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| SMIC looks forward to expansion |
3/17/2011 |
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"Based on our current five year business expansion plan to become a $5 billion foundry, SMIC would need to spend approximately $12 billion to increase its manufacturing capacity during the next several years.
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| Netflix to compete with Cable TV |
3/17/2011 |
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Netflix to offer it before the series debuts on cable television, would mark Netflix as an even bigger threat to pay-TV channels such as HBO and Starz. Some analysts believe that Netflix, with 20 million-plus subscribers, could be as big as HBO by the end of this year.
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| PCs won't die, but smartphones will rule |
3/16/2011 |
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IDC predicts more than 400 million smartphones will ship in 2011, surpassing about 380 million desktop and notebook PCs for the first time. It also forecasts as many as 1.3 million Apple iOS and Google Android apps will be available by the end of the year, compared to about 75,000 PC applications.
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| Apple skips Japan on iPad2 launch |
3/16/2011 |
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Apple had planned to release the tablet computer in Japan and 25 other countries on March 25. Apple did not set any new release date for Japan, but said that it will go ahead with the launch of iPad 2 in other countries.
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| TI's Miho Fab suffers damage |
3/15/2011 |
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TI said the Miho suffered would not return to full production until mid July at the earliest. The company said plans to restart production at the fab in stages, beginning with several lines in May.
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| Asian stock market shaken |
3/15/2011 |
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The Nikkei 225 Index ($JP:N225) fell 1,015 points, or 10.5%, to 8,605, its worst loss since Oct. 16, 2008, and its lowest close since April 2009. The benchmark Japanese index has fallen 16% in two days, its biggest 2-day decline since the October 1987 market crash.
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| AT&T DSL and U-Verse to charge for excessive download |
3/15/2011 |
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Traditional DSL users will be capped at 150 GB per month, while subscribers to the fiber-backed UVerse system have a 250-GB limit. Usage over that will be charged at $10/month for 50 GB, the company says.
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| Memory prices spiked |
3/15/2011 |
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While it appears by their statements that the memory markets are overreacting to the earthquake, analysts say that the price increases may highlight a graver issue for the global chip industry: damage to Japanese component and material suppliers vital to chip production.
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| Break through in PCM memory using nanotube |
3/14/2011 |
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The paper reports on reversible switching with programming currents between 1 and 8 microamps, two orders of magnitude lower than state-of-the-art PCM devices. The PCM material switches between an off resistance of 50-megaohm to an on resistance of 2-Mohm but which can be as low 500-kohm, depending on sample prepation.
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| Supply chain affected by Japanese quake |
3/14/2011 |
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Shin-Etsu Semiconductor and SUMCO, are affected most. In addition to damage of their production lines, the power outage has forced the production to come to a stop. The traffic for areas east of Kant¨ has also been affected. As a result, the supply for silicon wafer will drop significantly, which will cause the global semiconductor players outside of Japan to compete for material.
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| Half a million iPad2 sold over weekend |
3/14/2011 |
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Piper Jaffray says it believes that between 400,000 and 500,000 of the devices have been sold already - more, even than the 300,000 original iPads that were shifted over the launch weekend.
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| Industry in Japan grinds to a halt |
3/14/2011 |
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Industry in the world's third-largest economy all but ground to a halt following the earthquake, as manufacturers ranging from Toyota to Nissan, Sony, Fuji and brewers Kirin and Sapporo shut down their operations in Japan to assess damage and allow staff to check on their families.
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| PTI announces investment in Elpida subsidiary |
3/11/2011 |
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Powertech Technology (PTI), a major memory-IC packaging and testing company in Taiwan, plans to make a JPY4.1 billion (US$49.5 million) investment in EBS a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan's Elpida Memory.
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| Lenovo announce new Classmate+ PC |
3/10/2011 |
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Lenovo and Intel have co-announced the Lenovo Classmate+ PC, a purpose-built notebook designed to improve learning for students in grades K-8.
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| Taiwan motherboard makers see revenue drop in February |
3/10/2011 |
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Asustek Computer, Pegatron Technology, Gigabyte Technology, Micro-Star International (MSI) have all reported drop in February revenues due to fewer working days in the month and Intel's defective chipset incident.
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| Asus to ship Sandy Bridge products in March |
3/9/2011 |
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Asustek Computer has recently started selling its latest PC products with Sandy Bridge chipsets in retail channels, and Gigabyte Technology is also set to release its Sandy Bridge notebooks in March.
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| HP launches Sandy Bridge notebooks |
3/9/2011 |
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Hewlett-Packard has launched several new Intel Sandy Bridge-based notebooks in Taiwan, and as the company is starting to ramp-up the notebook models in March.
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| PTI report revenues for February up 14.3% |
3/9/2011 |
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Memory packaging and testing firm Powertech Technology (PTI) has announced that consolidated revenues for February 2011 grew 14.3% from a year earlier to NT$3.2 billion (US$109 million).
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| AMD releases dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990 |
3/8/2011 |
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AMD has launched its latest dual-GPU graphics card, the Radeon HD 6990, supporting DirectX 11 and AMD's exclusive PowerTune intelligent technology to enable higher clock speeds and faster gaming.
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