications in security, communications and infotainment can take benefit from billions of transistors on a die it is clear that only one or two companies will be able to command the volumes to justify the cost. Therefore for most startups the key is to be prepared to get off the crutch of Moore's Law and walk free. Give yourselves a cost advantage by NOT working at the leading-edge and don't routinely just try and push some generally available communications standard or other into digital silicon. It comes down to good old fashioned innovation born of being smart in design and radical in terms of the system-level functional improvement delivered. That's what companies such as InvenSense Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) – a recent IPO – have done with MEMS-based inertial measurement and navigation components and what Nintendo did with the Wii control baton. It is what PrimeSense Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel) did with the optical and infra-red vision system that is at the heart of the Microsoft Kinetic system. It is what scores of other startups are doing and it is one of the reasons I am not overly concerned about a lack of investment in semiconductors. It is also noticable that a number of MEMS acquisitions have commanded good exit prices. Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has announced it has agreed to buy VTI Technologies Oy (Vantaa, Finland) for about 20 billion yen (about 190 million euro or $260 million) in cash and SensorDynamics AG went to Maxim Integrated Products Inc. for about $130 million. It is true we are not seeing the same amounts of venture capital invested overall as we did in the first half of the last decade, but good ideas continue to get backing. And this is because silicon, semiconductors and electronics in their broadest manifestations are still a great way to create wealth and improve the well-being of the world.