Global chip sales were flat in October, says analyst
(05:13 AM EST, 11/27/09)
Global chip sales in October are believed to have been flat on the previous month, according to analysts at Carnegie Group (Oslo, Norway). The three-month average of August, September and October chip sales is expected to be reported as $21.0 billion, compared to $20.6 billion for the equivalent figure in September.

Soitec CEO sees positive momentum in SOI markets
(04:12 AM EST, 11/27/09)
Despite a widening net loss, year-over-year, in the first half of fiscal year 2009-2010, French SOI specialist Soitec SA said it has detected signs of renewed optimism in SOI markets for 2010 and beyond.

Renesas samples 45-nm ARM-based mobile processor
(12:04 PM EST, 11/26/09)
Renesas Technology Europe has begun sampling the SH-Mobile APE4, a Cortex-A8 based processor targeted at mobile phone and mobile device implementations. The processor is implemented in a 45-nm process and can be operated at a clock frequency in excess of 1-GHz, Renesas said.

Creditors hear plan to save Qimonda Portugal, say reports
(11:21 AM EST, 11/26/09)
The Portuguese DRAM test and assembly operation subsidiary of insolvent Qimonda AG (Munich, Germany) has been offered a financial life line and is taking on a new name, according to local reports.

Letter to the editor: iSuppli states the obvious
(10:41 AM EST, 11/26/09)
Fact of the matter is Q4 foundry wafers are Q1's IC shipments. Q1 is ALWAYS down on Q4 for a whole variety of reasons so the fact Q4 wafer growth is lower than Q4 is simply stating the obvious.

Researchers report room-temperature silicon spintronics
(07:54 AM EST, 11/26/09)
Rsearchers from the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands) are claiming they can control a silicon electron's spin at room temperature. The research team has published a paper to that effect in the Nature.

Texas Instruments spin-off files for $500 million IPO
(05:35 AM EST, 11/26/09)
Sensata Technologies Holding BV, a vendor of sensors and controls used in the automotive and aerospace industries, has filed for an IPO that would raise $500 million.

Philips receives update on alleged CRT market violations
(03:32 AM EST, 11/26/09)
Royal Philips Electronics says it has received a statement of objections from the European Commission about alleged violation of competition rules in the cathode-ray tubes (CRT) industry.

Philips receives update on alleged CRT market violations
(03:32 AM EST, 11/26/09)
Royal Philips Electronics says it has received a statement of objections from the European Commission about alleged violation of competition rules in the cathode-ray tubes (CRT) industry.

Embedded control modules use ARM MCUs
(02:49 AM EST, 11/26/09)
The Open Controller OC-8 series of embedded controllers simplify the connection of machines, devices and systems in a network for real time communication and interaction.

Mixed signals seen in distribution channels
(02:41 AM EST, 11/26/09)
There are mixed signals in the IC distribution channels right now.

Novellus rolls ashable hardmask film
(07:15 PM EST, 11/25/09)
Novellus Systems Inc. has rolled out a suite of ashable hardmask (AHM) films, said to have up to 25 percent greater etch selectivity than rival amorphous carbon films.

Ten random things you should know about the 2010 CES
(12:17 PM EST, 11/25/09)
The largest consumer electronics show has always presented the latest and greatest of gadgets, both for useful work and for frivolous entertainement. Here is a random of what can be expected at CES.

LED maker Seoul raises $248 million
(12:15 PM EST, 11/25/09)
LED manufacturer Seoul Semiconductor Co. Ltd. has announced that it and its affiliate company, Seoul Optodevice Co. Ltd., have raised $248 million by way of a share issue.

Soitec builds growth strategy on 4 pillars, says CEO
(11:17 AM EST, 11/25/09)
The end of 2009 is fast approaching, and there is no better time to assess the year's achievements and highlight priorities for the coming year, and even years. At a press conference last week in Paris, André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, president and CEO of Soitec SA (Bernin, France), said the company has the financial resources it needs to seize market opportunities and has built its growth strategy on four pillars.

ST uses Omron MEMS microphone in multi-die package
(11:04 AM EST, 11/25/09)
STMicroelectronics NV (Geneva, Switzerland) has started selling MEMS microphones that use sensor technology from Omron Corp. and has asserted that this will improve the sound quality, reliability, and cost-effectiveness for voice applications in cell phones, wireless devices and games.

'Intel inside' could mean thought-control chip in brain, say reports
(08:56 AM EST, 11/25/09)
Intel researchers are working on functional magnetic resonance imaging as a possible way to allow TVs, computers and cell phones to be controlled by human brain activity picked up by an implanted chip sensor, according to online reports.

Infineon, Nokia agree to push LTE radios towards 1-Gbit/s
(06:04 AM EST, 11/25/09)
Infineon Technologies AG and Nokia have said they are going to cooperate on the development of RF transceivers for use in LTE wireless communications. The work could lead to systems which can deliver 1-Gbit per second data transfer rates.

Hynix backers opt for December auction, say reports
(05:14 AM EST, 11/25/09)
Shareholders who bailed out memory chip maker Hynix Semiconductor Inc. in the early part of this decade are planning to put their holding up for auction in December, according to online reports.

Infineon not a target for Samsung says report
(04:58 AM EST, 11/25/09)
Samsung Electronics said market speculation that it may bid for German chipmaker Infineon was untrue according to a report from Reuters in Seoul.

Infineon not a target for Samsung, says report
(04:58 AM EST, 11/25/09)
Samsung Electronics said market speculation that it may bid for German chipmaker Infineon was untrue according to a report from Reuters in Seoul.

Man pleads guilty to selling counterfeit ICs
(09:09 PM EST, 11/24/09)
One of three people charged with selling counterfeit semiconductors to the U.S. Navy pleaded guilty to trafficking in counterfeit goods, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Update: Patent office rejects Rambus claims
(06:22 PM EST, 11/24/09)
A patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected all 17 claims in three Rambus patents that the company asserted against Nvidia in a complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Foundry sector slows, ASPs fall
(04:02 PM EST, 11/24/09)
After a booming period, the pure-play foundry business is slowing again, with prices under pressure, according to iSuppli Corp.

U.S. pumps another $620M into smart grid projects
(02:57 PM EST, 11/24/09)
The U.S. government has announced a second and final round of economic stimulus grants aimed at accelerating the transition to a smart electric grid with Boeing and two up-and-coming battery makers among the winners of a total of $620 million in grants from the Department of Energy to 32 projects mainly organized by electric utilities.

Israel research team develops silicon-air battery
(01:20 PM EST, 11/24/09)
Created from oxygen and silicon, the batteries are lightweight and said to have unlimited shelf life and tolerance for extreme conditions.

Is Apple unstoppable? The case against Apple
(01:17 PM EST, 11/24/09)
Apple Inc. is not unstoppable. In fact, the momentum is building for halting the company's dominance of the consumer electronics market and eventually, rivals will in the near future chip away at its leadership until no single player ever gets again to rule the sector.

Imagination bundles cores to make 'Connected Processor' series
(12:09 PM EST, 11/24/09)
Imagination Technologies Group plc (Kings Langley, England) has announced a forthcoming series of embedded processors under the name "Meta Connected Processor" intended to support Internet-connectivity in low-cost consumer products.

Comment: Qualcomm's MEMS display is smart but is it bright enough?
(11:32 AM EST, 11/24/09)

Is CE going the Apple way? The case for Apple
(11:03 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Apple is already a great consumer electronics company. But the big question is whether Apple has also secured its position as a leader of the consumer market in the future.

Foundry expands multi-project wafer program
(10:57 AM EST, 11/24/09)
austriamicrosystems business unit Full Service Foundry is expanding its fast and cost-efficient ASIC prototyping service, known as Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) or shuttle run, in 2010 with a more extensive schedule.

Wind River and Kontron extend collaboration with global agreement
(10:54 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Wind River and Kontron have signed a global, multi-year agreement under which Kontron will distribute Wind River's VxWorks and Wind River Linux operating systems.

iPhone heals, iPhone smells
(10:44 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Apple's iPhone is being applied to more diverse applications that one could have imagined when it first came on the scene.

IMEC honors Wim Roelandts
(10:27 AM EST, 11/24/09)
The IMEC research center and the K.U.Leuven University in Leuven, Belgium, announced it has conferred the degree of doctor honoris causa on Wim Roelandts, ex-chairman and CEO of programmable logic device vendor Xilinx Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).

Report: Concentrated photovoltaic market to grow
(10:06 AM EST, 11/24/09)
The total concentrated photovoltaic market is expected to be worth $266.0 million by 2014, growing at a CAGR of 33.0 percent from 2009 to 2014 according to the new market research report, 'Concentrated Photovoltaic and Solar Photovoltaic Global Markets (2009 - 2014)', published by MarketsandMarkets (Wilmington, Delaware).

Energy Micro adds Motorola alumni to the board
(08:43 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Energy Micro AS (Oslo, Norway), vendor of the Gecko 32-bit microcontroller, has added Daniel Artusi and Daniel Hoste, to its board of directors.

No fine for Qualcomm as EC closes antitrust case
(07:01 AM EST, 11/24/09)
The European Commission has decided to close formal antitrust proceedings against communications chipmaker and technology licensor Qualcomm Inc. (San Diego, Calif.) concerning an alleged breach of European rules on abuse of a dominant market position.

Imagination preps GPU/CPU compilers for parallel processing
(06:18 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Graphics core licensor Imagination Technologies Group plc (Kings Langley, England) is preparing compilers that will be able to assign tasks across both graphics and general-purpose processing units.

Nokia spin-off joins the Z-Wave Alliance
(05:00 AM EST, 11/24/09)
There Corporation, a spin-off from Nokia, has joined the Z-Wave Alliance and is focussing on pushing the development and market launch of the smart meter, smart grid and smart home solutions that are based on ThereGate " formerly known as Nokia Home Control Center (HCC).

Nokia spin-off joins the Z-Wave Alliance
(05:00 AM EST, 11/24/09)
There Corporation, a spin-off from Nokia, has joined the Z-Wave Alliance and is focussing on pushing the development and market launch of the smart meter, smart grid and smart home solutions that are based on ThereGate " formerly known as Nokia Home Control Center (HCC).

Mentor joins SOI consortium
(04:40 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Two years after Cadence and Synopsys joined the SOI Consortium, Mentor Graphics has knocked on the door to provide EDA tool and methodology support for the SOI technology.

ISSCC preview: Medical device slashes tests costs
(12:07 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Researchers will describe at the International Solid State Circuits Conference a nuclear magnetic resonance device that could slash the size and cost of medical diagnostic systems, one of many papers at ISSCC suggesting advances in medical electronics on the horizon.

ISSCC preview: Intel, AMD face off at 32nm
(12:01 AM EST, 11/24/09)
Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices will face off with separate papers on their next-generation 32nm processors at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in February, but IBM's Power7 and Sun Microsystems' Rainbow Falls will be among the most aggressive multicore architectures described at the event.

Sematech seeks collaboration, mulls fabless push
(07:27 PM EST, 11/23/09)
Sematech wants to expand its wings. The chip-making consortium is now looking at ways to bring fabless companies into the fold and is also hoping to expand its collaborative efforts with fab tool makers, according to the new president and chief executive of Sematech (Albany, N.Y.).

IC rankings: Samsung among few set to grow in '09
(07:04 PM EST, 11/23/09)
South Korea's Samsung Electronics is the only top 10 semiconductor supplier expected to show an increase in chip sales this year compared to 2008, according to preliminary semiconductor supplier rankings by market research firm iSuppli.

RF chip maker Telegent files IPO
(05:12 PM EST, 11/23/09)
Telegent Systems Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its common shares.

ADI tops estimates, projects flat sales
(05:04 PM EST, 11/23/09)
Chip maker Analog Devices reported better-than-expected sales for the quarter ended Oct. 31, with the company's chief executive crediting improvements in many economies and customer inventory replenishment, among other factors.

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!