Monetizing Semiconductors: From Silicon to Services

In 2016, Rambus published a think piece titled “Charting a New Course for Semiconductors.” The paper explored a diverse range of challenges faced by the industry, including increasing development costs, shrinking margins, market saturation and accelerating M&A activity. These challenges have only become more pronounced in 2018, as the newly consolidated semiconductor industry actively seeks a return to stability and organic growth within a viable and collaborative business paradigm.

Consequently, companies are beginning to acknowledge the potential of new markets and downstream revenue opportunities as they explore a more comprehensive “silicon to services” model that spans the data center to the mobile edge. More specifically, with eroding ASPs and increasingly prohibitive design costs at ever lower nodes, many companies are searching for fresh revenue streams across a wide range of verticals comprising the Internet of Things (IoT). However, with the IoT install base expected to increase by about 15 to 20 percent annually through 2020, security is currently perceived as both a major opportunity and a considerable challenge for the semiconductor industry