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| Sodium-ion batteries to replace lithium-ion on EV's |
2/4/2019 |
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Sodium-ion batteries are an attractive alternative to lithium-based ion batteries due to several reasons. Sodium is not a limited resource - it is abundant in the earth's crust as well as in seawater. Also, sodium-based components have a possibility to yield much faster charging time given the appropriate crystal structure design.
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| Ic Insights: R and D spending to increase for the next few years |
2/4/2019 |
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IC Insights expects new challenges such as three-dimensional (3D) die-stacking technologies, growing complexities in end-use applications, and other significant manufacturing barriers to raise semiconductor R&D spending to a slightly higher growth rate of 5.5% per year in the 2018-2023 forecast period.
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| Boeing shares soared on beating sales expectations |
2/4/2019 |
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Boeing Co. had net income of $3.42 billion, or $5.93. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to $5.48 per share, easily topping the per-share profit of $4.52 that industry analysts were looking for.
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| Qualcomm beat estimates |
2/1/2019 |
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CEO Steve Mollenkopf said the earnings beat was "driven by strong product leadership and operating expense management."
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| U.S. icon, Caterpillar returns to profit |
2/1/2019 |
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Caterpillar earned $1.05 billion, or $1.78 per share. Stripping out restructuring costs and other items, earnings were $2.55 per share, which was 43 cents short of analyst expectations.
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| Intel make interim CEO perminent |
2/1/2019 |
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Robert Swan, who has also been the company's chief financial officer since 2016, becomes the seventh CEO in Intel's 50-year history. He was also named to Intel's board of directors.
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| Shanghai SMIC now ready for 14nm production |
1/31/2019 |
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SMIC has made significant progress with its FinFET process development since Liang Mong-song, former R&D guru of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung Foundry, joined the Shanghai-based foundry.
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| When counterfeit supplies become a problem |
1/31/2019 |
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Technology advancements have only added to the problem: electronic components can now be cloned so well that they cannot be distinguished from the genuine article. But counterfeiting is not just a technology issue —procurement and supply chain practices also contribute to the proliferation of fake devices.
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| Mars surface details captured by Teledyne CCD Sensor |
1/31/2019 |
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Teledyne DALSA upgraded the imaging sensing technology to survey the InSight landing site and determine the optimum place to deploy, for the first time on another planet, a seismometer and a heat probe capable of drilling 15 feet down into the subsurface of Mars.
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| Defective chemical material conteminates production at TSMC |
1/30/2019 |
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"TSMC has discovered a shipment of chemical material used in the manufacturing process that deviated from the specification and will impact wafer yield," the company said in a statement. It said it was investigating the cause of the problems at the Fab 14B production site in southern Taiwan and contacting customers.
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| 5G development activity benefits Xilinx and others |
1/30/2019 |
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“The start of this ramp [up of 5G spending] is happening faster than we had thought,” Xilinx Chief Executive Victor Peng said on the company’s quarterly earnings call on Jan. 23. “And the strength for coming out of the gate is pretty strong.”
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| Intel to spend $10 billion expanding fab in Isreal |
1/30/2019 |
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Israeli business publication Globes reported that Intel asked that Israel for a state grant amounting to about 10% of the cost of the project. The report indicated that Intel is already preparing the physical infrastructure for the new fab.
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| AMD subcontracts PCIe 4.0 design work to Taiwan ASMedia |
1/29/2019 |
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AMD has announced that its 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors fabricated by TSMC with 7nm process will hit the market in mid-2019, which will be the world's first PC processor platform that supports PCIe Gen 4 with transmission speed doubling to 16GT/s. The PCIe Gen 4 is expected to become mainstream motherboard PCH in the future.
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| SK Hynix reports 10% up on annual sales |
1/29/2019 |
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The South Korean semiconductor manufacturer reported sales of ?9.94tn ($8.9bn), up 10 per cent year-on-year but down 13 per cent on the prior quarter in what has historically been its busiest three months of the year. Similarly, net profit was up 6 per cent on a year ago to ?3.4tn ($3.04bn), but down 28 per cent sequentially.
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| Transition from DDR4 to DDR5 won/t be easy |
1/29/2019 |
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Those are the data and clock rate, VDD (or operating voltage), power architecture, channel architecture, burst length, and improvements for higher-capacity DRAM support. These new changes present special design considerations.
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| Mercury Systems to offer space qualified SSD |
1/28/2019 |
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Designed to operate reliably in high radiation environments, this is the first commercial SSD leveraging VITA 78 SpaceVPX standards to reduce cost and mitigate programme risk. In addition to commercial satellite applications, this device is also intended for high-altitude aircraft, airborne weapons and mission-critical ground computing systems.
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| Western Digital announced cost cuting |
1/28/2019 |
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Western Digital is targeting $800 million in annualized reductions in non-GAAP cost and expenses, Milligan said on the post-earnings call, adding that the company is accelerating the closure of a plant.
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| Semiconductor outlook unclear with many variables |
1/28/2019 |
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Big uncertainties over China and European trade and the bottom of the memory cycle predicts that the semiconductor industry will slow down over the next two years before picking up steam again. But in long term, don’t worry about China,
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