China Mobile's capex cut a blow to FPGA vendors
(06:41 PM EDT, 03/19/10)
The announcement by China Mobile that its 2010 capital expenditures would decline 5 percent compared with last year is bad news for programmable logic suppliers Xilinx Inc. and Altera Corp, which derive about 10 percent of their revenue from China's basestation market, a Wall Street analyst said.

LSI Corp.: What analysts are saying
(05:55 PM EDT, 03/19/10)
This week, LSI Corp. raised its forecast during an analyst meeting.

Supply of commodity parts remains tight
(04:20 PM EDT, 03/19/10)
Supply for most commodity electronic components remains tight, although the availability of some parts has improved since the end of 2009, according to a report by market research firm iSuppli.

Quartics opens Shanghai R&D center
(01:15 PM EDT, 03/19/10)
Quartics Inc. (Irvine, Calif.) has announced the opening in Shanghai of its center of excellence for video algorithm development and systems engineering. The company also introduced its programmable Qvu processor for video enhancement technology to consumers and OEM/ODM customers in China.

Researchers give update on road to parallelism
(12:59 PM EDT, 03/19/10)
Researchers at the University of Illinois detailed progress on three many-core processors among several small steps they have taken on a long and complex journey toward creating new parallel programming models to harness tomorrow's many-core processors.

GPS-enabled GSM/WCMDA handset shipments jumped 92% in 2009
(11:07 AM EDT, 03/19/10)
Global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased 92 percent in 2009 to 150 million units, according to analysis firm Berg Insight AB (Gothenburg, Sweden). With growth set to continue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.7 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 770 million units in 2014.

Opnext, Mobius develop CMOS ADC for optical comms
(10:20 AM EDT, 03/19/10)
Opnext Inc. (Fremont, Calif.), a developer of optical communications, has announced that it has developed a low-power quad CMOS analog-to-digital converter (ADC), designed for use in a 127-Gbps Polarization Multiplexed Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (PM-QPSK) modulation scheme.

What do you mean, there's RF at ESC?
(09:35 AM EDT, 03/19/10)
If you're doing "RF", you might think that the Embedded Systems Conference is not for you--but you're wrong.

Spending on gadgets shows shift in priorities
(09:14 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
Global spending on hot electronic products increased in 2009, despite a difficult recession that brought an unprecedented decline in global per capita income, according to market research firm iSuppli.

Report: Mosaid sues LSI, alleges breach of contract
(07:22 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
Memory technology licensor Mosaid Technologies Inc. earlier this month filed a lawsuit against LSI and Agere Systems, alleging breach of contract stemming from a 2007 patent acquisition deal, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

NASA proposes new air traffic control system
(06:52 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
A new air traffic control system uses smart computer agents to make recommendations to air traffic controllers on how to reduce congestion and avoid bottlenecks, but leaves it up to human experts whether to implement the suggestions.

Fab tool biz cools, B:B ratios flat
(06:21 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
The fab tool business is still strong after a surge in orders in recent times.

10 reasons to be bullish and worried
(01:56 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
So far, the signs are positive in the chip sector this year. Still, I have some concerns. Here's 10 reasons why I'm bullish--and worried--about 2010.

Report: Intel, Sony work on Google TV
(01:28 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
Eighteen months after launching a software initiative for Internet-connected TV's with Yahoo, Intel is reportedly at work on a bigger, better deal with Google and Sony.

Discount supermarket chains sued over MPEG patents
(12:48 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
MPEG LA LLC (Boulder, Colo), the licensing authority set up to provide one-stop licenses for MPEG-related patents, has announced that several patent holders in its MPEG-2 patent portfolio have filed separate law suits in Dusseldorf, Germany, against the international discount supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl.

Fabless firm makes meter deal with India's Aftek
(12:12 PM EDT, 03/18/10)
Aftek Ltd. (Mumbai, India) has announced a collaboration on automatic meter management with Advanced Digital Design SA, a developers of SOCs for communications over powerlines.

Updated: Sequans' WiMax chip drives Sprint Nextel's first 4G phone
(10:55 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
It turns out that it's Sequans Communications, not Beceem, whose WiMax chip was designed into Sprint Nextel's first WiMax (4G) phone, scheduled to be unveiled next week during the CTIA wireless show.

Cognivue offers image analysis processor
(10:32 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
CogniVue Corp. (Gatineau, Canada), a developer of image cognition processors for real-time video analysis has announced the CV220X family of processors.

Chip market to slow in second half, says TSMC's Chang
(07:10 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. chairman Morris Chang has said he expects chip market growth to slow in the second half of 2010, before picking up again in 2011, according to a Taiwan Economic News report.

RFID firm raises $12 million in Series D funding
(07:10 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
Tagsys, developer of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) systems, announced it has secured 8 million euros ($12 million) in a fourth round of financing, bringing the total venture capital raised to date to 71 million euros ($97.7 million).

Energy Micro raises $13 million in funding
(06:18 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
Energy Micro A/S (Oslo, Norway), the startup that has brought the Gecko family of 32-bit ARM-based microcontrollers to market, announced it has raised $13 million in an initial financing round led by Northzone Ventures and Investinor.

Analyst: Tabula won't have immediate market impact
(02:47 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
Programmable logic startup Tabula turned some heads with the announcement earlier this month of its novel architecture and introduction of its first products this week. But the company poses no immediate threat to the dominance of market leaders Xilinx and Altera, according to a Wall Street analyst.

Inside Intel's litho strategy at 22-nm
(01:03 AM EDT, 03/18/10)
As previously reported, ASML Holding NV and Nikon Corp. will share the 22-nm lithography business at Intel Corp.

Product Trends: Low-power ADCs are not just for handhelds
(09:25 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
Circuit and system designers still want it all and want it now, but when it comes to analog-to-digital converters, it's clear that across all resolutions and speeds, low power is taking priority, and for good reason.

Analog vendors battle phantom forecasts
(08:34 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
The analog semiconductor market is in a fragile state with supply and demand in a state of imbalance and spot shortages showing up in certain product areas but some vendors appear to be managing through the difficult situation better than others.

LTE wireless ramp surges to $5B in 2014
(08:07 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
Wireless carriers will buy as much as $240 million in gear for the 4G Long Term Evolution networks this year, surging to $5 billion by 2014, according to Dell 'Oro Group.

Who is largest buyer of chips?
(07:34 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
Who is the largest buyer of chips?

Winners, losers in 2009 chip rankings
(03:11 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
Who are the winners and losers in the 2009 chip rankings?

IC Insights' capex rankings for 2010
(01:47 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
IC Insights Inc. has raised its forecast for IC capital spending.

Smart grid protocol will ride Wi-Fi at home
(01:17 PM EDT, 03/17/10)
Zigbee and Wi-Fi backers will collaborate to on bringing the Smart Energy 2.0 protocol to Wi-Fi networks as the first phase of a broad collaboration between the Zigbee Alliance and the Wi-Fi Alliance on wireless home area networks for smart grid applications.

IBM, Novellus form 3-D alliance
(11:02 AM EDT, 03/17/10)
Novellus Systems Inc. is expanding its ties with IBM Corp.

Asia to take 39% of smartphone market in 2015, says IMS
(10:12 AM EDT, 03/17/10)
Annual smartphone shipments in Asia will quadruple by 2015, giving Asia 39 percent of smartphone shipments during 2015, according to market research company IMS Research Ltd. (Wellingborough, England).

Rx for iPhone: Support Adobe Flash, microSD, NFC
(09:09 AM EDT, 03/17/10)
The Apple iPhone should embrace Adobe Flash, microSD cards, multitasking and near-field communications, according to veteran mobile analyst J. Gerry Purdy.

Innovative Silicon moves floating-body RAM off SOI
(07:34 AM EDT, 03/17/10)
Innovative Silicon Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), a pioneer of floating-body memory, has said it has adapted its technology for operation at less than one volt and so that it does not require a silicon-on-insulator substrate.

CSEM launches Icyflex range of controller-DSPs
(06:56 AM EDT, 03/17/10)
Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (Neuchatel, Switzerland) has announced the Icyflex family of 16/32-bit RISC processor cores. The flexible architecture allows for different combinations of control and DSP functionality.

MicroUnity sues mobile giants for patent infringement
(09:14 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Former media processor startup MicroUnity Systems Engineering filed suit Tuesday alleging 22 of the world's top cellphone companies including chip, system and service providers infringe 15 of its patents, one of the broadest suits in recent memory.

Forecaster sees DRAM shortages on the horizon
(07:03 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Shortages of DRAM memory chips are on the horizon and closing fast, according to market research firm Semico Research, which said ramifications of slowed manufacturing capacity output and a lack of capital expenditure over the past 24 months, combined with increased demand driven by a hot PC market, has resulted in a very positive environment for DRAM pricing.

Web voting for space, energy innovation awards begins March 29
(06:10 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Voting begins March 29 to help select the winners from among high school teams competing for technology innovation awards in aerospace, renewable energy and clean technology along with a space nutrition category.

MEMS market declined by 5% in '09, says Yole
(05:37 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Overall the micro-electro-mechanical systems market shrank 5 percent in 2009 due to the recession in automotive and consumer electronics sectors, but innovation at Invensense, Panasonic and a few others stimulated growth, according to market research firm Yole Development.

Industry support rolls in for U.S. broadband plan
(03:02 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Intel, Qualcomm and a trade group supporting the move to a smart electric grid were among the first industry voices to come out in support of a U.S. national plan for broadband service released online Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission.

Report: Brazil sees 'ideal' tech partner in Israel
(02:54 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
In advance of a free trade agreement with Israel that goes into effect next month, Brazil's president called Israel "an ideal partner" to help the Latin American country develop its semiconductor, nanotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, according to a report.

Startup debuts high efficiency antenna for Wi-Fi, cellular
(12:48 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Startup Dockon announced a novel antenna technology that combines electrical and magnetic elements to achieve new levels of efficiency for a brand range of wireless systems, showing single-frequency reference designs for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi that hit up to 97 percent efficiency.

Intel launches 32-nm Xeon secure processors
(12:29 PM EDT, 03/16/10)
Intel launched a new line of secure processors implemented at 32-nanometer and offering two new security features said to offer data centers a stronger foundation for cloud security.

Top capex spenders for 2010, 2011
(11:51 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Who are the big capex spenders in 2010 and 2011? It's the usual suspects.

Intel rolls solid state drive for netbooks, desktops
(10:31 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Intel Corp. is aiming its latest SATA solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel X25-V, at value-segment netbooks and dual-drive/boot drive desktop set-ups.

China Mobile gets first use of Sequans LTE chip
(10:09 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Sequans Communications SA has announced that it is preparing to sample its first LTE chip, the SQN3010, to China Mobile, a leading Chinese mobile phone service provider and the leading proponent of time-division LTE technology.

ASIC, ASSP revenue to rise 14% in 2010, says Gartner
(09:41 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Revenue from application-specific ICs and application-specific standard products is set to increase by 14.4 percent in 2010, to $93.3 billion, according to Gartner analyst Bryan Lewis.

Mentor joins Nano 2012 R&D Alliance
(09:09 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Mentor Graphics Corp. announced it has joined the "Nano 2012" strategic investment program to develop with STMicroelectronics NV advanced design solutions at the 32nm node down to the 20nm node.

Samsung foundry offers Kilopass antifuse memory
(08:29 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Kilopass Technology Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), a provider of non-volatile memory intellectual property has announced that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has agreed to offer Kilopass' one-time programmable antifuse memory XPM in its foundry business' advanced logic processes.

Ouest Ventures invests in Geensoft
(07:17 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
ARM is expanding its product line for the smart card sector by releasing a core based on the Cortex-M0. The 32-bit SCOOO is targeting the sector traditionally held by 8- and 16-bit devices.

ARM adds smart card core based on Cortex-M0
(07:08 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
ARM is expanding its product line for the smart card sector by releasing a core based on the Cortex-M0. The 32-bit SCOOO is targeting the sector traditionally held by 8- and 16-bit devices.

Soitec supplies SOI substrates to foundry CSMC
(06:38 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
French silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer supplier Soitec SA (Bernin, France) announced it is supplying SOI substrates to silicon foundry provider CSMC Technologies Corp. of China.

Tyndall CEO touts junctionless transistor to the Valley
(06:14 AM EDT, 03/16/10)
Professor Roger Whatmore, CEO of Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, has joined the trade and investment mission to Silicon Valley led by Ireland's Prime Minister, Brian Cowen. Prof. Whatmore is presenting information on Tyndall's breakthrough junctionless transistor.

Creditors sell 6.7% of Hynix for $814 million
(09:01 PM EDT, 03/15/10)
Creditors sold 6.7 percent of Hynix Semiconductor for roughly $814 million, part of a plan by the group led by Korea Exchange Bank to unload a total of 13 percent of the company this year, according to reports.

Nanocomposite said to boost lithium batteries by 5X
(06:12 PM EDT, 03/15/10)
Silicon-carbon nanocomposite electrodes increase surface area of lithium battery electrodes thereby boosting their capacity by five times, according to its inventor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

AWR gives graduates free access to design tools
(06:08 PM EDT, 03/15/10)
AWR Corp. said it has launched an initiative that gives graduating engineering students a free access to the company's high-frequency design software.

IBM and partners to cool 3-D IC stacks with microfluids
(05:58 PM EDT, 03/15/10)
A team of IBM Researchers in collaboration with two Swiss partners are looking to extend Moore's Law another 15 years using 3-D stack architectures with liquid-cooling microchannels.

Philips, researchers light up clothes with LEDs
(01:47 PM EDT, 03/15/10)
Philips and several European research institutes have formed an initiative to design LED lighting into a wide variety of consumer products under the so-called PLACE-it program that has won nearly $15 million in funding from the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Program.

Price hikes, shortages hit chip market
(11:57 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
Now, amid the upturn, there are widespread reports of component shortages in the supply chain.

SpringSoft rolls IC place-and-route tools
(11:52 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
Taiwanese EDA company SpringSoft Inc. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has expanded its Laker custom IC design platform with the introduction of Laker Custom Row Placer and Laker Custom Digital Router.

Analyst: Smartphones sales surged in 4Q '09
(11:39 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
Smartphone sales surged 25 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to sales in the previous quarter with Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion all riding the wave, a particularly sharp rebound from generally depressed sales last year, said an analyst from ABI Research.

MagnaChip files $250 million IPO
(11:05 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
MagnaChip Semiconductor, a logic IC spinoff from Hynix Semiconductor Inc. that filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2009, has now filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of stock.

Chip firm makes solar cells on RF production kit
(09:15 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
RF Micro Devices Inc., a provider of radio frequency integrated circuits for wireless communications applications, has claimed that it has manufactured the industry's first photovoltaic cell using high-volume six-inch gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor production machinery.

Chip profitability jumps to decade high
(08:59 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
Operating profitability at semiconductor companies shot up to a 10-year high in the fourth quarter of 2009 lifted by tighter cost management, production outsourcing and a push towards product specialization at the biggest IC vendors.

Wafer demand to rise 30% in 2010, says Gartner
(08:46 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
Silicon wafer annual demand will record a 29.5 percent increase in 2010, partly because of the rebuilding of inventory after a substantial stripping out in 2009, according to market research company Gartner Inc. (Stamford, Conn.).

3G modems are $3.5 billion market in 2010, says In-Stat
(07:47 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
The market for 3G cellular modems, aside from those deployed in mobile phone handsets, will be worth more than $3.5 billion in 2010, according to according to market research company In-Stat.

Tabula tips comms-oriented FPGA products
(06:28 AM EDT, 03/15/10)
A couple of weeks after fabless chip startup Tabula Inc. tipped its time-sharing FPGA architecture the company has launched its ABAX family of chips. The company said the chips will sample in third quarter and go into mass production in Q4 2010.