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By Paula Doe, SEMI

The changing market for ICs means the end of business as usual for the greater semiconductor supply chain. Smarter use of data analytics looks like a key strategy to get new products more quickly into high yield production at improved margins.

Emerging IoT market drives change in manufacturing

The emerging IoT market for pervasive intelligence everywhere may be a volume driver for the industry, but it will also put tremendous pressure on prices that drive change in manufacturing. Pressure to keep ASPs of multichip connected devices below $1 to $5 for many IoT low-to-mid end applications, will drive more integration of the value chain, and more varied elements on the die. “The value chain must evolve to be more effective and efficient to meet the price and cost pressures for such IoT products and applications,” suggests Rajeev Rajan, VP of IoT, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, who will speak on the issue in a day-long forum on the future of smart manufacturing in the semiconductor supply chain at SEMICON West 2016 on July 14.

“It also means tighter and more complete integration of features on the die that enable differentiating capabilities at the semiconductor level, and also fewer, smaller devices that reduce the overall Bill of Materials (BOM), and result in more die per wafer.” He notes that at 22nm GLOBALFOUNDRIES is looking to enable an integrated connectivity solution instead of a separate die or external chip. Additional requirements for IoT are considerations for integrating security at the lower semiconductor/hardware layers, along with the typical higher layer middleware and software layers.

This drive for integration will also mean demand for new advanced packaging solutions that deliver smaller, thinner, and simpler form factors. The cost pressure also means than the next nodes will have to offer tangible power/performance/area/cost (PPAC) value, without being too disruptive a transition from the current reference flow. “Getting to volume yields faster will involve getting yield numbers earlier in the process, with increasing proof-points and planning iterations up front with customers, at times tied to specific use-cases and IoT market sub-segments,” he notes.

Rapid development of affordable data tools from other industries may help

Luckily, the wide deployment of affordable sensors and data analysis tools in other industries in other industries is developing solutions that may help the IC sector as well.  “A key trend is the “democratization” – enabling users to do very meaningful learning on data, using statistical techniques, without requiring a Ph.D. in statistics or mathematics,” notes Bill Jacobs, director, Advanced Analytics Product Management, Microsoft Corporation, another speaker in the program. “Rapid growth of statistics-oriented languages like R across industries is making it easier for manufacturers and equipment suppliers to capture, visualize and learn from data, and then build those learnings into dashboards for rapid deployment, or build them directly into automated applications and in some cases, machines themselves.”

Intel has reported using commercially available systems such as Cloudera, Aquafold, and Revolution Analytics (now part of Microsoft) to combine, store, analyze and display results from a wide variety of structured and unstructured manufacturing data. The system has been put to work to determine ball grid placement accuracy from machine learning from automatic comparison of thousands of images to select the any that deviate from the known-good pattern,  far more efficiently than human inspectors, and also to analyze tester parametrics to predict 90% of potential failures of the test interface unit before they happen.

“The IC industry may be ahead in the masses of data it gathers, but other industries are driving the methodology for easy management of the data,” he contends. “There’s a lot that can be leveraged from other industries to improve product quality, supply chain operations, and line up-time in the semiconductor industry.”

Demands for faster development of more complex devices require new approaches

As the cost of developing faster, smaller, lower power components gets ever higher, the dual sourcing strategies of automotive and other big IC users puts even more pressure on device makers to get the product right the first time. “There’s no longer time to learn with iterations to gradually improve the yield over time, now we need to figure out how to do this faster, as well as how to counter higher R&D costs on lower margins,” notes Sia Langrudi, Siemens VP Worldwide Strategy and Business Development,   who will also speak in the program.

The first steps are to recognize the poor visibility and traceability from design to manufacturing, and to put organizational discipline into place to remove barriers between silos. Then a company needs good baseline data, to be able to see improvement when it happens. “It’s rather like being an alcoholic, the first step is to recognize you have a problem,” says Langrudi. “People tell me they already have a quality management system, but they don’t. They have lots of different information systems, and unless they are capturing the information all in one place, the opportunity to use it is not there.”

Other speakers discussing these issues in the Smart Manufacturing Forum at SEMICON West July 14 include Amkor SVP Package Products Robert Lanzone, Applied Materials VP New Markets & Services Chris Moran, Intel VP IoT/GM Industrial Anthony Neal Graves, NextNine US Sales Manager Don Harroll, Optimal+ VP WW Marketing David Park, Qualcomm SVP Engineering Michael Campbell, Rudolph Technologies VP/GM Software Thomas Sonderman, and Samsung Sr Director, Engineering Development, Austin, Ben Eynon.

Learn more about the speakers at the SEMICON West 2016 session “Smart Manufacturing: The Key Opportunities and Challenges of the Next Generation of Manufacturing for the Electronics Value Chain.” To see all sessions in the Extended Supply Chain Forum, click here.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. today announced that STMicroelectronics has qualified and actively deployed the next-generation Cadence Virtuoso platform for its SmartPower technologies. The latest Virtuoso platform successfully enabled ST design engineers to improve custom routing quality and performance and significantly reduce block-planning and pin-optimization time using special pin groups and guide constraints.

In addition to its successes in such areas as sensors, microcontrollers and applications for the Internet of Things (IoT), ST is a worldwide leader in BCD (Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS) Smart Power technologies, utilized to develop ICs for automotive, power management, industrial, consumer and healthcare applications. To address the myriad of complex challenges that come with the development of these types of applications, ST turned to the next-generation Virtuoso platform to improve layout design automation without compromising the highest level of quality and reliability. Furthermore, the mixed-signal design interoperability between the Virtuoso platform and the Cadence Innovus™ Implementation System offers best-in-class floorplanning, pin-optimization and implementation flows that led to a reduction in turnaround time.

In addition to qualifying the next-generation Virtuoso platform for its SmartPower technologies, the ST SmartPower Technology R&D (TR&D) team has also updated its design kits to support the latest Virtuoso platform for production use. This platform also includes the Virtuoso Layout Suite for Electrically Aware Design.

“We have been longtime users of the Virtuoso platform and have a very large user community that trusts the platform to drive the delivery of dozens of production tapeouts each year,” said Pier Luigi Rolandi, director of TR&D Smart Power Design Enablement at STMicroelectronics. “Layout design automation needs to be done in a way that is very seamless to the end user while maintaining highest level of quality, and the next-generation Virtuoso platform does just that. The new platform also enables us to improve designer productivity and effectiveness to ensure that our teams can meet aggressive time-to-market goals.”

As the opening day of SEMICON West (July 12-14) approaches, the electronics manufacturing industry is experiencing disruptive changes, making “business as usual” a thing of the past. To help technical and business professionals navigate this fast-changing landscape, SEMICON West programming has been upgraded extensively ─ increased from 170 hours to 250 hours this year. New brand and deep programming provide insights into the latest megatrends and helps attendees identify new opportunities and refine sound strategic plans.

At this year’s expo, several new forums designed to enhance collaboration within shared communities of interest will debut. Lead by technical experts, top analysts, and leaders from some of the biggest names in electronics, the new forums are generating significant advance interest and buzz, key among them:

  • Advanced Manufacturing Forum: Twelve cutting-edge sessions — from What’s Next in MEMS and Sensors to Power Electronics and 3D Printing — will be presented by Samsung, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, and more. Attendees will learn about new technologies on the horizon and how they impact semiconductor manufacturing.
  • Flexible Hybrid Electronics Forum: Flexible Hybrid Electronics is driving new processes and packages, providing innovative approaches for health-monitoring, wearables, soft robotics, and other next-generation products. Attendees will get details on thinned device processing, system design, reliability testing and modeling from experts at Qualcomm, PARC, and GE Global Research.
  • World of IoT Forum: Forecasters predict that IoT will soon become a $6 trillion market. The World of IoT Forum brings together leading suppliers, integrators, and solution providers at the forefront of innovations in mobility, network-connected devices, and automotive and healthcare applications, among others. Attendees will learn about the trends impacting the market, including big data and analytics, smart things, and MEMS and sensor manufacturing.

With so many disruptive trends driving the market, it is critical for industry professionals to have a clear view of the road ahead. With its vastly expanded technical and business programming, this year’s expo will deliver the strategic insights needed to survive and thrive. To learn more and to register, visit SEMICON West Forums.

Inkjet printing market is in transformation: “Not a revolution, but an evolution,” announces Yole Développement (Yole) in its latest MEMS report, Inkjet Printhead Market & Technology Trends report. And MEMS technology is largely contributing to that changes.

This new Yole’s inkjet printhead report, is gathering technology and market data collected during interviews with system and device manufacturers and equipment & materials suppliers. Under this new technology & market analysis, the consulting company proposes an overview of the MEMS inkjet printhead industry including applications trends, market quantification, list of key players and related market shares. Yole’s analysts detail the printhead industry ecosystem with a relevant competitive analysis and a detailed description of the supply chain. This report also includes a comprehensive technology roadmap.

With a market reaching US$ 1 billion in 2021 (CAGR : 1.8% between 2016 and 2021), the MEMS printhead is one of the most mature MEMS devices.

Without any doubts, MEMS technology is one of the key factor fostering access to new applications and markets. Yole highlights for example the introduction of thin film PZT deposition processes for better control and higher resolution. Industrial companies are also offering better accuracy and scalability of MEMS dies for higher integration first and then to allow single pass printing for high quality and throughput. At the end, the use of semiconductor serial processes directly impacts the printhead price compared to conventional printhead allowing significant cost reduction.
The transition is not only coming from the technology evolution and the MEMS printhead manufacturers (technology push) but also from the market with specific requirements (market pull):

“Today, MEMS technology is not only offering printing capabilities,” asserts Jérôme Mouly, Technology & Market Analyst, Yole. And he adds: “MEMS will create a new ecosystem including services and products around printing from manufacturing to dispensing and IoT.”

Amid this market (r)evolution, MEMS printhead manufacturer landscape has changed in the last 5 years due to high competitiveness in printing industry:
• The industry is today mainly made of large enterprise, led by HP Inc., representing 57% market share followed by Canon and Epson.
• Some companies are currently developing new MEMS-based products. They will give a new leverage to MEMS printead mature market. These companies including XAAR, Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Océ, are already players in conventional printheads sectors

According to Yole’s analysts, the MEMS printhead market is still expected to change in the next period. Yole already sees signs of changes:
• Lexmark sold its inkjet business to Funai in 2013.
• The major players HP Inc., Canon and Epson are diversifying activity from consumer to new printing opportunities.
• Most of the conventional piezo printhead players is more and more interested in MEMS technology to reach new markets

What are inkjet printheads writing in the future? MEMS printhead market will generate revenues combining flat sales coming from consumer market with relatively lower volume with high value printheads. From the technology side, emerging solutions will increase resolution, speed of ink to fire and suppress lead-based actuator materials to more and more environmental solutions. And companies will continue to invest in MEMS technologies using foundry services, to use the foundries’ technical knowledge and optimize manufacturing costs.

A detailed description of the MEMS printhead report is available on i-micronews.com, MEMS & Sensors reports section.

Nanoelectronics research center imec, Holst Centre (set up by imec and TNO) and micro-electronic design house Barco Silex, belonging to the Barco group, today announced that they will collaborate to implement data security into sensors for wearable devices and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor networks. The organizations are coming together to bring data security for the IoT to the next level.

Smart wearables for lifestyle and health monitoring as well as many other personal IoT applications are evolving with a plethora of capabilities at a rapid pace. However, trust is key for a broad adoption and the implementation of a true intuitive IoT society -with sensors invisibly embedded everywhere in the environment, measuring all kind of parameters and making smart decisions- to support everyday life. The smart society can only become a reality when the sensor technology is trusted by their users and the privacy of the users’ data is guaranteed at all time. Data security for the IoT is therefore considered as one of the main challenges to solve.

Current security solutions for IoT are designed for communication within one application domain or network. To realize a higher level of security, novel concepts for authentication, onboarding and end-to-end security in heterogeneous IoT networks are needed. Imec, Holst Centre and Barco Silex’ collaboration aims to leverage the technology and design expertise of imec and Holst Centre with the security IP portfolio of Barco Silex to develop novel chip architectures for secure ultra-low power sensors, and novel security concepts for reliable heterogeneous networks. Barco Silex will deliver the needed embedded security solution including crypto IP blocks to be implemented into imec’s multisensor IC for wearables and imec’s demonstrator platform for IoT. Imec will develop novel compute and memory architectures for minimal overhead of the secure implementation on the overall cost and power consumption of the sensors. In a next step, imec will study the impact of secure communication on throughput, response time and other performance aspects of heterogeneous IoT networks.

“This collaboration is part of a roadmap on a secure and intuitve IoT. Close collaborations with security experts like Barco Silex, but also with excellent research groups from KULeuven and iMinds will offer the imec ecosystem to develop novel and complete solutions for secure wearables and heterogeneous IoT networks. The program is open for new companies to join us on this exciting journey!” stated Kathleen Philips, program director  perceptive systems for an Intuitive IoT at imec.

“We are very pleased to be part of imec’s ambitious R&D program on intuitive IoT.” said Thierry Watteyne, CEO of Barco Silex. “This exciting collaboration is the recognition of the quality and flexibility of our security solutions. In addition it will help our developers to push our embedded security platforms solutions to the next level, especially in terms of optimizing the low power-high security equation within the chip architecture.”

Global unit shipments of smart city devices, which are internet-connected devices used in smart city projects, will increase from 115.4 million in 2015 to 1.2 billion in 2025. Although in 2015 North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific each received approximately one-third of unit shipments, the Asia-Pacific region will receive over half of all device shipments by 2025, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight.

“Unit shipments of smart city devices to Asia Pacific will increase more than shipments to other regions for two main reasons,” said Roz Euan-Smith, senior analyst, smart cities, for IHS Technology. “First, the region’s large population is increasingly moving to cities, which are straining under the increased pressure and demand for resources, creating a clear need for smart city development. Second, several national governments in the region have announced smart city development initiatives that focus on full-city development, not just trials, including India’s 100 Smart Cities program, Singapore’s Smart Nation program, and other initiatives in China and Japan.”

After countries in Asia-Pacific, the United States represents the largest potential market for smart city technology, because of the number of cities and metropolitan areas in the country, according to the recent IHS Smart Cities Devices Report. In September 2015, the White House announced a new smart cities initiative that will invest more than $160 million in federal research funds to bolster the U.S. smart cities market.

Source: IHS, Inc.

Moving to enable makers to make even more than before, STMicroelectronics and Arduino today announced an agreement that brings the STM32 family of microcontrollers (MCU), along with ST’s full portfolio of sensing, power, and connectivity technology, even closer to the Arduino maker community. The first product of the STAR (ST and Arduino) program, the STM32F469-based STAR Otto baseboard, will be demonstrated at the Bay Area Maker Faire, May 20-22, 2016. Now, IoT developers and other makers can build high-performance graphics into their smart devices using accessible hardware and software to improve their applications with easy-to-use touch displays and audio for command and control as well as for media-streaming use cases.

STAR Otto presents to the Arduino environment exceptional performance from the 32-bit STM32F469 MCU, which includes ST’s Chrom-ART graphics accelerator and MIPI DSI display interface along with an open-source software graphics library. Moreover STAR Otto uniquely provides a pre-integrated wireless link and audio capabilities, enabled by an ST MEMS microphone together with the necessary open-source drivers. This efficient and optimized approach lets makers focus on their value-add and makes integration a breeze while enabling a broad range of Smart Home and Smart Industry applications.

In addition to the STAR Otto microcontroller baseboard, the cooperation aims to deliver a range of Arduino shields that expand the functional possibilities. DSI-display and NFC-reader shields are planned for Q2 2016 and a Sensor shield is scheduled to be available in H2 2016. Moreover, several STM32 Nucleo expansion boards and software libraries, including those for environmental sensors and proximity detection, have already been ported to the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and can seamlessly be used with the new STAR Otto baseboard.

“By adding ST’s broad family of STM32 ARM Cortex-M-based microcontrollers to the Arduino universe along with a broad array of ST sensors and other components, makers will have at their fingertips the ability to design, build, and manufacture just about anything,” said Daniel Colonna, Marketing Director, Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “Because of the tremendous enthusiasm within the maker community for Smart Home and Smart Industry applications, we’re supporting those development efforts with our audio- and graphics-friendly STM32F469 MCU and other exciting products from ST broad portfolio.”

“Arduino has grown by encouraging kids – from 10 to 100 years old – to learn electronics and programming to make projects by building on the learnings of others and now we’re excited to add the STM32 family into the Maker community, to broaden learning with new features such as audio input/output and touchscreen display control,” said Federico Musto, CEO & President of Arduino S.r.L. “We fully expect commercial IoT companies to also use these new features to easily design new smart home devices and applications, or improve products that drive industrial automation and control.”

The CEA (Atomic Energy Commission) and Intel are boosting their collaboration through a new R & D agreement signed in Paris on Thursday 12 May. This collaboration, extended to several key areas in digital technology, will enable the two sides to develop a shared R&D program and jointly submit research and innovation projects on a European scale, particularly as regards High Performance Computing (HPC), as part of the Horizon 2020 programme.

The new CEA-Intel agreement involves several strategic research programmes with the teams of the CEA’s Leti Institute in Grenoble, including the Internet of Things, high-speed wireless communication, security technologies and 3D displays. It also means that the two companies will work together to jointly submit projects to Europe’s biggest innovation and research programme, Horizon 2020.

This agreement, concluded for a minimum of five years, concerns the current development of digital technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT), including:

  • The development of new materials in order to further the miniaturisation and adaptability of electronic components used in mobile phones. The nature of these components and their layout are crucially important to the system’s performance, size and cost.
  • The development of wireless communication systems and faster exchanges,
  • The integration of connected objects and the study of low-consumption communication technologies.

After the signature of the agreement in Paris, the director of the CEA’s Leti Institute, Marie-Noelle Semeria, said, “The CEA and Intel have a long history of shared technological development in high-performance computing. This collaboration marks the recognition of the CEA-Leti as one of Europe’s most innovative players in the IoT and the basic technologies of Cloud computing and Big Data. It also increases the attractiveness of the Grenoble Valley in terms of microelectronics.”

According to vice president of the Data Center Group and general manager of the Enterprise and HPC Platform Group Raj Hazra, said, “This announcement expands upon our long standing high performance computing relationship with CEA to drive leading edge innovation in IoT, wireless, and security in the European community.  We look forward to the important innovations and discoveries to come from this collaboration.”

By Jonathan Davis, global VP, Industry Advocacy, SEMI

The 27th annual SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC 2016), opened today (May 17) in Saratoga Springs, New York.  A record-setting 340-plus conference attendees joined this year’s event which focuses on key issues and trends in the manufacture of semiconductors.

Don O’Toole, IBM

Opening keynoter Don O’Toole of IBM’s Watson IoT Alliances & Ecosystem Business Development group highlighted the economic implications of the emerging Internet of Things and discussed how cognitive IoT is driving new business models.  He pointed to significant macroeconomic impacts as well as disruption and necessary change at the micro/strategic level within all enterprises.

In his talk on the “Economics of Things” he said that high-tech firms are challenged to continuously transform their business models and partner ecosystems to keep pace with the quickly evolving nature of business technology. Across industries, companies are turning their focus from traditional business equipment to a new generation of devices that will transform not just the electronics industry but many others.

O’Toole said that companies are moving beyond merely selling connected, intelligent products and services to using cognitive IoT to deliver greatly enhanced customer experiences over the life of their products. He described fundamental change or “liquidification” in the markets for physical goods.

Just as the internet created liquid markets with the digitization of music, news, maps, weather and traffic, the Internet of Things will eliminate physical constraints, structure information and create liquid markets in real estate, manufacturing, agriculture, retail and transportation. A radical repricing of credit and risk will improve financing and reduce “moral hazard,” which, in economic terms, is an information asymmetry that influences risk-taking to leverage lack of transparency.

The primary vectors of IoT to produce both opportunity and disruption will be the creation of new asset marketplaces, improved risk management and greater efficiency.  Fuller visibility and predictability will change market analysis and decision making with significant economic impact.  This characteristic will be apparent in widely varied industries including two that O’Toole profiled as examples: agriculture and real estate.

U.S. commercial real estate is a highly inefficient market in which lack of information transparency and predictability constrains utilization.  O’Toole said there is 12 billion square feet of commercial office space, however, only 67 percent is utilized.  IoT solutions that include sensor technology and user analytics potentially shift profit pools (as some actors benefit from the lack of information transparency), but can produce a $128 billion net economic benefit due to price efficiency and the elimination of shadow markets.

Similarly, agriculture faces high degrees of variability.  Despite significant scientific advancements, crop yields can fluctuate 39% between years, lending the moniker of “legalized gambling” to the farming industry. Employing IoT technologies that leverage sensors, monitoring, drones, cloud-based information systems and data analytics will reduce uncertainties, improve decision making and lead to better deployment of capital assets.  O’Toole estimates that this will produce a 6% decline in farm prices and raise GPD 2%. He cited California wine-maker E.J. Gallo’s ability to decrease water use by 20% as an example of the beneficial impact of cognitive IoT technologies.

While the economic benefits will accrue to multiple industries, high tech and electronics are to be among the greatest beneficiaries of the application of cognitive IoT functions in manufacturing. New ecosystems of customers and partners will develop.  Design and development will necessisarily change to be more agile, with faster prototyping and shorter product lifecycles.  O’Toole sees new value creation with machine-learned cognitive capabilities and natural language interfaces.

O’Toole expects to see far more information sharing between industries. He said that the permutations of ecosystems and industries that devices have to support are making interoperability the biggest challenge in the Internet of Things.

To win in the cognitive IoT era, O’Toole says companies must focus on experience. He offered the following advice:

·         Move from discrete, fixed engineering to continuous engineering

·         Future-proof designs with software-driven feature updates

·         Consider higher value business models that can shift capital expenses to operating expenses

·         Lead product development teams to use design thinking to better understand end-user personas

·         Build stronger relationships with end users by applying cognitive learning technologies to improve product services and experiences.

Other ASMC opening day sessions include contamination free manufacturing, advanced metrology, defect inspection, factory optimization, as well as 37 poster sessions on critical technological topics from representatives from global IC makers, equipment companies and materials providers.

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq:  CY) and Broadcom Limited (Nasdaq:  AVGO) today announced the signing of a definitive agreement under which Cypress will acquire Broadcom’s Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550 million. Under the terms of the deal, Cypress will acquire Broadcom’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem. Broadcom’s IoT business unit, which employs approximately 430 people worldwide, generated $189 million in revenue during the last twelve months. The acquisition strengthens Cypress’s position in key embedded systems markets, such as automotive and industrial, and establishes it as a leader in the high-growth consumer IoT market, a segment that includes wearable electronics and home automation solutions.

The transaction, which has been approved by the board of directors of Cypress and Broadcom, is expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2016, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals. Cypress expects the transaction to be accretive within a year of closing and to improve its gross margin, earnings and long-term revenue potential.

“Cypress is a significant player in the IoT today because of our ultra-low-power PSoC programmable system-on-chip technology, but we’ve only been able to pair it with generic radios so far. Now we have the highly regarded Broadcom IoT business—Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee RF technologies—that will transform us into a force in IoT and provide us with new market opportunities as well,” Cypress President and CEO T.J. Rodgers said. “What we bring to the party is over 30,000 customers worldwide who need advanced, ultra-low-power wireless communication but only can absorb it in the form of an easy-to-use programmable embedded system solution.”

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with Cypress to address the fast growing IoT market,” Broadcom IoT General Manager Stephen DiFranco said. “With our IoT connectivity products, Cypress will be able to provide the connectivity; the MCU, system-on-chip, module and memory technologies; and the mature developer ecosystem that IoT designers require, creating an end-to-end portfolio of embedded solutions and a single IoT design platform.”

Under the terms of the deal, Broadcom will continue to focus on its wireless connectivity solutions for the access and mobility segments that are not IoT related, including serving set-top box, wireless access, smartphone, laptop and notebook customers. Cypress will capitalize on the rapidly growing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity (17% per year1) markets in consumer, industrial and automotive IoT segments.

“The robust, ready-to-scale WICED brand and developer network of module makers, value-added resellers (VARs), technology partners and ODMs who are already working with its technology will give us immediate revenue growth capability in new channels,” Rodgers said. “Cypress will continue to support and grow this network and to provide it with future generations of innovative, disruptive connected products. Cypress will also bring these new technologies to the automotive market, where we are already No. 3 worldwide in microcontrollers and memories, and where the connected car boom has just started.”

Greenhill & Co., LLC served as lead financial advisor, Bank of America Merrill Lynch served as financial advisor and is providing committed debt financing, subject to customary conditions, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati acted as legal counsel to Cypress for this transaction.