Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Dr. William Keating is a highly experienced senior executive with over 25 years experience in the IT/Semiconductor Industry. The majority of Dr. Keating's career was spent at Intel Corporation where he held senior leadership positions in Europe, the US and Asia from 1992 through 2014. He served as Intel's IT Director for APAC, China & Japan from 2005 through 2014 when he was based in Hong Kong and was responsible for the IT systems (Infrastructure, Networks, Data Centres, ERP, Sales & Marketing systems, Business Intelligence etc. ) for all of Intel's offices & factories through the region. From 1998 through 2005, he was the founder & director of an internal IT Consulting Organisation (IT Flex Services), a 500-person team which remains a core part of the Intel IT Organisation to this day. Dr. Keating's first 6 years at Intel were spent in charge of the Factory Automation Systems (Robotics, Databases, Networks, Servers, Clients etc.) supporting Intel's then state-of-the-art 200mm factory network. Since leaving Intel in 2014, Dr Keating established his own Technology Research & Consulting Company (www.ingenuity.hk) where he focuses on the products, roadmaps & technologies of companies such as Intel, AMD, Samsung, Apple, Micron- as well as the key equipment suppliers to those companies e.g. ASML, AMAT, Canon, Nikon etc. Dr. Keating specializes in niche topics of high significance within the semiconductor industry. These include the future of Moore's Law and in particular the significance of Lithography in maintaining Moore's Law (EUV, SDA, NanoImprint), the role & growth of the GPU in specialised applications such as Deep Learning (Neural Networks) for Voice, Image & Pattern recognition at companies such as Facebook, Google & Baidu. He also holds regular discussions on the future of memory, in particular the rise of 3D NAND and the emergence of new memory technologies such as 3D Xpoint.

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

Global Semiconductor Sales Fall In November 2018. This Is Not A Good Sign.

Sharp MoM Decline In January Semi WFE Sales Casts A Spanner In Second Half Recovery Works.

Semiconductor WFE Billings Decline Reverses Course in December, First Bullish Signal in Six Months

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Canada Semiconductors and semiconductor equipment / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<p>Semiconductor sales for March 2019 amounted to $32.3 billion, down 1.8% sequentially, but substantially less than the greater than 7% MoM declines for each of the previous three months.  Meanwhile, North American Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE) sales for March fell 1.9% sequentially to reach $1.83 billion, the second month in a row of relatively modest MoM declines.</p><p>While these key data points strongly suggest a stabilisation in the broader semiconductor environment, it has yet to translate into any real growth. Indeed, on their earnings call last week, WFE bellwether <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/1116" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1116:1">Lam Research </a>forecast a further revenue decline of 3.6% in their June quarter and remained adamant that they hold out no prospects of a recovery in the all-important memory segment of their business in 2019. </p>

Semiconductor sales for March 2019 amounted to $32.3 billion, down 1.8% sequentially, but substantially less than the greater than 7% MoM declines for each of the previous three months.  Meanwhile, North American Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE) sales for March fell 1.9% sequentially to reach $1.83 billion, the second month in a row of relatively modest MoM declines.While these key data points strongly suggest a stabilisation in the broader semiconductor environment, it has yet to translate into any real growth. Indeed, on their earnings call last week, WFE bellwether Lam Research forecast a further revenue decline of 3.6% in their June quarter and remained adamant that they hold out no prospects of a recovery in the all-important memory segment of their business in 2019. 

Latest Semiconductor & WFE Sales Data Implies Stabilising Environment Though Recovery Still Eludes