Toshiba mulls $8.9 billion NAND flash fab
(10:16 AM EST, 02/10/10)
Toshiba is planning to build an 800 billion yen (about $8.9 billion) wafer fab to increase its manufacturing capacity in NAND flash memories, according to a number of reports that cited the Nikkei business daily as their source.

IEEE publishes 1149.7 test standard for on-chip testing
(09:00 AM EST, 02/10/10)
IEEE has published the IEEE 1149.7 test and debug standard, which expands the 1149.1 JTAG standard's functionality while maintaining previously made industry investments.

Tensilica and mimoOn partner on LTE handsets
(08:20 AM EST, 02/10/10)
Tensilica and mimoOn announced a partnership to offer best-in-class LTE solutions for mobile wireless radios based on mimoOn's mi!MobilePHY software and Tensilica's ConnX platform.

Ozmo hires veteran as CEO
(07:38 AM EST, 02/10/10)
Ozmo Devices Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.), a provider of Wi-Fi Personal Area Network (Wi-Fi PAN) chips, has recruited Bill McLean to serve as chief executive officer.

Opera shows Mini browser on iPhone at MWC
(06:37 AM EST, 02/10/10)
Opera Software ASA (Oslo, Norway), the supplier of the Opera operating system, is going to demonstrate its Opera Mini web browser running the Apple iPhone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Esterel, CEA-List form critical systems lab
(05:45 AM EST, 02/10/10)
Esterel Technologies (Elancourt, France) and CEA-List Institute, Paris-based laboratory of applied research on software-intensive technologies, have formed a joint R&D laboratory to develop and commercialize advanced mission and safety-critical systems design technologies.

ST-Ericsson launches Android platform
(04:54 AM EST, 02/10/10)
ST-Ericsson has developed a platform that supports Android, which manufacturers could use to produce smartphones with a wholesale price of less than EUR100, depending on the final device specification

CSR combines audio processor with Bluetooth
(04:44 AM EST, 02/10/10)
The CSR7810 is what CSR claims to be the industry's first audio processor with Bluetooth connectivity readily integrated for handsets implementing noise cancellation.

Updated: Micron to acquire Numonyx for $1.27 billion
(08:50 PM EST, 02/09/10)
As expected, Micron Technology Inc. has agreed to acquire Numonyx in a stock transaction valued at $1.27 billion.

Medtronic turns a light on brain implants
(07:37 PM EST, 02/09/10)
Medtronic has developed prototype implant that uses light to alter the behaviors of nerve cells in the human brain, one of a handful of papers at the International Solid State Circuits Conference seeking more refined electronic techniques to diagnose or apply therapies to neural conditions.

Flight log: First a flash, then a roar, finally the car alarms
(06:02 PM EST, 02/09/10)
Few experiences match the sight -- and sound -- of a Shuttle launch.

Toyota recalls: Deeper engineering implications
(04:46 PM EST, 02/09/10)
The two recalls do not indicate lack of quality design and manufacture but they point to a bigger issue that engineers may not be able to solve.

Analyst: Samsung hogging litho supply chain
(04:28 PM EST, 02/09/10)
South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. could boost its capital spending amid the IC recovery.

Where is Samsung's semi capex going?
(02:16 PM EST, 02/09/10)
South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. could boost its capital spending amid the IC recovery.

Hurt by TSMC settlement, SMIC spills more red ink
(02:08 PM EST, 02/09/10)
Dragged down by charges associated with settling litigation with rival TSMC, Chinese foundry SMIC continued to spill red ink in the fourth quarter of 2009, posting a net loss of $482 million on revenue of $333.1 million.

Chip links hit 20 Gbits/s, power lows at ISSCC
(01:53 PM EST, 02/09/10)
Researchers showed advances driving wider, faster and lower power chip-to-chip interconnects in a session at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.

Comment: Inside Apple's A4 processor
(12:53 PM EST, 02/09/10)
Apple Inc. has not said very much about its A4 processor. But it could represent a battleground for Imagination's PowerVR graphics versus the Mali graphics from local rival ARM.

Comment: Fainting in coils
(10:46 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Kendall Castor-Perry reckons that it is always good practice to match up your expectations to your resource and in this column he explains why it is particularly good idea when it comes to working with filters.

SMIC expected to announce capital injection
(10:21 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (Shanghai, China) is expected to announce a capital injection from Datang Telecom Technology & Industry Holdings Co. Ltd., an existing investor, at a quarterly investor conference call on Wednesday (Feb. 9).

CoWare, Xilinx team on LTE basestation design
(10:08 AM EST, 02/09/10)
ESL design software vendor CoWare Inc. and FPGA vendor Xilinx Inc. have signed an agreement under which CoWare is integrating and distributing models of Xilinx's LTE baseband IP portfolio with its SPW LTE solution.

ARM to detail power-efficient design technique
(10:04 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Researchers from ARM and the University of Michigan have demonstrated a 52 percent reduction in power on a 65-nm ARM processor running at more than 1 GHz, using a hybrid technique for dynamic detection and correction of timing errors, according to a paper scheduled to be presented at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.

Texas Instruments samples quad-radio chip
(08:58 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Texas Instruments Inc. (Dallas, Texas) has produced a wireless connectivity chip, intended to provide extra radios beside the main cellular channel needed on a mobile phone. The WiLink 7.0 (part numbers WL1281 and WL1283) offers wireless LAN 802.11n, GPS, Bluetooth and FM transmit and receive.

Nujira launches power-saving alliance at MWC
(08:18 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Mobile phone power amplifier specialist Nujira Ltd. (Cambridge, England) has announced the formation of an OpenET Alliance to develop and publish open specifications for envelope-tracking interfaces for 3G and 4G platforms.

Hynix, Samsung push NAND flash below 30-nm
(07:24 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Competition is hotting up in NAND flash memory as South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc. has claimed it has used a 26-nm manufacturing process technology to produce a device with a capacity of 64-Gbits, according to reports. And local rival Samsung has said it is aiming to have a 27-nm NAND flash memory in production in the second quarter of 2010, according to another report.

Microsoft, MediaTek partner on smartphones
(05:35 AM EST, 02/09/10)

ST-Ericsson likes its odds in race to smarter smartphones
(05:13 AM EST, 02/09/10)
On the eve of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, wireless chip joint venture ST-Ericsson (Geneva) outlined the main trends in the mobile handset market for 2010 and detailed how the company aligns its business strategy with market opportunities.

Rambus unveils memory architecture for mobile products
(05:07 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Rambus announced its Mobile XDR memory architecture for next-generation mobile products, combining high-bandwidth and low-power

Ikanos, picoChip partner to advance Femtocell market
(04:53 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Ikanos Communications and picoChip announced a strategic relationship to advance the integration of smart mobile devices into the home network.

RF Micro, Nujira partner on broadband PA
(04:53 AM EST, 02/09/10)
Nujira is partnering with RF Micro Devices to demonstrate a broadband power amplifier design for 4G base stations at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain.

ARM hints at graphics success with Samsung deal
(04:46 AM EST, 02/09/10)
ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England) signed up two licenses for its Mali graphics cores in its fourth quarter bringing the total number of Mali licenses signed to 27, and giving the company enough encouragement to boast of signings that include Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Not enought LTE base stations shipping, says ABI
(04:38 AM EST, 02/09/10)
LTE base stations are shipping in small volumes, but not high enough to sustain the wireless infrastructure market, notes ABI Research

Nordic offers low-power Bluetooth module
(04:29 AM EST, 02/09/10)
The Insight SiP ISP091201 is a completely self-contained Bluetooth low energy SiP module that includes Nordic's MicroBlue nRF8001 connectivity-on-chip solution, integrating the radio, baseband and software stack plus an integrated antenna, 16MHz crystal and 15 supporting passive components.

Inductive coupling packs flash drive in a chip
(01:50 AM EST, 02/09/10)
A researcher from Keio University in Japan showed a way to put an entire solid-state disk in the footprint of a single chip using inductive coupling in a talk at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.

ISSCC: IBM back in network processor game
(09:29 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Claiming it sees a new opportunity where server and networking chips converge, IBM Corp. unveiled what it hopes will be the first of a new line of wire-speed processors that essentially puts it back into the network processing business.

ISSCC: Image sensors to enable 3-D
(08:43 PM EST, 02/08/10)
In the future, CMOS image sensors are expected to exceed the performance of human vision and move towards 3-D, according to a researcher from Sony Corp.

Earnings roundup: Winners, losers
(07:36 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Several IC makers reported their results. Who were the winners and losers in the quarter?

IBM's Power7 systems expand lead over Itanium
(06:33 PM EST, 02/08/10)
IBM Corp. rolled out its first systems using its new Power7 processor, widening its lead over competitors and stealing thunder from Intel and Hewlett-Packard who announced a new Itanium processor.

ISSCC: Expert picks winner for post-CMOS era
(06:09 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Chip scaling is expected to continue for at least the next 15 years, according to one expert, who also predicted perhaps the next technology after the post-CMOS era.

ISSCC keynoter wants 100X power efficiency improvement
(05:40 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Power efficiency is the single biggest challenge facing the mobile handset industry, and collaboration and co-design are needed to enable the industry to deliver a 100X improvement in power efficiency for mobile devices, according to a keynote presentation at the International Solid State Circuits Conference.

ISSCC: Bosch unveils integrated MEMS automotive sensor
(05:36 PM EST, 02/08/10)
To support his update on the state and future of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for automotive and consumer applications, Jiri Marek, senior vice president of Bosch's sensors division (Germany) used his opening slot at ISSCC's Monday plenary session to describe the first integrated inertial sensor modules, combining yaw rate and acceleration sensor stacked on an ASIC in a molded SOIC16w package.

Intel exec pleads guilty in Galleon case
(05:07 PM EST, 02/08/10)
A former Intel Corp. manager has pleaded guilty to securities fraud in the Galleon Group case, according to reports.

Update: Synopsys to acquire ESL vendor CoWare
(05:01 PM EST, 02/08/10)
EDA and IP vendor Synopsys announced its second major acquisition in two weeks, saying it signed a definitive agreement to acquire electronic system-level design software vendor Coware. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

IBM's Power7 rejiggers system design approach
(04:34 PM EST, 02/08/10)
IBM's first Power7 systems announced here today have been in research and development for more than two years, the results of which are systems optimized for an increasingly number of applications that rely on processing large numbers of concurrent transactions and data while analyzing that information in real time.

Electric cars propel IC demand, says analyst
(03:57 PM EST, 02/08/10)
A report from IMS Research forecasts that demand for electric vehicles will grow steadily throughout the decade.

Tensilica DSP core targets portable apps
(03:45 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Tensilica has developed the HiFi EP DSP, a superset of the HiFi 2 architecture optimized for simultaneous multi-channel codec support and continuously expanding audio pre- and post-processing.

ISSCC: Intel has edge over AMD, for now
(03:00 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Intel Corp. has a significant, if temporary, edge over archrival Advanced Micro Devices based on news and papers emerging here Monday at the International Solid State Circuits Conference where Intel launched a 32nm six core server processor and described an existing x86/graphics chip.

Officials underscore Brazil's chip-making ambitions
(02:35 PM EST, 02/08/10)
Politicians who packed a stage in sweltering heat during a grand opening ceremony for a Brazilian chip startup's fab offered a glimpse into the mindset of the Brazilian government's play to build a semiconductor industry in the country.

ISSCC: Toshiba, Unity claim breakthroughs
(11:51 AM EST, 02/08/10)
At the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) here, Toshiba Corp. and Unity Semiconductor Corp. are expected to disclose new and separate breakthroughs.

Micron, Nanya announce 42-nm DRAM process
(11:42 AM EST, 02/08/10)
Micron Technology Inc. and Nanya Technology Corp. have unveiled a 42-nm DRAM process technology with copper metallization that has been used to produce a 2-Gbit DDR3 memory.

OmniVision CMOS imagers debut
(08:40 AM EST, 02/08/10)
OmniVision Technologies, Inc. will show its second-generation CMOS imaging chip to OEMs during next week's Mobile World Congress.

Ceva, MimoOn to demonstrate LTE platform at MWC
(08:06 AM EST, 02/08/10)
LTE software company MimoOn GmbH (Duisberg, Germany) and Ceva Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) have announced that a joint demonstration of an LTE user equipment PHY platform is set to take place at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

ST opens Taiwan office
(06:22 AM EST, 02/08/10)
After a 25-year presence in Taiwan, European chipmaker STMicroelectronics NV announced it has opened an office at the Neihu Science Park in Taipei.

Number indicted in chip-spying case rises to 18, says report
(06:18 AM EST, 02/08/10)
The number of people facing charges related to the passing of process technology secrets from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to Hynix Semiconductor Inc. has risen to 18 according to a Sapa-AP report.

An analyst's 10 reasons to be cheerful
(05:27 AM EST, 02/08/10)
Bill McClean, analyst with IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.) has provided ten reasons that support the idea that 2010 could be between a good and a great year for the semiconductor industry.

Nokia expected to cut staff at Salo production plant
(04:56 AM EST, 02/08/10)
Nokia announced plans to develop its Salo plant to ensure production is focused fully on the high-value smartphone market, especially in Europe. Staff cuts are expected.

European nanoelectronics project seeks more proposals
(02:42 AM EST, 02/08/10)
CATRENE, the industry-driven Cluster for Application and Technology Research in Europe on NanoElectronics (EUREKA 4140) has announced its third call for project proposals from Feb 1 to June 1, 2010.

Wearable computing research gains support
(02:26 AM EST, 02/08/10)
A project that aims to revolutionise the design of technologies for supporting research has been awarded a grant of £1.7 million (about $2.6 million) by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the RCUK Digital Economy programme.

Engineers explore life beyond 10 Gbit links
(12:35 AM EST, 02/08/10)
Electronics engineers are bumping up against the limits of their tools and techniques—and perhaps even physics--to keep pace with the rapidly expanding needs of an Internet-driven society as they coalesce around a move to 25 Gbit/second chips and ponder what comes next.

Report: Lead found in IBM's drinking water
(12:09 AM EST, 02/08/10)
There are high levels of lead in the drinking water within IBM Corp.'s East Fishkill complex, according to reports.

Europe betting on payout from Intel Labs' gambit
(12:01 AM EST, 02/08/10)
There is no doubt that the formation of Intel Labs Europe early in 2009 was a strategic initiative.

Security, smart-grid standards groups get creative
(12:01 AM EST, 02/08/10)
What motivates the desire to develop consensus standards?

Multimode vector radio dismantles barriers to SDR software portability
(12:01 AM EST, 02/08/10)
With new 3G and LTE wireless standards every year, software-defined radio (SDR) remains a Holy Grail. To ensure cost reduction of SDR platforms via economies of scale, software portability across multiple processors must be achieved. The new generation of SDR, called multimode vector radio (MVR), offers that portability.

Blood glucose meters--medical labs in the palm of your handby
(12:01 AM EST, 02/08/10)
The number of people who suffer from diabetes is growing. The CDC (Centers or Disease Control and Prevention) states that 23.6 million Americans had diabetes in 2007, with more cases every year.

Fast-paced and a bit disorienting
(12:01 AM EST, 02/08/10)
The consumer electronics industry is seeing its future through a pair of stereo 3-D glasses.

New CEO Sandeep Vij forms 'Team MIPS'
(06:13 PM EST, 02/07/10)
Signing Sandeep Vij as its new CEO may turn out to be just what MIPS Technologies needed, as the world's number two processor IP company struggles to steal the spotlight back from ARM -- both in media attention and the industry's mindshare.

Flight log: Endeavoring to launch the Shuttle
(02:17 PM EST, 02/07/10)
The countdown reached T-minus 9 minutes, then the clouds moved in and the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor was scrubbed.