The cloud imperative for the semiconductor industry
November 9, 2020
RESEARCH REPORT
In brief
In brief
- Cloud is not new to the semiconductor industry, however implementation of this technology for semiconductor companies has been a slow adoption.
- We found 5 market trends where cloud is impacting the semiconductor industry, including cybersecurity, product portfolio and reduced workforce.
- In the past 5 years, the industry has tripled its market cap to $2 trillion, but will need to implement major change to stay on pace for growth.
An innovative industry with reluctance to change
The semiconductor industry is not new to cloud technology, in fact this game-changing industry has helped other sectors become the major disruptors that they are today. However, the semiconductor industry has been slow the cloud technology that they help develop into their own functions.
Chip-makers concerns over security or innovation capacity have made cloud adoption a barrier some companies. Accenture is aware of these concerns and today’s mature cloud solutions offers features like enhanced security and automation technologies that go beyond on-site systems.
Solutions presented in this research detail best-practices to unlock cost savings, tap into strategic advantages and leverage the power of cloud.
Cloud driven market trends
The cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry can make moving into new businesses a challenge especially when facing a repeating market force. Based on our research, these trends have been identified as leading factors for cloud implementation.
Market trends in the semiconductor industry are driving the need for cloud transformation.
Unlocking the benefits of cloud now
Implementing cloud technology can be a major benefit for IC manufacturing but emerging business begs for a more customized approach. Across the industry, cloud offers organization-wide strategic benefits. There are 8 primary benefits that have been revealed, but here are a few starters.
Transparency
Enable increased visibility and detailed service consumption metrics to drive better business consumption and cost stewardship.
Innovation
Cloud-accelerated innovation for semiconductor capabilities providing the highest levels of reliability and fastest pace of innovation.
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Potential applications across the ecosystem
The semiconductor industry ecosystem is unlike any other in tech. For example, the lines between competitors and collaborator is blurred so that when one part of the relationship harnesses the power of cloud, others in the chain stand to benefits.
IP Designers
These companies don’t produce physical products, so cloud is a powerful, affordable tool for handling and analyzing engineering and data-driven tasks.
Fabless Manufacturers
Hardware companies are familiar with cloud, but they stand to save even more by moving infrastructure functions to the cloud.
Equipment Manufacturers
IP security is fundamental for manufacturers who thrive on collecting, storing and analyzing data to improve processes.
Engineering Design Automation
Currently, the most advanced in cloud implementation, require the analytical power and cost savings to maintain their heavy IT workloads.
Foundries
Leveraging the cloud to store and analyze data can help make information readily available for more intuitive production and performance analysis.
IDMs
Similar to fabless and foundries, IDMs benefit by handling their heavy IT and managing manufacturing workloads in the cloud.
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No time to wait
Innovation is currency and there’s no need to accept various aspects of the semiconductor industry that are not thriving. However, there is only so much to go around a company’s structure and capabilities. Cloud is the key to accelerate the pace of innovation for the future and there are four steps that semiconductor companies can take to begin the transformation.
Start by defining clear business objective across each of the cloud value horizons
Design a sourcing strategy for cloud, deciding which processes to keep running on-premise and which to migrate
Assess your current applications for cloud readiness and decide which to re-platform, discard, or migrate as-is
Develop an operating model that encourages the use of analytics and new ways of working
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Accenture is investing $3 billion over the next three years to enable our clients to rapidly become CLOUD FIRST businesses.
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