11 reasons why Freescale is a viable IC vendor: CEO
(02:03 PM EST, 11/23/09)
Freescale Semiconductor Inc. is getting some positive response from its bond investors in the first signs the company is making headway with its reorganization. Chairman and CEO Rich Beyer in an interview outlined 11 reasons why he believes the company will overcome its debt and sales hurdles.

Eight reasons why IC downgrade was baseless
(01:07 PM EST, 11/23/09)
Another analyst is upset over a recent downgrade in the semiconductor sector.

Equipment book-to-bill ratios stay above parity
(12:43 PM EST, 11/23/09)
The book-to-bill ratio for North American semiconductor equipment manufacturers slipped to 1.10 in October, while the ratio for Japanese equipment companies held steady at 1.28, according to the trade groups who compile this data.

ASE-USI deal: What analysts are saying
(11:57 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Last week, Taiwan's Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) launched a cash and stock tender offer to buy all of the outstanding common shares of Universal Scientific Industrial Co. Ltd. (USI) for over $550 million.

IDT divests micro networks unit
(11:04 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Continuing to restructure its operations, Integrated Device Technology Inc. (IDT) has signed an agreement to divest its micro networks business to Spectrum Control Inc. for approximately $13 million.

Netbooks to hit 17% of 2010 portable PC market, says analyst
(09:28 AM EST, 11/23/09)
The market for portable ccmputers will be 165 million units in 2010, according to Will Strauss president of market tracker Forward Concepts (Tempe, Ariz.) And of that market 3.6 percent, or about 6 million units, will be so-called smart book computers.

Qualcomm's MEMS display gains e-reader design win
(07:13 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Qualcomm Corp. has shown off a 5.3-inch full-color non-volatile MEMS-based display and claims a slightly larger version, with a 5.7-inch diagonal size, will be found in an e-reader product to deploy in fall 2010. The display features 1,024 by 768 pixel resolution and around 220 pixels per inch.

Tower makes deal to export know-how, equipment
(05:38 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Loss-making foundry Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (Migdal Haemek, Israel), which trades as TowerJazz, has announced it plans to transfer "manufacturing know-how and certain equipment" to support an un-named Asian company ramp up production.

Chinese PCB market to drop 18% in 2009, says analyst
(04:51 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the Chinese market demands for PCB products reach RMB97.2 billion with the decrease of 18.2 percent in 2009, but the market is expected to rebound gradually in 2010.

Keithley sells RF product line to Agilent
(04:09 AM EST, 11/23/09)
Seeking earlier profitability, Keithley Instruments has signed a definitive agreement with Agilent Technologies to sell substantially all of its RF product line to Agilent, for approximately USD9 million.

Living in the (approximately) real world
(04:46 PM EST, 11/21/09)
By necessity, we use approximations to model our world, but you have to keep their limits in mind

Is it time to reap the energy harvest?
(12:00 PM EST, 11/21/09)
Are the factors in place and aligned for this market to really take off?

RTOS supports multiprocessor Windows systems
(04:43 PM EST, 11/20/09)
INtime 4.0 is multi-core enabled and compatible with Windows 7.

OCP-IP adds cache coherence to specification
(09:57 AM EST, 11/20/09)
The Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP) announced the release of the OCP 3.0 specification.

Former Bookham executive joins IQE
(05:35 AM EST, 11/20/09)
Adrian Meldrum has joined IQE plc as Group Business Development Director and will be based at the Group's headquarters in Cardiff, Wales.

Synfora names head of Japan business
(03:44 PM EST, 11/19/09)
Synthesis tool vendor Synfora Inc. announced it has appointed Mike Arai as general manager of its office in Yokohama, Japan.

Relaxed tales of the smoke microphone
(11:32 AM EST, 11/19/09)
To get around the dynamic range issues of current microphone pickups, Schwartz Engineering and Design has devised a laser-based pickup that detects voice-induced 'distortions' in a flowing stream of smoke and that then relies on proprietary digital signal processing to translate those distortions into audio. And it works!