Top women executives, Moto analysis lead weekly story ranking
(02:37 PM EST, 11/06/09)
Here are the top five online stories for the week beginning Sunday, Nov. 1, as ranked by EE Times readers, up to and including Friday, Nov. 6. The ranking is based on the number of reader "views" or "hits" on a particular article.

Dolphin Integration readies dynamically self-configured cache controller
(12:32 PM EST, 11/06/09)
EDA and IP company Dolphin Integration SA (Meylan, France) has introduced I-Stratus-LP cache controller that is said to be dynamically self-configured to minimize power consumption.

Nvidia pokes fun at Intel with cartoon website
(11:31 AM EST, 11/06/09)
A satirical website has sprung up that has run a series of cartoons lampooning the behavior of the world's largest chip maker — Intel Corp. and which carry the logo of Nvidia Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

What is a patent? Join the debate
(10:56 AM EST, 11/06/09)
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday (Nov. 9) that go to the heart of what is a patent as it examines the case of Bernard Bilski.

E-reader market to boom fivefold in 2010, says analyst
(09:19 AM EST, 11/06/09)
In 2008 1.1 million e-readers with e-paper displays were sold and in 2010 that number will rise to about 6 million, according to market analysis firm MediaIdeas (New York, NY).

Comment: chip company ranking points to post-crisis order
(07:42 AM EST, 11/06/09)
The latest chip company top 20 ranking provided by IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.) has a topsy-turvy look about it — at least it does if, like me, you have been following the fortunes of chip companies for some time.

Mitsubishi deal brings professor's LED patent haul to $27 million
(05:38 AM EST, 11/06/09)
Mitsubishi has agreed terms with Professor Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, professor emeritus at Columbia University, New York, over her assertion that Mitsubishi and dozens of other electronics manufacturers in Asia and Europe violated her patents for producing light emitting diodes and laser diodes.

Nanomaterials lab licenses Infiniscale's behavioral modeling tool
(11:45 AM EST, 11/05/09)
CEA-Liten, France-based Laboratory for Innovation in New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials, has licensed TechModeler behavioral modeling tool suite from Infiniscale SA for its organic electronic devices modeling needs.

'Perfect calm' to drive 2010 chip sales up 20%, says analyst
(11:01 AM EST, 11/05/09)
Malcolm Penn, chief executive of market analysis firm Future Horizons (Sevenoaks, England), is looking forward to strong growth in the global chip market in 2010 after a 10 percent contraction in 2009.

Top ten Chinese chip design houses ranked
(07:56 AM EST, 11/05/09)
The Chinese IC design sector was worth 23.52 billion yuan (about $3.44 billion) in 2008, and threw up some changes in the top ten ranking, according a report by Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute.

Accelerometer propels HP into sensor networks
(07:45 AM EST, 11/05/09)
A secret side project for a Hewlett-Packard engineer has quietly spawned an ultra-sensitive accelerometer that the PC giant hopes to leverage to propel it into sensor networks, an emerging market it sees as the next big wave of computing.

Samsung starts work on sub-28-nm foundry processes
(06:01 AM EST, 11/05/09)
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has announced that a recently-formed semiconductor R&D center has begun work on advanced process development for use in foundry manufacturing.

Infineon, TSMC to develop 65-nm embedded flash for automotive and chip cards
(03:49 AM EST, 11/05/09)
Infineon Technologies AG and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are extending their development and production partnership to a 65nanometer embedded flash process technology.

Designer debuts OMAP boards for Android
(03:00 AM EST, 11/05/09)
Contract design company Moto Development Group (San Francisco) has announced a family of three reference platforms for the Google Android operating system aimed at giving OEMs a leg up on hardware engineering based on Moto's enhancements to the Texas Instruments Beagle board.

Tektronix Communications tests growing IP traffic
(01:04 AM EST, 11/05/09)
Tektronix Communications has expanded its test offerings for communications carriers to meet the ever increasing amount data that needs to be monitored, acquired and tested in all-Internet Protocol comms networks.

Irish mobile video startup changes name, adds execs
(10:48 AM EST, 11/04/09)
Two weeks after changing its name from Movidia, fabless mobile video chip company Movidius Ltd. has announced two additions to its senior management team.

ST-Ericsson's recruitment gain is Intel's loss
(08:58 AM EST, 11/04/09)
Wireless chip company ST-Ericsson NV (Geneva, Switzerland) has appointed Edgar Auslander as senior vice president, head of strategic planning. Prior to joining ST-Ericsson, Auslander was director of the ultra mobility group at Intel.

Chartered shareholders approve Abu Dhabi takeover
(07:58 AM EST, 11/04/09)
Shareholders in Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Singapore) have voted in favor of a takeover of the company by Advanced Technology Investment Company LLC (ATIC) of Abu Dhabi.

EE Times' Top 10 women in microelectronics
(03:48 AM EST, 11/04/09)
EE Times has compiled an international list that celebrates women who are business and technology leaders in microelectronics.

Jury finds for TSMC over SMIC in trade secrets case
(07:02 PM EST, 11/03/09)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has won a jury verdict over China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. in a long-running trade secrets dispute between the two foundries, according to an attorney involved in the case.

Lenovo: Win7 beats Linux in netbooks
(05:52 PM EST, 11/03/09)
Improvements in Windows 7 will make it less likely notebook makers will adopt Linux-based operating systems, said a technology executive at Lenovo, but the notebook giant will evaluate new alternatives including Google's Chrome OS.

Dolphin Integration opens competency center in Israel
(11:49 AM EST, 11/03/09)
EDA and IP company Dolphin Integration SA (Meylan, France) has created Dolphin Integration Ltd. in Netania, Israel, in a view to foster the company's product developments in advanced memories, analog and mixed-signal circuits.

CSR in hiring push seeks R&D engineers, finance execs
(11:25 AM EST, 11/03/09)
CSR plc, a fabless chip supplier for applications ranging from Bluetooth to GPS communications, is making a major hiring push according to open positions listed at its website.

Startup turns SD cards into game cartridges
(11:00 AM EST, 11/03/09)
Startup FXI Technologies AS hopes to bring the Nintendo game cartridge into the cellphone era with a vengeance when it releases in early 2011 mobile games packaged with their own acceleration hardware on microSD cards.

Micron offers NAND-DRAM memory in multichip package
(10:41 AM EST, 11/03/09)
Micron Technologies Inc. (Boise, Idaho) has introduced a multi-chip package (MCP) memory for smart phones, personal media players, and mobile Internet devices (MIDs) that includes a 4-Gbit NAND flash memory die and a 2-Gbit low-power DDR die.

Radisys, 6Wind, Aricent ready integrated ATCA platform for LTE market
(09:55 AM EST, 11/03/09)
Radisys Corp. has teamed with Aricent and 6Wind SA to deliver application-ready ATCA platforms for the Long Term Evolution (LTE) Evolved Packet Core.

Comment: ESIA exposes Chinese chip sales
(09:10 AM EST, 11/03/09)
My support and congratulations go out to the European Semiconductor Industry Association for breaking out the Chinese semiconductor sales figures in its monthly reports.

CSR, TSMC collaborate on 40-nm RF process
(07:14 AM EST, 11/03/09)
CSR plc, a fabless supplier of silicon for applications ranging from Bluetooth to GPS communications, has announced it is collaborating with foundry partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) to develop a 40-nm low power RF manufacturing process.

AdaptivEnergy, GainSpan link on energy harvesting Wi-Fi nodes
(06:34 AM EST, 11/03/09)
Energy harvesting company AdaptivEnergy Inc. (Hampton Roads, Va.) and GainSpan Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), a developer of Wi-Fi sensor network technology, have entered into a technology development partnership.

Update: Apache job post points to an EDA IPO
(05:23 AM EST, 11/03/09)
Apache Design Solutions Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), a vendor of power and noise analysis EDA software, has posted a job opening on its website which indicates the company is considering an initial public offering of shares in the company.

Researchers detail new power management technique
(05:15 PM EST, 11/02/09)
University researchers have proposed a new power management technique that they say significantly reduces system-level energy consumption without negatively impacting the reliability of the system.

Virage posts loss, sales fall
(05:13 PM EST, 11/02/09)
Virage Logic Corp. posted sales of $13.1 million for the quarter, down from $15.5 million a year ago.

Analyst raises chip market forecast on September strength
(12:56 PM EST, 11/02/09)
Bruce Diesen, analyst with Carnegie ASA (Oslo, Norway) has raised his forecast for the 2009 chip market. The market will still be down but the market shrink will be less than Carnegie previously predicted.

September 'actual' chip sales narrow the gap on 2008
(11:25 AM EST, 11/02/09)
September's global market for semiconductors was $23.98 billion, down 8.7 percent from the $26.26 billion value for sales recorded in September 2008, according to "actual" data from the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization.

Ireland key to Analog Devices re-org, promotions
(10:20 AM EST, 11/02/09)
Analog Devices Inc. (Norwood, Mass.) has created two groups as part of an organizational change. Both will be led by executives who began their careers with ADI in Ireland, where the company has had a presence for many years.

MIPS debuts new cores, instruction set
(09:00 AM EST, 11/02/09)
MIPS Technologies Inc. is upgrading two of its cores and introducing a new instruction set architecture to expand the company's relatively small presence in 32-bit microcontrollers and leverage its strength in wired consumer systems to attack sockets in wireless devices.

EE Times begins accepting ACE Award nominations
(08:43 AM EST, 11/02/09)
EE Times to start accepting submissions for ACE Awards.

Altera announces Cyclone IV FPGAs
(08:01 AM EST, 11/02/09)
Altera announced the newest Cyclone low-cost FPGA family, which adds support for mainstream serial protocols as well as a rich supply of logic, memory and DSP capabilities. The company also rolled out version 9.1 of its Quartus II design software.

China chip market growth below rest of Asia-Pacific, says ESIA
(07:23 AM EST, 11/02/09)
The September three-month average for chip sales in China was $4.07 billion up 8.3 percent from $3.76 billion in August 09, according to data released by the European Semiconductor Industry Association.

September averaged global chip sales show 8.2% growth
(05:40 AM EST, 11/02/09)
The three-month average of global sales of semiconductors rose to $20.64 billion in September, up 8.2 percent from an upwardly revised $19.07 billion in August, and down 10.1 percent from September 2008, according to the European Semiconductor Industry Association.

Top vendors increase NAND flash market share, says research
(05:07 AM EST, 11/02/09)
The top three vendors of branded NAND flash memory increased their market share in the third quarter compared with the previous quarter, according to DRAMexchange, a market analysis company.