The Front Page

The cell phone phenomena has catalyzed the technology growth and coaxed the hardware and software to work more closely. The Apple effect further directed this technology growth to focus on enhanced user experience. The emphasis has been primarily on the display and touch aspects of the designs with limited adoption on other areas. The handsets have moved from buttons to touch display and the next wave under discussion ...

So Ericsson Mobile Platforms is to be shut down, with the loss of around 1600 jobs. Not to mention billions of dollars that ST and Ericsson sunk into the joint venture in an attempt to create a competitor to Qualcomm.

The history actually goes back a bit further. Nokia originally had an internal semiconductor design group and in 2007 they decided to get out of doing their own chip design and ...

A dedicated schematic migration tool can save weeks of effort and allow companies to explore new foundry opportunities. Unfortunately moving analog and mixed signal design data between foundries and processes is a complex business. While engineers would rather spend their days creating new circuits, many spend time translating existing designs by re-creating their data using components from new process design kits (PDKs).

Translating design data is usually a complex ...

In this previous article, I was suggesting that certain chip makers may take a serious look at a disruptive way to look at Moore’s law, as they may get better ROI, profit and even better revenue. The idea is to select technology node and packaging technique in order to optimize the Price, Performance, Power triptych and manage chip development lead time to optimize Time To Market (TTM) and cost. Only a complete business plan would confirm the validity of this assumption, but we think it could be a new direction to be explored, so we propose some tracks.

The ...

46 years in Computing, 1945-1991

Margaret (Kampschaefer) Butler was a pioneer in technology, a ground-breaking woman who graduated with a B.S in Mathematics and Statistics in 1944, and followed a fascinating career path in the public sector starting in the earliest days of computers and nuclear energy. One of the early female “computers,” she worked on the first atomic submarine. She also spent time overseas after WW II as an employee of the U.S. military. At Argonne National Laboratory, where she spent many years, Margaret worked with the AVIDAC, ORACLE, GEORGE, UNIVAC, and more, in the formative days of computing. ...

The keynotes at CDNLive today were very interesting, but rather than cover the slides and bullet points let me share with you my personal view of Samsung and how they are changing the semiconductor industry. Before I continue remember I’m just a blogger who shares observations, experiences, and opinions. This blog is for entertainment purposes and ...

As failure analysis engineers for companies, our job is to find the root cause of failure and recommend changes in design, process, tests, etc. to fix the problem. This type of analysis has become an important part of semiconductor mass production, which makes electronics cheaper and affordable for consumers. At the same time, mass production helps the manufacturer / producer of parts by increasing their profits. ...

I recently blogged about the actions filed by Tela Innovations at both the US International Trade Commission (USITC) and in federal district court. Those actions allege that five mobile phone manufacturers -HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, Pantech, and Nokia - were importing handsets into the US which infringed on seven of Tela’s patents. ...

A few years ago I was having breakfast with Jim Hogan at our favorite place to meet in Los Gatos. I was CEO of Polyteda and Jim was Chairman so we always had plenty to talk about. This time, however, the talk had turned to protecting a company’s intellectual property (IP). Jim had brought up the topic in the context of the looming legal battle ...