Survey: Asia uses more-complex chip design

A survey Friday indicated that Asia's semiconductor engineers are more often working with complex designs, in particular microprocessors of 32 bits or higher.

Global Sources said the results of its annual poll of Asian engineers indicated that a trend toward specialization by China's chip industry was continuing with 55 percent working on 32-bit chips this year compared to 49 percent in 2005.

The survey of 547 respondents in China, India, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea was conducted by Global Source's publication EE Times-Asia and Gartner Inc.

"System designers still comprise the largest category of mainland China respondents at 44 percent, but the proportion is significantly lower than last year's 57 percent," said EE Times Publisher Mark Saunderson. "Forty-two percent of mainland China engineers now focus on software and firmware design."

Consumer electronics, communications and industrial equipment were the leading areas for chip designers in Asia.

The survey also found an increasing use of third-party cores to help reduce project costs and timelines.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International