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| iPod user report high failure rate |
7/28/2006 |
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The study showed that more than 1,400 failed out of 9,000 iPods owned by some 4,000 respondents. The failure rate was reported at about 13.7% well above what Apple claims it should be.
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| SMIC posts profit after 6 quaters of loss |
7/28/2006 |
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Previously, SMIC had reported sixth consecutive quarterly losses despite growing sales and a push into new foundry markets, including NAND flash and solar. From the previous quarter, SMIC has lost a total of $131.4 million.
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| TI to partner Panasonic and NEC on 3G development |
7/28/2006 |
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Adcore will generally focus on developing a communications platform for 3G, 3.5G, 3.9G and beyond, The JV will be launched in August with a ¥12 billion yen (about $104 million) investment. Matsushita and NEC will each hold a 44-percent share, with TI holding the remaining 12 percent.
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| Intel confirms new Core 2 Duo roll out |
7/28/2006 |
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The Conroe and Merom processors are part of Intel's Core 2 Duo family of chips. Core 2 Duo is Intel's next-generation MPU architecture, based on a 65-nm process. Conroe is for desktops, while Merom is for notebooks.
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| Rambus accepts lower judgement payment from Hynix |
7/28/2006 |
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Rambus' filing with the court accepted the lower damages award with the understanding that the $133.6 million did not include prejudgment interest or damages for Hynix's infringement after Dec. 31, 2005
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| Google out performs |
7/27/2006 |
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Google's results were strong enough to probably force most analysts to raise their 2006 sales and earnings targets for the company. Analysts currently expect Google to report revenue, excluding TAC, of $6.98 billion and pro forma earnings of $9.51 a share in 2006.
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| Renesas re-invented itself after dropping Nand flash |
7/27/2006 |
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For fiscal 2006, Renesas expects sales of 970 billion yen ($8.4 billion), up 7.1 percent over the previous period. It also expects an operating profit of 16 billion yen ($139 million). Currently, the company's chip sales are above plan
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| Mosaid wants to get paid on DRAM IP |
7/27/2006 |
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Mosaid Technologies Inc. announced Wednesday (July 26) that it has initiated litigation in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, against Micron Technology Inc. of the United States and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. and ProMOS Technologies Inc. of Taiwan.
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| Iran achieved 32 bit processor design |
7/27/2006 |
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The agency said Tuesday (July 25) that Iranian researchers and engineers at Parsé Semiconductor Co. (Tehran) had developed a 32-bit processor that is compatible with the Sparc instruction set.
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| Power of AMD 4X4 |
7/26/2006 |
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Today AMD held a demo of its 4x4 platform for PC enthusiasts, which is meant to deliver performance that will rival and perhaps surpass that of the Core 2 Duos.
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| Intel/Micron sampling small geometry Flash |
7/26/2006 |
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"Micron entered the NAND business in 2004 using a 90-nM process. In a few short years and through our collaboration with Intel, we are now poised to introduce a leadership product based on a cutting-edge process technology,"
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| Malaysia see a blooming electronics industry |
7/26/2006 |
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Much of this demand is expected to come from Asia Pacific due to the regional "expansion in electronic commerce and the increase in consumer purchasing power," the ministry said.
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| DRAM packaging house see profit down |
7/26/2006 |
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Group President and CEO Lee Joon Chung attributed the decline to a "confluence of one-off factors," including costs associated with the opening of a second Singapore facility and lower utilization in UTAC's DRAM line.
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| Windows Vista to use Flash cache drive |
7/26/2006 |
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The flash device can be mounted nearly anywhere on the motherboard and is connected through the ATA port. Since Vista automatically compresses data stored in a ReadyBoost device, the drive will also handle up to 8 gigabytes of user data.
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| Spansion have some catching up to do |
7/25/2006 |
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Though total shipments are on the rise, NOR flash faces a declining market. If it's able to deliver on its multichip ORNAND memory package -- a chip said to combine the best features of NOR and NAND flash -- Spansion may yet make an interesting investment.
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| Philips has a price: $10.2B |
7/25/2006 |
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The business unit employs more than 36,000 people and makes chips in five European countries in addition to the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The company will make a decision after all bids are received at the end of the week.
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| TI having a good time |
7/25/2006 |
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Semiconductor supplier Texas Instruments Inc. posted second quarter sales of $3.7 billion, up 11 percent sequentially and 24 percent from a year ago. Earnings from continuing operations were $2.4 million or 47 cents per share, up 42 percent sequentially and 34 percent from a year ago.
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| Rumor that M-system for sale |
7/25/2006 |
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Israel-based personal storage company Msystems said it would not comment on recent rumors the company is for sale.
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| IBM, Freescale joined Chinese in Power architecture |
7/24/2006 |
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Two of those new members notably are from research organizations in China, where the two companies hope Power will fare well—particularly when it is coupled with Linux and other open-source software. One is the Ministry of Information Industry’s Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center, whose stated goal is to expand the market beyond China’s borders.
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| Test cost keeping NAND profits down |
7/24/2006 |
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"The ASPs for NAND have fallen by 50 percent since the beginning of the year," said Tim Moriarty, vice president of sales and marketing for San Jose-based Nextest Inc., a high-flying supplier of ATE. "Unfortunately, the test times are getting longer."
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| Battlle of the Quad-Core heats up |
7/24/2006 |
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The server and enthusiast gaming are two markets that can take advantage of quad-core because software available is already multithreaded, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said. On the desktop side, both AMD and Intel noted lower ASPs for desktop processors during the second quarter. In some cases, executives said, AMD walked away from business when price points became so low the deal was deemed unprofitable.
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| Flexible OTP memory goes high voltage |
7/24/2006 |
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The company is targeting high-growth markets, such as LCD driver ICs, analog ICs and power management ICs, where the IP can be used for circuit trimming and performance tuning.
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