Electronics Supply Chain News & Analysis

Production Commences at New Samsung Fab in China

Samsung Electronics, Co. has begun production at its new advanced NAND flash memory fab in Xi’an China.

Technology Incubator 2.0 Seeks to Rebuild U.S. Chip Ecosystem

A twist on the incubator model seeks to match Silicon Valley tech startups with strategic partners in the semiconductor industry.

3D-NAND still on track for 2015, says SanDisk

Investment in a pilot line for 3D NAND is on track and SanDisk expects to be in production in 2015. But first SanDisk will deploy its "1Z" planar process.

Worldwide Chip Sales Post Strong First Quarter Growth

Worldwide semiconductor sales grew to $78.47 billion, the highest ever first-quarter revenue total in the industry's history.

UCLA Improves IGZO-Type Display Manufacturing

A paint-and-bake wet processing step could reduce the cost of production for IGZO-type high-resolution flat panel displays.

Altera Taps TMSC's Fine-Pitch Copper Packaging Technology

Fine-pitch copper bump-based packaging technology said to provide provide Arria 10 devices with better quality and reliability than standard copper bumping solutions.

Intel Selects Israel for $6 Billion Manufacturing Upgrade

Intel is planning to spend up to $6 billion to upgrade its Kiryat Gat chipmaking facilities – with help from the Israeli government.

MediaTek Nearly Doubles Sales, Looks to Wearables

Taiwan’s MediaTek has reported strong growth in sales and profits in the first quarter based on its position in smartphones with forecasts for strong growth in 2Q14.

Crocus Nano Electronics Raises Another $60M for 300 mm Fab

Bulk of funding comes from Rusnano, a Russian government-funded corporation to commercialize developments in nanotechnologies.

ST Promotes Chery to COO as Outlook Improves

As STMicroelectronics emerges from the shadow of a failed mobile chip joint venture, it has appointed Jean-Marc Chery as COO and plans to give Carlo Bozotti three more years as CEO.

MediaTek to Integrate Wolfson Audio

Fabless chip company Wolfson Microelectronics, which specializes in audio and power management chips for smartphones has cut a deal with mobile chipset firm MediaTek.

Top 25 Chip Company Ranking Shows Solid Growth

Micron, SK Hynix, Qualcomm and MediaTek benefited from the global economic recovery in 2013 as mobile phone demand persisted and rising ASPs helped drive memory markets forward.

Avnet's Q3 Sales Rise 6.1%

Distributor increases sales 6.1 percent to $6.7 billion in its fiscal 2014 third quarter compared to the third quarter of 2013.

Xilinx to Demonstrate FPGA Acceleration Technology at IBM Conference

Xilinx will demonstrate the industry’s first FPGA-based acceleration technology using the IBM CAPI protocol at the upcoming IBM Impact 2014 Conference

Custom Processor Development Team Raises Funds

Private Czech firm secures funds to roll out its application-specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) technology to the rest of the world.

Fujitsu, Panasonic Deal Makes Slow Progress

First mooted early in 2013 in line with the larger re-organization of Japan's struggling electronics sector, the FujiPana deal has moved one step closer to completion.

ARM's Royalties Dip, Licenses Boom

ARM has returned to profit in the first quarter of 2014. Licensing activity was particularly strong although royalty revenue declined year-on-year.

Toshiba Starts 15nm NAND Production

Starting this month Toshiba is moving mass production of NAND flash non-volatile memory down to a 15nm minimum geometry manufacturing process.

TSMC Targets Mobile With 'InFO' Multi-Die Assembly

TSMC is refining its CoWoS 3D IC assembly offering to lower cost and extend appeal to the mobile chip companies and has called it InFO, for integrated fan-out.