The Apple iPad will be shipping April 3, 2010. If you have already pre-ordered, you will get it at that time. If you still need to order the iPad, you will be waiting until after April 12. According to recent news items, the pre-order levels may have exceeded Apple’s initial expectations.
Apple experienced [...]

On March 23rd, 2010, the Silicon-On-Insulator Consortium (SOIC) announced a new program geared towards creating an ecosystem for Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) around SOI wafers. The initial members of the IP ecosystem are IBM, ARM, Ltd., and Cadence Design Systems, Inc. additional members include Synopsys, Inc. and Boeing, Corp. The idea behind this announcement is [...]

On March 17th, 2010, SEMI released its 2009 semiconductor material market statistics.  While the headline pegged worldwide semiconductor material sales at $34.6 billion, that was reportedly a 19% decline in sales compared to 2008.
Although SEMI stated that was not as bad as the 26% decline suffered by material suppliers in the devastating 2001 down cycle, [...]

I can always count on my children to inspire and inform me on matters of technology.  Usually this is about the latest thing in social networking or consumer electronics.  Sometimes I can blow them away with my knowledge.  “Wow, Dad knows stuff!”
It is spring break in Arizona.  My son, a college sophomore, was home from [...]

Summary of Semico Outlook 2010 Presentation by
Alex Shubat, President and CEO, Virage Logic
One of the great stories of the early 21st Century in the semiconductor industry is the rise of the 3rd Party Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) market and the vendors that populate it. This market has been created and driven in turn by the [...]

Echoing the general theme of the day at the Semico 2010 Outlook conference; namely the growing importance of controlling, manipulating, generating, conserving and transmitting power, eSilicon CEO Jack Harding addressed the issue in his keynote speech, summarized as follows.�
Developing counties such as India and China have ever-increasing appetites for the kind of inexpensive, plentiful and [...]

One of the panels at the Semico Outlook Conference (March 2, 2010) focused on issues concerning the communications infrastructure. Some common themes were the carriers meeting the challenge of return on investment (ROI), meeting the growing demand for band width, and reducing power consumption.
The mainstream press and popular culture tend to focus on the [...]

Microchip Technology has announced a series of 11 new 8-bit PIC® microcontrollers, ranging from 8 to 64 pins, which use Microchip’s nanoWatt XLP Technology to attain active power consumption less than 50µA/Mhz. Low power, combined with the large number and variety of functions integrated onto these MCUs make them ideally suited for a wide range [...]

Jay Cormier, VP and GM of Energy Measurement and Communications for Teridian, spoke at the Semico Outlook 2010 Event this morning.  The topic was “Sub-metering in the home & enterprise…The Next Wave.”  Some of the problems facing the energy industry today include higher demand than supply forecasted for the next twenty years, amid an aging [...]

Dr. Tsugio Makimoto, Chairman of the Society of Semiconductor Industry Seniors, spoke this morning at the Semico Outlook event about “Chip Innovations Opening the Age of the Digital Nomad.”  He pointed out that devices from the Communications, Computing, and Consumer areas are converging into more intelligent portable digital products, driven by the digitalization of everything and with chip [...]