TI: Customers holding off on new orders
SAN FRANCISCO—Despite chip inventories that are low by historical standards, OEM customers and distributors are being cautious about new purchase orders, largely due to economic uncertainty, executive ...
Black Hat finds holes in ARM, x86, embedded
SAN JOSE – Security experts will show vulnerabilities in everything from ARM processors to x86 CPUs and even hotel locks at the annual Black Hat conference in Las Vegas this week. A handful of session ...
Cisco to cut another 1,300 jobs
SAN FRANCISCO—Networking giants Cisco Systems Inc. said Monday (July 23) it plans to cut about 1,300 more jobs in connection with ongoing restructuring at the company, according to reports. In an emai ...
VC chip funding: Down in June, up in quarter
SAN JOSE – Venture capital investments in semiconductor companies fell 76.2 percent to $32 million in June, according to the latest figures from the Global Semiconductor Alliance. The decline was an e ...
Black Hat: The phishing scare that wasn't
About 7,500 security professionals scheduled to attend this week's Black Hat conference raised a howl yesterday when they received what looked like a phishing attack in their email boxes. Click ...
Driving ST's auto IC strategy: Manufacturing line can't stop
ST's auto IC strategy: Manufacturing line can't stop
Sensor seeks to cut wafer cleaning costs
PORTLAND, Ore. – Energy efficient semiconductor fabrication techniques have largely eluded designers of wafer cleaning processes, which still depend on open-loop recipes that waste energy and water. B ...
TSMC tops pure-play MEMS foundry ranking from IHS
LONDON – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. was the largest pure-play foundry for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices in 2011, according to market analysis firm IHS iSuppli.IHS rank ...
Europe launches grid-connected renewable energy storage project
Europe launches grid-connected renewable energy storage project
Sensors seeks to cut wafer cleaning costs
PORTLAND, Ore. – Energy efficient semiconductor fabrication techniques have largely eluded designers of wafer cleaning processes, which still depend on open-loop recipes that waste energy and water. B ...
MeeGo smartphone firm emerges from Nokia
LONDON – Former employees from Nokia's MeeGo N9 organization have formed an independent smartphone product company called Jolla Oy (Helsinki, Finland). The company has announced a sales and distri ...
Ramtrom extends Fram agreement with Rohm
MANHASSET, NY -- Ferroelectric random access memory supplier Ramtron has entered into a new manufacturing and license partnering agreement with Rohm Co., Ltd. to manufacture Fram-based semiconductor p ...
Four companies prep wave of 60 GHz chips
SAN JOSE – As many as four companies could start shipping in less than a year a new wave of 60 GHz wireless chips. The devices will deliver more than three Gbits/second of data for less than two Watts ...
European specialist foundry posts profit
LONDON – LFoundry GmbH, a specialist foundry that announced it was closing its wafer fab in Landshut, Germany in 2011, has made a return to profitability during the second quarter of 2012.Despite the ...
ARM, TSMC sign deal to ease FinFET process introduction
LONDON – Processor IP licensor ARM Holding plc (Cambridge, England) and foundry chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. have signed a multi-year agreement to work together to optimize n ...
Directed self assembly made to work on the square
LONDON – Directed self assembly of nanometer-scale structures is a promising method of lithography of the future but it has suffered to date from only allowing the creation of a few arbitrary shapes. ...
London Calling: Europe's busy week
Three of Europe's four leading semiconductor companies will announce their second calendar quarter financial results this week: from STMicroelectronics NV after the U.S. market close on Monday Jul ...
Sensor Platforms extends library to mobile apps
MANHASSET, NY -- Sensor Platforms has announced its FreeMotion library of software algorithms and middleware now supports all major mobile microprocessors, in addition to previously announced support ...
ISSI buys specialty flash memory vendor
SAN FRANCISCO—Chip vendor Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. (ISS) said Thursday (July 19) it signed a deal to acquire specialty memory chip vendor Chingis Technology Corp. for $33 million in cash.The d ...
Power semi market worth $20B in 2012, says Yole
LONDON – The market for discrete semiconductors, module and ICs dedicated to the power electronics industry will reach $20 billion in 2012, according to market research firm Yole Developpement (Lyon, ...
SSD vendor STEC's CEO charged with insider trading
SSD vendor STEC's CEO charged with insider trading
Report: Hard drives will dominate notebooks
SAN JOSE – Hard disk drives will continue to be the dominant form of storage in notebooks for the near term, despite an onslaught of flash-based tablets, according to a new report by IHS iSuppli.Noteb ...
Tesla's CEO: Half of cars will be electric in 15 years
Tesla's CEO: Half of cars will be electric in 15 years
A few inventions I’d like to see
SAN JOSE – I wish an engineer would develop a mobile force field. You could carry it in your pocket like a key fob, press a button and an impenetrable shield forms around your body. It should cost jus ...
TI targets smart meters with analog front end
NEW YORK—Texas Instruments strengthened its commitment to the smart meter market this week with its first integrated e-metering product that it claims offers the lowest power.Designed for power monito ...
Power semi market worth $20bn in 2012, says Yole
LONDON – The market for discrete semiconductors, module and ICs dedicated to the power electronics industry will reach $20 billion in 2012, according to market research firm Yole Developpement (Lyon, ...
Altis preps wafer shuttle for embedded CBRAM
LONDON – Altis Semiconductor SA (Corbeil-Essonnes, France), the specialty foundry bought by French entrepreneur Yazid Sabeg from IBM and Infineon Technologies in 2010, is preparing to run a multi-proj ...
ASML outlines a FinFET process two-step
LONDON – Eric Meurice, CEO of lithography equipment supplier ASML Holding NV (Veldhoven, The Netherlands), has explained how he expects logic process nodes to roll out over the next several years. The ...
VCs bolstered silicon investments in Q2
SAN JOSE – Venture capital investments in the U.S. teetered in the second quarter of 2012, but semiconductor deals got a significant boost, according to the latest figures from Dow Jones VentureSource ...
Morris Chang cuts forecast, sees stall coming
LONDON – Morris Chang, chairman and CEO of leading foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., has warned that a slowdown is coming to the chip market and has cut his forecast for t ...
Freescale CEO targets Q3 for new strategic plan
SAN FRANCISCO—Freescale Semiconductor Inc. President and CEO Gregg Lowe said Thursday (July 19) that the company expects to complete by the end of the third quarter an analysis of the company's pr ...
IDT buys NXP's data converter assets
SAN FRANCISCO—Analog and mixed-signal chip vendor Integrated Device Technology Inc. Thursday (July 19) announced the separate acquisitions of NXP Semiconductors NV's high-speed data converter asse ...
AMD: PC CPU sales may slump to single digits
SAN JOSE – Annual PC processor sales may slow to “a new baseline” of low second-digit growth long term, said Advanced Micro Devices. The prediction came as AMD reported an 11 percent decline in quarte ...
Ulis to build $24M infrared sensor facility
PARIS – France-based Ulis announced a 20 million euros ($24 million) investment in a new infrared facility near Grenoble, France, to penetrate emerging high volume markets such as automotive and low-r ...
IDC cuts 2012 chip market growth forecast
SAN FRANCISCO—Market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) Thursday (July 19) cut its forecast for 2012 semiconductor market growth, citing macroeconomic uncertainties such as the ongoing Euroz ...
Linear Tech moves to integrate Dust Nets' wireless sensors
Linear Tech moves to integrate Dust Nets' wireless
EMS industry at the crossroads?
Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) companies have enjoyed a reasonably rapid growth in revenue in the last 30 years. However, the marketplace is experiencing significant structural change with the ...
Panel defines strategy for U.S. advanced manufacturing
Panel defines strategy for U.S. advanced manufacturing
Europe makes smart grid security recommendations
PARIS – The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has published a report that makes ten recommendations to the public sector involved in the definition and implementation of smart g ...
TSMC profit soars despite 28-nm supply shortage
LONDON – A shortage of wafers for customers at the 28-nm process node has been no barrier to sharply increased profits at leading foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan). ...
Silicon Labs files patent suit against MaxLinear
LONDON – Analog and mixed-signal chip company Silicon Laboratories Inc. announced Wednesday (July 18) it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against rival chip company MaxLinear Inc. The suit, fil ...
Qualcomm sees 28-nm capacity crunch through 2012
SAN FRANCISCO—Qualcomm Inc. said Wednesday (July 18) it expects supply of 28-nm chips to remain constrained until the end of the calendar year, despite acknowledging that the firm is now engaged with ...
Xilinx forecasts chip sales down about 6%
SAN JOSE – Xilinx is not hearing any alarm bells, but it is forecasting sales will be down four to eight percent in its current quarter ending in September. The slowdown will come from a mixture of so ...
ASML says fast EUV machines coming by 2016
LONDON – Eric Meurice, CEO of lithography equipment supplier ASML Holding NV (Veldhoven, The Netherlands), has provided background on the roll out of its next generation extreme ultra violet (EUV) lit ...
LSI appoints Greg Huff CTO
2012-07-19 03:01:50LSI appoints Greg Huff CTO
SAN FRANCISCO—LSI Corp. Tuesday (July 17) appointed Greg Huff to the position of chief technology officer (CTO) as one of three promotions of company executives. Huff joined LSI in May 2011 as chief s ...
New Energy Symposium attracts investment seekers
NEW YORK -- Fifteen “clean tech” companies, more than half of which are located in New York state, are competing for investment funds at the seventh annual New Energy Symposium at the New York Academy ...
Whatever happened to fuzzy logic?
I remember back in the 1980s getting quite excited about the application of fuzzy logic to control applications. I think there was a startup company but I certainly remember speaking on the telephone ...
Does RedMere + Fresco = Spectra7?
Does the math add up for RedMere + Fresco = Spectra7?
ARM rides open cloud computing testbed
SAN JOSE – A handful of vendors have created a trial version for ARM-based servers of the OpenStack cloud computing software now available for testing online. The open source offering fills in another ...
Portugal IP firm wins spot in U-blox GPS chip
LONDON – IP core developer SiliconGate LDA (Porto, Portugal has said that its power management IP has been included in the U-blox 7 platform and the UBX-G7020 chip implementation from U-blox AG (Thalw ...