Single-digit PC unit shipment growth of only 4.3% is expected next year as IT equipment purchases take a back seat to "real issues," like paying staff or making rising mortgage payments, according to iSuppli.
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Medical electronics is one of the fastest growing areas of semiconductor development and is becoming increasingly important for NXP, according to the company's CTO.
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The 50-nm process DDR3 SDRAM was developed using 193-nm immersion lithography technology and copper interconnect technology and has a chip size of less than 40-mm-squared.
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Verigy’s newest memory test family handles flash, DRAM and multichip packages (MCPs) — at the price of a flash tester.
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The electronics supply chain company will lead investment and lobbying initiatives to reduce the health and environmental impact of electronic-waste recycling.
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Following on the heels of Applied Materials' and KLA-Tencor's layoffs, wafer fabrication equipment provider Lam Research says it will trim 15% of its total workforce.
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IBM researchers and university partners aim to build low-power-consumption and compact-sized computing systems that they expect will simulate and emulate the brain’s abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction, and cognition. Initial research will focus on demonstrating nanoscale, low-power synapse-like devices, with the long-term mission to demonstrate low-power, compact cognitive computers that approach mammalian-scale intelligence.
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ST will work with MIT's Microsystems Industrial Group on ultra-low-power electronics, sensor systems, and medical electronics.
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At the FPD International show in Yokohama, Japan, Shinoda Plasma Co. Ltd. demonstrated a large-format flexible plasma display panel measuring 1 × 3 m. The plasma display has a thickness of only 1 mm, and is designed for large-scale digital signage used at public venues such as museums and subways.
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The move follows a 1,650 employee reduction announced in April that saw approximately 10% of the MPU maker's staff let go and is part of AMD's larger effort to reduce its breakeven to $1.5 billion a quarter.
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The cuts impact supplemental employees that are used as a flexible workforce in manufacturing, working for periods ranging from one to three years.
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Following the abrupt exit of former CEO Mike Fister and the postponement of its Q3 report, Cadence announces a 12% layoff and says it will also cut a "substantial number" of contractors and consultants in an effort to save $150 million.
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FBR Research supply chain checks find that Apple's iPhone production plans are being revised lower, which suggests the macroecomomic weakness is impacting even high-end consumers and that "no market segment will be spared in this global downturn." Chip suppliers, including Broadcom and Marvell, will feel a Q4 pinch on the production cuts, the firm says.
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According to the market research company's preliminary estimates, the economic crisis will force worldwide semiconductor revenue growth in 2009 to be only 1%, down by almost 7% from previous estimates. "In a recession, it is important to remember that there will not only be a potential reduction in the number of systems sold, but also a move to lower-cost systems with less semiconductor content," says Bryan Lewis, research VP at Gartner.
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Amid efforts to sell or spin off their respective cellular handset chipset businesses, both companies plan job cuts and launch 2009 cost-savings efforts.
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iSuppli expects decreasing unit growth in the NAND flash market potentially will impact the semiconductor capital equipment industry.
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To increase Europe’s microelectronics competitiveness, nanoelectronics research center IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) is asking Europe and its governing public authorities to stimulate true cross-border collaborations, not only by setting up networks but also by creating financial means.
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Year-to-date sales growth of 4% trails mid-year forecast of 4.5%; sinking memory prices drag down total.
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The increasingly competitive environment resulting from the global financial crisis hinders smaller players' MPU market share growth, iSuppli says. The research company also reports that while there were signs of weakening PC demand in the quarter, early estimates indicate that shipments actually showed healthy growth. Both iSuppli and IDC point out the notebook markets' retained strength and momentum.
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Texas Instruments Inc. has used rapid improvement events, or kaizen blitzes, to sharply improve productivity at the DFAB in Dallas. TI also incorporated a “5S” program to “get the junk out,” fab manager Steve James said in a keynote speech at the ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness. Other speakers at the annual symposium detailed the importance of preventive maintenance techniques.
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With similar goals to those of the Semiconductor Test Consortium, Advantest, Intel, LTX-Credence, and others team to form the "Collaborative Alliance for Semiconductor Test" and state their intent to formalize the organization within one of the existing associations serving the industry in the very near term.
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Broadcom pays $141.5 million for AMD's digital TV business, more than $50 million less than the original purchase price on anticipated low Q4 revenue from the business.
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Numonyx extends its support of the M29 memory industry standard, announcing a new family of security enhanced, high-density memory products that represent the first of its product lines planned to be deliver on 65-nm technology through the course of 2009.
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Oerlikon OC said it agreed to sell its optical coatings business located at Balzers, Liechtenstein, to a management buyout group. Oerlikon said it is also in divestiture discussions regarding its optics business units located in Golden, Colo., and Shanghai, China.
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AMD has promoted Bob Rivet from CFO to chief operations and administrative officer in a move that could allow CEO Dirk Meyer to focus more on technology design at the MPU maker. Also Emilio Ghilardi, senior VP and general manager of sales for EMEA, will assume the role of chief sales officer at the beginning of 2009.
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In making the exit, the company said it incurred impairment charges of $26.3 million in its Q3 and expects to record approximately $15.2 million in restructuring charges in Q4.
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Mike Noonen fills an open position at NXP left vacant by Pascal Langlois' move to ST-NXP Wireless.
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A poor Q3, planned layoffs, and a hurried capacity deal with rival Toshiba encourage Samsung to withdraw its $26 per share bid for flash maker SanDisk. One analyst suggests the matter may not be put to rest, however, and that Samsung may come back with a lower bid as SanDisk's stock continues to plummet.
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SanDisk will sell Toshiba 30% of the current manufacturing capacity from the two companies' joint ventures, Flash Partners and Flash Alliance, giving it a cash infusion and reducing its equipment lease obligations by approximately $1 billion. Despite widely acknowledged falling memory prices, Toshiba welcomes the capacity and estimates that the NAND flash memory market will grow in the medium to long term with average annual bit growth rate of more than 200%.
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The sale follows on a November 2007 statement from Conexant, announcing that it was discontinuing further investments in standalone wireless networking product development. However, the company retains the right to incorporate the wireless IP in any current and future products.
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Although financials are improving at AMD and the MPU maker's GPU revenue increased by 55% in the September quarter, analysts continue to expect losses in coming quarters. Looking to Q4 and noting the macroeconomic environment, CEO Dirk Meyer says he does not expect the quarter to have its usual strength, but "it does not seem like a disaster."
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NTT DoCoMo, Renesas Technology, Fujitsu, and Sharp plan to jointly develop their next SH-Mobile G series single-chip LSI device, and a platform incorporating it, to support the HSUPA/HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile telephony standards. The announcement is further evidence of mobile industry partnering trends that include both chipmakers and handset makers.
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Unisem plans to set up 30% of its wirebonders for copper by 2009. The industry’s interest in copper wirebonding is being driven largely by copper’s enhanced performance characteristics.
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The US high-tech industry added 78,300 jobs between January and July of 2008, a 1.3% rise compared to the same period in 2007 and below the private sector's 2% growth. The most significant growth occurred in engineering and tech services, which added 50,000 jobs, a 3.1% rise, according to data from the AeA.
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CEO Paul Otellini says the "Atom family is off to a very good start" as Intel's mobility group chips in more than 45% of the MPU leader's total $10.2 billion Q3 revenue. Although Intel has reduced its capital forecast for the year, the company cautions that it is not reducing ramp rate on 45 nm and is not pushing out 32-nm work.
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Noting the "pool of science and engineering talent" in the region, IBM opens its first new research facility in 10 years in Shanghai as an extension of the existing IBM China Research Laboratory.
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IMEC and its associated laboratory Institute for Materials Research in MicroElectronics reported they have improved the composition of organic solar cells. Researchers developed conjugated polymers to stabilize the nanomorphology of the active layer.
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Flip-chips and wafer-level packaging (WLP) are emerging as industry “bright spots,” with a continued growth rate of 14% forecasted for both flip-chips and WLP between 2007 and 2012, according to a study by TechSearch International Inc.
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As PC sales in the United States continue to defy economic trends, Samsung comes to the market with five notebooks and one netbook that it believes will allow it access to the business and consumer segments.
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The announcement comes after Vishay's three nominations to IR's board were voted down and concludes a months-long running drama between the two companies that started when IR received an unsolicited $1.6 billion acquisition bid from Vishay.
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Avnet plans to acquire UK-based distributor Abacus Group as it continues to expand its global reach and IP&E (interconnect, passive and electromechanical) portfolio.
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Jobs will be cut as the struggling DRAM maker attempts to reposition itself by selling off investments and exiting 200-mm manufacturing, ramping down manufacturing in Virginia and in Germany.
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Micron will buy Qimonda's stake in its Nanya DRAM joint venture Inotera Memories. In conjunction with the acquisition, Micron and Nanya plan to cease future resource commitments to MeiYa Technology, a DRAM venture the two companies established in the spring, and redirect those resources to Inotera.
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As the global economic slowdown continues to have a significant impact on the semiconductor industry, capital spending is still slowing across the board, with all segments seeing a decline in capital spending in 2008 and through 2009, according to market researchers at Gartner Dataquest.
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Philips spin-out NXP Semiconductors said Tuesday that it has retained ATREG, the semiconductor sales division of Colliers International, to sell its 200-mm semiconductor fab located in Fishkill, NY, for an undisclosed price.
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Continuing their joint process technology development that has been happening since 1998, Tokyo-based electronics giant Panasonic Corp and semiconductor company Renesas Technology Corp reported today that they are collaborating to develop the elemental process technologies for 32-nm SoCs and are confident that this technology can be applied to products that are in mass production.
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