Broadcom announced its first single-chip global positioning system (GPS) solution.

TimeSys is giving away a free (with registration) Linux BSP (board support package) said to support all of Atmel's AT91SAM9-series microcontrollers. The BSP could help users more easily evaluate the US$6-10 ARM9-based parts under Linux, without having to pony up for TimeSys's full annual support service subscription for the parts.

Sony is looking at ways to improve its chip operations but has reached no decision on whether to sell it, the company said Tuesday, denying Japanese media reports that it has struck a deal with Toshiba.

LED makers Cree of Durham, NC, USA and Nichia of Anan, Tokushima, Japan have agreed to expand their patent cross-license arrangements announced in 2002 and 2005 to include additional patents relating to white LED technology and certain Cree patents relating to nitride lasers. Nichia has also filed a lawsuit in the Seoul Central District Court against Korean LED maker Seoul Semiconductor alleging infringement of an LED-related patent.

New Delhi-based optical storage media manufacturer Moser Baer (India) has chosen Chennai to set up a Rs 2,000 crore solar photovoltaic fabrication facility. The company is also working on thin-film technology to make solar cells. It had announced an investment of US$250 million over the next three years to set up the largest thin-film solar fabrication (fab) facility in the world.

The AMD-led group is aimed at keeping attention on the considerable gains in productivity yet to be realized in 300 mm fabs, even as other groups seek to gain support for the transition to the 450 mm wafer size. The day-long Austin meeting will include particpants from six integrated device manufacturers –AMD, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Qimonda, Renesas Technologies and Spansion – and 16 semiconductor equipment vendors, said Gerald Goff, senior member of AMD's technical staff.

"...Conditions are not as good as had been expected...In the short run, we are in a difficult situation..."

SunPower, which makes solar cells, panels and systems, said Monday it will receive up to US$24.7 million over three years from the Energy Department to help improve the design of integrated solar-electric systems. The company expects to receive $8.5 million in funding through August 2008.

Wipha's eye was 160 kilometers east of the northeastern coastal city of Ilan at 10 a.m. local time, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said in a statement on its Web site. The storm was moving northwest at 20 kilometers per hour, the bureau's advisory said. The eye is expected to skirt north Taiwan and make landfall in China tomorrow after 8 a.m. tomorrow, the bureau said. Heavy rain and strong winds are expected with winds as high as 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour).

The new chip can process the equivalent of seven or eight months' worth of newspaper text per second. The company said the next-generation product is set to become a category leader next year. So far Samsung has been making 2Gb DDR2 chips using 80nm process technology, which is about 40% less efficient than the finer 60nm process technology.

Atmel announced today what it claims is the industry's first 128K-bit Serial EEPROM device in an 8-pin XDFN package with overall z-height of 0.40mm. Building upon Atmel's serial EEPROM DFN (Dual Footprint Non-leaded) portfolio, the XDFN package will accommodate the industry movement toward applications with the most stringent space constraints.

Japanese electronics firm Toshiba said it had been subpoenaed by the US Department of Justice about its flash memory business in the key US market. That comes after Toshiba's partner, SanDisk Corp said on Friday it and its CEO had received grand jury subpoenas indicating a government probe into possible price-fixing in the NAND flash memory industry.

Freescale Semiconductor has licensed for use with its cellphone chips the 2D and 3D graphics technology of the ATI division of Advanced Micro Devices. Freescale will incorporate AMD's OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.0 graphics core technologies in its i.MX applications processors.