Industry Expert Blogs

Ron Collett
EETimes (5/10/2011 12:06 PM EDT)

Rumors of the SoC's impending death have been popping up in the semiconductor and systems industries. Are they exaggerated? Not entirely. A decreasing number of companies are investing in system-on-chips (SoCs). Likewise, the number of concurrent SoC projects that typical R&D organizations can undertake is shrinking. The reason: soaring design cost and poor schedule predictability.That makes SoC development increasingly difficult to justify. But does this foreshadow the SoC's complete demise? I doubt it, but these factors will surely chase more players from the market and drive greater use of alternative solutions.