semiconductors

WALTHAM, Mass.--For Mark Russell, the vice president of engineering, technology, and mission assurance at defense giant Raytheon, engineering is not just his profession--it's also the lifeblood of the company.

It seems pretty obvious that engineering would be important at a company that makes just about every imaginable kind of defense system. But this important? At Raytheon, more than 40,000 of the total 75,000 employees are engineers, and the company is hiring thousands more each year.

To Russell, who grew up in the company (he's been there 27 years) it's a no-brainer that all six … Read more

National Semiconductor is diversifying into solar with the release a chipset that optimizes the power output of solar panels.

The company said Tuesday said that it is making its SolarMagic technology available as a chipset that can be integrated into the junction boxes of solar panels. Until now, the power optimizer hardware, first introduced a year ago, was available as an add-on product.

The chipset is designed to adjust the voltage and current from all the solar panels in an array so that they match, which increases the overall energy flow. The technology can also gather data on energy for … Read more

Following a weak market in 2009, the semiconductor industry will be the beneficiary of double-digit spending gains this year, says new research unveiled Thursday by iSuppli.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are expected to boost their chip spending 13 percent to $177.9 billion in 2010, while electronic manufacturing service (EMS) providers will spend $37.7 billion this year, a gain of 15.1 percent from 2009.

Among OEMs, Hewlett-Packard will be the top spender on semiconductors this year, says iSuppli, paying around $12.6 billion for its stock of chips. In second place will be Samsung Electronics, spending $12.5 … Read more

For about a year, a group of heavyweight automotive and technology companies has been working on a way to hasten development of in-vehicle entertainment systems. Their solution: share basic software development using the open-source Linux operating system.

Among the nearly 50 members of the group, called the Genivi Alliance, are automakers General Motors, BMW AG, Nissan Motor, and, as of February 17, Renault SA. Suppliers include Visteon, Delphi Automotive, and Continental AG.

The Genivi (pronounced jah-NEE-vee) Alliance is focusing on developing "middleware"--the layer of software that allows various kinds of information and entertainment applications to work together … Read more

Following a rough 2009, global sales of semiconductors are expected to rise nearly 20 percent this year, according to research released this week by Gartner.

Sales are projected to hit $276 billion this year, an increase of nearly 20 percent, compared with $231 billion last year. The boost in revenue will come courtesy of rising DRAM (dynamic random access memory) prices as well as greater consumer demand for personal computers. Commonly used in PCs, DRAM is likely to be the fastest growing type of chip, with DRAM sales alone shooting up 55 percent this year, according to Gartner.

The semiconductor … Read more

IBM announced Thursday that it's teaming up with companies and universities from the European Union to improve the reliability and efficiency of semiconductor chips. By creating a new type of technology to better test microchips for flaws, the parties involved hope to cut the time and cost required to create each chip.

Joining forces to create an EU-funded organization called the Diamond consortium, IBM and the other major players plan to develop a more orderly and integrated approach to check for bugs in a chip. The goal of the new system will be to track down and correct errors … Read more

Chip manufacturing equipment is yet another tech sector eyeing a recovery this year, according to projections from market researcher iSuppli.

Global spending on chip manufacturing gear will grow by 46.8 percent over 2009, according to the report released Friday. The growth will follow nearly three down years. This upturn could be good news for the tech industry. Makers of chip manufacturing equipment are often considered the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the rest of tech, because new orders often indicate a growing confidence in consumer or business spending.

The chip industry was hit by a particularly severe … Read more

Freescale Semiconductor has designs on new "smartbook" tablet computers and to prove it it's rolling out a second-generation reference design at the Consumer Electronics Show.

To say that tablet concepts are all the rage right now is, of course, an understatement. With a media frenzy over a reportedly imminent Apple tablet, companies like Freescale, which will supply the silicon guts of these newfangled computers, are eager to show concepts that they are peddling to device makers.

Freescale is pushing designs "with prices less than $200"--according to a statement--that integrate its version of the power-efficient ARM processor: the i.MX515 chip based on ARM Cortex-A8 technology.

Here's how Freescale describes the design: it will "provide instant-on functionality, persistent connectivity and all-day battery life." The tablet that the chipmaker will show at CES will run both the Android and… Read more

The semiconductor industry is set to post a revenue drop of $29 billion for this year, according to research firm Gartner.

Worldwide revenue for 2009 totaled $226 billion, down 11.4 percent from 2008, the company said in a research report published on Thursday. It marks only the sixth time in 25 years that the semiconductor industry has posted an annual decline, and is the first time it has seen a drop for two years in a row, according to Gartner.

While revenue fell sharply at the beginning of 2009, carrying on a fall prompted by the economic recession the … Read more