Around the web
8 Mar 20187 Mar 20186 Mar 20185 Mar 20182 Mar 20181 Mar 201827 Feb 201823 Feb 201822 Feb 201814 Feb 201813 Feb 201812 Feb 20188 Feb 20187 Feb 20186 Feb 2018
Globalfoundries has asked Chinese regulators to probe Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for violating antitrust laws, said two industry sources familiar with the matter.
Nikkei Asian Review
SAIC Motor and Infineon Technologies have announced the establishment of a joint venture to manufacture power modules for the dynamically developing electric vehicle market in China.
Company release
Qualcomm's shareholders will no longer be meeting Tuesday to weigh in on Broadcom's unsolicited takeover bid for the U.S. chipmaker.
Fortune
Google Search is now available within iMessage. In an effort to more deeply integrate Google's search engine on iOS devices, the company announced today that its Search app for iOS has added an iMessage extension, allowing iPhone and iPad users to search the web, then quickly add those search results to their iMessage conversations.
TechCrunch
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies' underlying blockchain technology has been gaining popularity among big firms from Amazon to Alibaba Group to Nvidia and Mastercard.
Investor's Business Daily
HP let the cat out of its own bag with an update to its Warranty Support web pages, where it detailed 68 new AMD Ryzen/Vega-powered laptops. The leak comes shortly after Dell's announcement of new Ryzen/Vega laptops, and it almost makes one wonder if HP added the warranty support entries as a way to stoke the mobile AMD hype train. However, the company has yet to make any formal product announcements.
Tom's Hardware Guide
Dialog Semiconductor expects Apple, its top customer, to use its chips for a significant proportion of its devices in 2019 and 2020, Chief Executive Jalal Bagherli told a German newspaper.
NASDAQ.com
China's government aims to raise as much as CNY200 billion ($31.5 billion) to invest in homegrown chip companies and accelerate its ambition of building a world-class semiconductor industry, people familiar with the matter said.
Bloomberg
Japanese electronics maker Kyocera will raise capital spending to more than JPY100 billion ($935 million) in the year starting April 1, much of which will go toward increasing domestic output of chip-related components used in smartphones and cars.
Nikkei Asian Review
The tapeout project, geared toward advancing 3nm chip design, was completed using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and 193 immersion (193i) lithography-oriented design rules and the Cadence Innovus Implementation System and Genus Synthesis Solution.
Company release
Does ever-emerging Ferroelectric Random Access Memory(FRAM) have a role in autonomous vehicles? Cypress Semiconductor thinks so.
EE Times
China wants one of its biggest tech unicorns to go public at home.
Wall Street Journal
The main trading partners of the US have reacted angrily after President Donald Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. Canada and the EU, both key US allies, said they would bring forward countermeasures. Mexico, China and Brazil have also said they are weighing up retaliatory steps.
BBC News
Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 has seen dozens of 5G-related announcements, spanning devices, modems, radios, plans, spectrum, and trials.
ZDNet
Intel intends to expand its partnership with Beijing-backed Tsinghua Unigroup by providing NAND flash memory chips as soon as this year, according to industry sources.
Nikkei Asian Review
Qualcomm has introduced the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 Mobile Platform Series, designed to exceed what is expected from today's high-tier mobile experiences, with features and performance previously only available in the premium Snapdragon 800 Mobile Platform Series. Advances to be expected in the 700 Series include on-device AI supported by the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine, and improvements to camera, device performance and power.
Company release
Qualcomm has dropped its objections to being acquired by Singapore's Broadcom and is willing to agree a deal with its rival chipmaker if it raises its takeover offer to $160bn including debt, according to people involved in the negotiations.
The Financial Times
STMicroelectronics and Macom Technology Solutions announced an agreement that will improve Macom's access to manufacturing capacity for its gallium nitride-on-silicon technology and enable ST to manufacture its own products based on the technology for the RF energy and RF lighting markets.
EE Times
Microchip maker Broadcom has cut its bid for Qualcomm by 4% to $117 billion as it objected to Qualcomm's decision to raise its own bid for NXP Semiconductors to $44 billion.
Reuters
Google is working on an overhaul of its Android mobile software for a new generation of smartphones mimicking Apple's controversial new "notch" at the top of the iPhone X, according to people familiar with the situation.
Bloomberg
Samsung Electronics will break ground for a new foundry in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, on Friday with an aim to start mass-producing below-7 nanometer chips in the second half next year and make headway in the race for customized computer chips to power smart and robotics devices.
Pulse
Intel plans to invest $5 billion to expand production at its Kiryat Gat plant in southern Israel, Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen said on Wednesday after talks with the US chipmaker.
Reuters
Pictures of Samsung's latest flagship phone have been disclosed by an app released by the firm itself. The images were discovered hidden via a hack of Unpacked 2018, a program that the company has asked invitees to Sunday's launch of the handset in Barcelona to download.
BBC News
Shortly after the resignation of its president of smartphone and connected devices, Taiwan-based HTC reportedly has laid off a large portion of its US team, leaving only employees for HTC Global in the US office.
Digital Trends
Many of the devices to be unveiled at MWC 2018 will head to India and have a tangible impact on the market there.
Tech Radar
Vodafone and Huawei have jointly completed the world's first call using the non stand-alone (NSA) 3GPP 5G new radio (NR) standard and sub6 GHz spectrum. The call, using a test network, took place in Spain just ahead of Mobile World Congress which starts on February 26.
Company release
Intel claimed that it maintained Moore's law scaling with a 10-nm SRAM that it described here at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). However, Samsung followed by describing a smaller 256-Mbit SRAM made with extreme ultraviolet lithography and expressed confidence in EUV.
EE Times
Tsinghua Unigroup has signed an agreement with the government of the Chinese city of Chongqing and Sino IC Capital to set up an integrated circuit (IC) investment firm, which will invest up to $100 billion in the Chinese state chipmaker's IC sites over the next decade.
Reuters
NVIDIA has reported record revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 28, 2018, of $2.91 billion, up 34 percent from $2.17 billion a year earlier, and up 10 percent from $2.64 billion in the previous quarter. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were a record $1.78, up 80 percent from $0.99 a year ago and up 34 percent from $1.33 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.72, also a record, up 52 percent from $1.13 a year earlier and up 29 percent from $1.33 in the previous quarter.
Company release
Injong Rhee, a former chief technology officer at Samsung Electronics, has joined Google as an entrepreneur-in-residence to lead Google's Internet of Things (IoT) business, Rhee said in a blog posting on LinkedIn.
EE Times
Qualcomm and Broadcom plan to meet on Wednesday to talk about the latter's $121 billion acquisition offer, the first time the semiconductor companies will discuss the potential deal, people familiar with the matter said.
Reuters
Qualcomm's Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem family has been selected by a number of global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for standard-compliant 5G NR mobile device product launches starting in 2019. Those working with Qualcomm include OEMs such as Asus, Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Connected Technologies Limited, HMD Global, HTC, Inseego/Novatel Wireless, LG, NetComm Wireless, NETGEAR, OPPO, Sharp, Sierra Wireless, Sony Mobile, Telit, vivo, Wingtech, WNC, Xiaomi and ZTE.
Company release
Maker of microdisplays used in the military and medical fields is also courting consumer headset makers.
CNET
Police in China have begun using sunglasses equipped with facial recognition technology to identify suspected criminals. The glasses are connected to an internal database of suspects, meaning officers can quickly scan crowds while looking for fugitives.
BBC News
Shares in Lumentum Holdings soared 23% on Tuesday after the optical components maker said it shipped more than $200 million worth of 3D sensing lasers to a customer that two analysts identified as Apple Inc.
Reuters
US entrepreneur Elon Musk has launched his new rocket, the Falcon Heavy, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mammoth vehicle - the most powerful since the shuttle system - lifted clear of its pad without incident to soar high over the Atlantic Ocean.
BBC News
At SOLIDWORKS World, Dassault Systemes' annual conference dedicated to the 3D design and engineering community, HP and Dassault Systemes have announced their collaboration to empower a new era of product design innovation by entrepreneurs, makers, students and businesses. The two companies intend to optimize Dassault's SOLIDWORKS 3D design and engineering applications to take advantage of the voxel-level capabilities of HP's Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing solutions.
Company release
Stratasys has announced the company is teaming with Dassault Systemes and Easton LaChappelle to power a new initiative - Unlimited Tomorrow. Unveiled at SOLIDWORKS World 2018, Stratasys will become the exclusive provider of 3D printing technology for the initiative and organization, ushering in a new age of custom-designed, low-cost, highly functional arms for those who need them most.
Company release
Samsung Electronics has decided to cooperate with the Chinese government to develop next-generation technologies including artificial intelligence (AI). With China having been putting pressure on Samsung Electronics due to a rise in the price of memory chips supplied to Chinese smartphone makers, some market watchers say that the partnership can settle a series of conflicts between the two.
BusinessKorea
Broadcom raised its bid for Qualcomm to about $121 billion, seeking to force the rival chipmaker to the negotiating table after Qualcomm rejected an earlier offer as too low.
Bloomberg
127/1504 pages