• Semiconductor Innovation in an Investment Constrained Economy

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    The current innovation climate in the semiconductor industry is alive and well but entrepreneurs have to adjust to the realities of the current economic situation and investment trends. The world's governmental economic development agencies have always looked at Silicon Valley with envy and paid big money to try to find the key which would unlock the secrets

  • Geo Semiconductor

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    Geo Semiconductor was officially formed in May 2009 as a fabless chip company through the acquisition of major IC business lines and key pieces of the IP portfolio of Silicon Optix, including the Realta and the Geo ICs, patents, inventory, software, development systems, customers and brands.

  • Intel Reorganization Shuffle, Consolidates Architecture Unit

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    Intel went into reorganization mode as as the head of its largest business unit leaves the Santa Clara company to become a top manager at data storage company EMC.

  • Semiconductor Stock Price Rally: What Next?

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    Recently, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) raised its third-quarter guidance. The company anticipates revenues to be about $9 billion, versus its previous forecast of $8.5 billion. Gross margins are expected to be about 53%, with more upside than downside likely to the projection.

  • Symwave

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    Founded in 2001, Symwave has quietly forged ahead as a fabless chip company headquartered in the Los Angeles area with a line of next generation USB and FireWire Serial PHY devices.

  • ChipStart Expands Global Operations

    Updated: 2012-03-31 17:15:06
    ChipStart, a value-added reseller of analog and digital semiconductor IP has expanded global operations and has named several EDA veterans to the team.

  • Mentor Embedded Linux Platform Supports Yocto Project

    Updated: 2012-03-30 18:56:58
    Mentor Graphics rolled out the latest release of the Mentor Embedded Linux platform. The latest version of the Mentor Embedded Linux platform supports the Yocto Project, which is an open source collaborative project established by The Linux Foundation. Mentor Graphics is a key contributor to the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded community. Read more: Mentor Embedded [...]

  • Organic Thin-Film Transistors Developed in Japan May Benefit Electronic Medical Implantables

    Updated: 2012-03-30 16:58:07
    Because of their mechanical flexibility, organic transistors have tremendous potential to improve the functionality of pacemakers, hearing aids and related medical devices, but the sensitivity to heat and the power requirements of conventional transistors pose an obstacle. Japanese researchers say they have found a work-around. Organic thin-film transistors typically cannot withstand sterilisation at high temperatures. Moreover, [...]

  • When Intel Didn't Know The Importance Of Microprocessors

    Updated: 2012-03-30 13:26:23
    Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners When Intel Didn't Know The Importance Of Microprocessors By David Manners on March 30, 2012 2:26 PM No Comments No TrackBacks At the 1996 Microprocessor Forum Intel Founder , Chairman , and CEO Gordon Moore described the genesis of the . microprocessor Back in 1970, recounted Moore Intel had already identified calculators as a potential new product category when it was approached by the Japanese firm Busicom who was keen to enter the scientific calculator market . Busicom brought with it seven custom circuits for a calculator design . Intel was busy doing memory we didn't have the engineering bandwidth to do the seven circuits said Moore So Ted Hoff got involved in evaluating the design . He saw that it all could be

  • The Hassle-Free Data Dongle

    Updated: 2012-03-30 00:36:18
    Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners The Hassle-Free Data Dongle By David Manners on March 30, 2012 1:36 AM No Comments No TrackBacks For anyone who has endured the hair-tearingly awful log-in procedures on data dongles , now comes a benefit for the human . race Clearwire , the US Wimax pioneer , has launched a 50 Wimax dongle called Clear Stick Atlas that can deliver broadband to laptops , tablets , netbooks without the need to install software or endure . log-ins Anything which has Windows XP , Vista Windows 7, Mac OSX , Linux , Android and Chrome will directly connect to the connection software those . OSes Clearwire claims it to be the first driver-independent modem . NetZero , is working with Clearwire to offer 200Mbytes per month for free for a year

  • Intel And ARM Focusing On Mobile, Consumer Electronics (Entrepreneur Journeys - Sramana Mitra)

    Updated: 2012-03-28 16:29:00
    According to a recent report by iSuppli, the mobile handset semiconductor market is projected to grow to $58.6 billion by the year 2014. The researcher estimates the smartphone and tablet semiconductor markets to be worth $77 billion by 2014. Reports estimate that media tablets will be the world’s fourth-largest semiconductor consumer in the next years. In 2010, media tablets were the 35th-largest semiconductor consumer. In 2010, semiconductor sales to tablet manufacturers accounted for $2.6 billion. That number is projected to grow to more than $18.4 billion by 2014. View the full article HERE

  • Imec Intends To Fab On 450mm Wafers In 2018.

    Updated: 2012-03-28 13:22:21
    Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners Imec Intends To Fab On 450mm Wafers In 2018. By David Manners on March 28, 2012 2:22 PM No Comments No TrackBacks Imec intends have a 450mm fab producing commercial grade ICs by 2018, according to its president , Luc van den . Hove The plan is to start installing 450mm tools in 2015 and add tools for two years beginning process development in 2017.Process development is where Imec sees its role in the 450mm . transition With the first wave of tools you cannot do a lot of process development , says van den Hove , at Imec , we are investing strongly in the second wave of tools . Our ambition is to construct a new 450mm fab , which can be used as a demo line . In this new fab we aim for full-flow R D capability plus a

  • Top Ten Capex Spenders This Year

    Updated: 2012-03-28 00:47:31
    Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners Top Ten Capex Spenders This Year By David Manners on March 28, 2012 1:47 AM 2 Comments No TrackBacks Thanks to Barcap for this one the top ten capex spenders this : year bn Samsung 13 Intel 12.5 TSMC 7.0 Hynix 3.5 GloFo 3.4 Toshiba 2 Micron IM Flash 1.8 SanDisk 1.5 ST 1.5 Infineon 1 Tweet Categories Ten Best No TrackBacks TrackBack URL : http : www.electronicsweekly.com cgi-bin mt mt-tb.cgi 217485 2 Comments R2D2 March 28, 2012 5:22 AM Reply Anyone know how much the PE boys running NXP and Freescale spent David Manners replied to comment from R2D2 March 28, 2012 8:19 AM Reply The debt was 16 billion 10 at Freescale and 6 billion at NXP and the valuations were 17 billion at Freescale and 10 billion at NXP Leave a

  • Medtech Industry Helps Fukushima Prefecture Heal from 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami

    Updated: 2012-03-27 17:29:32
    A little more than a year has passed since a devastating earthquake and tsunami struck the north-eastern coast of Japan. Damage was so immense in Fukushima Prefecture, one of the three worst hit prefectures and home to crippled nuclear power plants, that full reconstruction is still years away. Against all odds, the local government is working [...]

  • Europe And The Semi Industry

    Updated: 2012-03-27 00:46:32
    Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners Europe And The Semi Industry By David Manners on March 27, 2012 1:46 AM No Comments No TrackBacks Europe s involvement in the semiconductor industry has always an on-off , hot-cold , up-and-down kind of thing . Sixteen years ago the November 11 th 1996 edition of Electronics Weekly carried this : piece During the 1970s and 80s all the owners of Europe s microelectronics companies talked to potential buyers of their semiconductor operations . At Philips , Siemens , SGS-Ates , Plessey , GEC and Thomson the semiconductor operations had at various times been considered for the chop . Corporate bosses saw their semiconductor divisions as perennial drains on their resources capital intensive risky and unpredictable . As

  • Intel outside (EETimes Blog - Dylan McGrath)

    Updated: 2012-03-26 09:01:00
    Why can’t the world’s biggest IC company get any market share in the cellular space? I’ve asked myself that question a bunch of times over the years, and find myself asking it again in light of a few recent announcements from the company.View the full article HERE

  • When The Semi Market Was Forecast To Reach $350bn.

    Updated: 2012-03-23 14:28:22
    . Mannerisms Ruminations on the semiconductor industry from David Manners When The Semi Market Was Forecast To Reach . 350bn By David Manners on March 23, 2012 2:28 PM No Comments No TrackBacks With all the talk about the dire consequences of the WSTS figures being discontinued , it is illuminating to see that the industry forecasts have often been wildly inaccurate even when based on the industry's own sales figures . Back in 1996, WSTS stated that the worldwide semiconductor market could be worth over 350 billion by the year 2000. In February 1996 Dr Jurgen Knorr , CEO of Siemens Semiconductor , called this expectation Overheated and warned it could be followed by an expensive collapse . Knorr told the SEMI ISS meeting in Dresden : nbsp None of the Big Three semiconductor companies

  • 28-nm analog IP for tablets and smartphones (The Eyes Have it : A Mixed-signal IP Blog - Navraj Nandra, Synopsys)

    Updated: 2012-03-22 15:09:00
    A couple of years ago we started looking at figuring out how to support analog functions on 28-nm processes, analog functions that had good performance over a wide range of process, voltage and enviromental variations.  One focus area was the audio CODEC. There are three main circuit blocks that limit how much an analog IP scales with process technologies:View the full article HERE

  • Cadence Announces LPDDR3 Memory IP Solution

    Updated: 2012-03-21 16:11:08
    Cadence Design Systems’ design IP portfolio now includes intellectual property for the LPDDR3 mobile memory standard. As part of the LPDDR3 launch, Cadence has upgraded the bandwidth management engine, Placement Queue 2.2, to optimize the way memory is accessed to improve overall system performance and power consumption. In addition to LPDDR3, Cadence offers IP for [...]

  • X-FAB Silicon Foundries Introduces XH018 HT Extension for High Temperatures

    Updated: 2012-03-20 16:46:55
    X-FAB Silicon Foundries launched the XH018 HT, which is a new module that adds high-temperature capability to its XH018 technology family. The XH018 HT extension is available now for tape-ins. Engineers can start their designs now and submit their prototypes for production. The combination of embedded Flash IP blocks, TrimOTP, and NVRAM compiler and high-temperature [...]

  • Synopsys and Applied Materials Develop Technology Computer-Aided Design Models

    Updated: 2012-03-15 17:21:16
    Synopsys team with Applied Materials to create technology computer-aided design (TCAD) models for next-generation semiconductor devices. The models derived from this TCAD collaboration will enable engineers to speed up process development for 14-nanometer (nm) and 11-nm logic and new memory chip technologies. This will reduce cost and speed time-to-market. Read more: Synopsys and Applied Materials [...]

  • Big Surprise: Smartphone Owners Want Bigger Screens

    Updated: 2012-03-14 18:52:26
    According to research by Strategy Analytics, smartphone owners in the US and UK prefer device screens in the 4″ to 4.5″ range, as long as the device is also thin. Almost 90% of existing smartphone owners surveyed chose a prototype smartphone with a display larger than their current device. This trend is driven by increased [...]

  • SMIC Introduces UHD Library for 0.11um Copper Back End of Line Process

    Updated: 2012-03-08 17:46:09
    Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) introduced an ultra high density (UHD) library solution for their 0.11um Cu-BEoL (Copper Back End of Line) manufacturing platform, which can reduce chip size by an average of 31%. SMIC’s 0.11um ultra high density IP solution helps companies lower manufacturing costs and increase market competitiveness. Read more: SMIC Introduces UHD [...]

  • Intel Leaves WSTS: Is It Really a Big Deal?

    Updated: 2012-03-06 19:13:25
    This week Intel confirmed that it has left the WSTS organization and, as such, will not be participating in the industry monthly data collection. Additionally, AMD pulled out of WSTS late last year. These are two significant players whose information will not be part of the official survey results. Is this really a big deal? It is [...]

  • Capex Disconnect

    Updated: 2012-03-06 18:58:22
    Most semiconductor companies have completed their 4th quarter 2011 earnings calls and announced their capital expenditure budgets for 2012.  Current capex plans indicate a weaker spending year for the industry compared to 2011.  Based on current announced plans, capex spending would fall 4.5% to $59.8 billion in 2012.  Semico believes some companies may be miscalculating [...]

  • Microchip Technology Unveils I2C MCP7940M Real-Time Clock/Calendar Device

    Updated: 2012-03-05 19:06:03
    Microchip introduced their I2C MCP7940M Real-Time Clock/Calendar (RTCC) device. The stand-alone MCP79410 features 64 Bytes of SRAM and on-chip digital trimming circuit with a wide trimming range of +/-127 ppm. The digital-trimming circuit can compensate up to 11 seconds per day for crystal error. The Microchip device is ideal for home-appliance (microwaves, washing machines, dryers, [...]

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