Fabless design: Got any problem with that?

The past decade has seen a tremendous growth in fabless design companies which have been able to offer new products in the communication and electronic application market without bearing the high costs associated with a manufacturing infrastructure. On the other hand, foundries have been able to meet that demand with a large range of Silicon processes — from low cost to high performance devices. This relationship has worked out very well in the entire semiconductor industry as new demand has been met by new faster devices; and new faster devices have enabled more integration and more complexity, making Silicon the first choice in areas that were dominated by compound semiconductors just a handful of years ago. Is this symbiotic relationship coming to an end or is it getting stronger? Moore's law has paced the speed in device innovation so far, but now improvements are getting harder and harder to achieve — and the fabrication cost for fabless innovators is sky-rocketing. Access to the latest technology can be prohibitive for many design teams and process innovation is becoming an ever more expensive proposition. The foundry business is dominated by a few large companies, whose operation and choices may affect the whole world. Further, the technological knowledge concentrates where the fabs are located, consolidating the manufacturing business to a limited number of locations. Is there still room for fabless start-ups to grow in this environment? Is this business for big players only? Or should the small players just resign to considering a foundry a commodity, focus on integration of more and more functionality and passively observe how the technology evolves? Our panelist will take this discussion from here and they will give the audience new perspectives on what the future may bring to the fabless design industry.