Tue, 9 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST

For more than five years, the U.S. Congress has tried to forge a compromise on how to update the U.S. patent system. What follows are views representing two sides in the debate.



Patent - Intellectual property - Law - Services - Patent Services

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 20:33:00 EST

Thanks to a better than expected fourth quarter, PC shipments eked out marginal growth in 2009, defying a widely held belief that the market would contract after a terrible start to the year, according to market research firm iSuppli.



Market research - iSuppli - Personal computer - Business - Marketing and Advertising

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:58:00 EST

In a major departure, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is reportedly exploring an alternative in high-k dielectrics: It is looking at gate-last technology, according to sources.



South Korea - Samsung Group - Asia - Government - Technology

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:19:00 EST

Charles Thacker won the 2009 Turing Award for his work in the early 1970's on the Xerox PARC Alto, a forerunner of the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC, and is now a Microsoft researcher testing out parallel programming concepts on a multi-core FPGA development system he designed.



Microsoft - PARC - Charles P. Thacker - IBM - Macintosh

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:35:00 EST

Apple plans to build at least 5 million units of its forthcoming iPad tablet in the first half of 2010, according to an analyst, who cited production checks.



Apple - Tablet - IPhone - Companies - Microsoft

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 13:30:00 EST

Data centers can go green without adding hardware by installing the artificially intelligent (AI) inference engine in the Sentilla Energy Manager software.



Data center - Artificial intelligence - Inference engine - Business - Databases

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:26:00 EST

Hewlett-Packard debuted an advertisement for its own tablet computer platform, slate, one day after Apple choose the Academy Awards broadcast as the place to air the first advertisement for its much-anticipated iPad tablet.



Apple - Hewlett-Packard - Tablet PC - IPad - Microsoft

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:26:00 EST

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 12:26:00 EST

Cisco Systems announced its next generation core router, the CRS-3 which can route 100 Gbit/second streams and sports an aggregate throughput of up to 322 Terabits/second.



CiscoSystems - Router - Throughput - Data Communications - Cisco

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:44:00 EST

Business is looking up in the IC industry, based on a sampling of announcements in several sectors.



Business - Small Business - Newspaper - Website - Energy

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:19:00 EST

SiBeam Inc. has announced the closing of $36.5 million in Series D funding led by Foundation Capital.



Foundation Capital - SiBEAM - Business - Philanthropy - Grants

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 10:20:00 EST

Targeted at Bluetooth, 802.15.4/ZigBee and other 2.4 GHz applications, California Eastern Laboratories is now shipping its new µPG2251T6M GaAs power amplifier (PA), which eliminates the need for RF component matching.



Bluetooth - ISM band - Amplifier - Gallium arsenide - Wireless

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:46:00 EST

ACCES I/O Products announced the latest addition to its line of small form factor USB-based data acquisition and control I/O modules—the USB-AO Series, which consists of 12 and 16-bit USB modules.



Universal Serial Bus - Input/output - Data acquisition - Hardware - USB

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:39:00 EST

IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) said it is using Synopsys' TCAD simulation tools for characterizing and optimizing the reliability and electrical performance of through-silicon vias (TSVs).



Synopsys - Integrated circuit - Leuven - Technology - IMEC

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 09:39:00 EST

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 05:48:00 EST

Alchimer SA (Massy, France), a provider of wet deposition processes for semiconductor interconnects and 3-D through-silicon vias (TSV), has opened a 300mm applications and development facility in Seoul, South Korea.



South Korea - Asia - Government - France - Seoul

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 04:46:00 EST

FPGA verification and debug software vendor GateRocket Inc. announced veteran EDA investor Jim Hogan has joined its advisory board.



Electronic design automation - Field-programmable gate array - Hardware - Programmable Logic - FPGA

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST

Market research firm IC Insights increased its estimate for 2010 semiconductor growth, saying it now expects chip revenue to increase 27 percent this year, reaching $253 billion.



Integrated circuit - Market research - Business - Semiconductor - Electronics and Electrical

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:32:00 EST

An online retailer acknowledged that it unwittingly shipped counterfeit ICs to some customers who ordered Intel's Core i7-920 microprocessors.



Intel Core i7 - Intel Corporation - Newegg - Processor - Intel

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:32:00 EST

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 18:08:00 EST

Texas Instruments narrowed its outlook for the first quarter, saying it now expects to report sales of between $3.07 billion and $3.19 billion.



Texas Instruments - Calculators - Hardware - Business - TI Graphing Calculators

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:10:00 EST

The bidding war for Silicon Storage Technology Inc. (SST) continues.



Silicon Storage Technology - Microchip Technology - SST - Business - Information Technology

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 13:22:00 EST

Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) plans to boost its stake in GlobalFoundries Inc. from about 68 percent to 70 percent.



GlobalFoundries - Abu Dhabi - Middle East - United Arab Emirates - Government

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:16:00 EST

Systems and semiconductor companies have a handful of opportunities for growth in mobile data networks despite the fact most carriers will keep a lid on capital equipment spending over the next two years, according to analysts from Barclays Capital.



Semiconductor - Barclays - Business - Barclays Capital - Machine

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:46:00 EST

Worldwide semiconductor capital equipment spending is projected to surpass $29.4 billion in 2010, a 76.1 percent increase from 2009 spending of $16.7 billion, according to market research company Gartner Inc. (Stamford, Conn.).



Semiconductor - Gartner - Business - Components - Electronics and Electrical

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 10:48:00 EST

MIT researchers are using fuel-coated carbon nanotubes as "fuses" for thermowave electrical power sources, which store energy like a battery but promise an unlimited shelf life.



Carbon nanotube - Energy storage - Technology - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Business

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 10:48:00 EST

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:41:00 EST

Carbon Design Systems (Acton, Mass.) has released virtual models for ARM Mali Graphic Processor Units (GPUs).



Graphics processing unit - ARM architecture - Mali - Africa - Environment

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:27:00 EST

Analog Devices Inc. has announced today the availability of an RF transceiver targeting short-range wireless systems in the 2.4-GHz ISM band.



Analog Devices - Business - ISM band - Wireless - Telecommunications