Now Hear This!

Welcome to This week in gEEk, EDN's short review of the week's happenings.

Another August, another Intel Developer Forum. A flurry with introductions and details on products this week -- like its Larrabee, Canmore,  Nehalem, and Atom families – Intel also talked up its SLC and MLC SSDs, discussed “turbo charging” its Cores, and predicted that technology will bring man and machine closer by 2050 as changes come in terms of social interactions, robotics, and improvements to a computer’s ability to sense the real world. Combined, all of the MPU bellwether's news has some wondering what, if anything, AMD can do to stay competitive.

Perhaps it will stay in the game though partnering with its good buddy IBM? Unrelated to IDF, Big Blue and its development partners AMD, Freescale, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering have developed what they believe is the world's first working 22-nm SRAM. The SRAM cell leverages a conventional six-transistor design and has an area of 0.1-sq-microns, breaking previous SRAM scaling barriers.

ST was busy shrinking things this week. Beyond its SRAM moves, the company announced that it would buyout NXP from its handset focused IC joint venture – effectively announcing the exit of NXP from all handset focused IC work – and fold in Ericsson Mobile Platforms, continuing the consolidation of the wireless IC industry. The deal forms a wireless IC powerhouse that will compete shoulder to shoulder with TI and Qualcomm, but some analysts are concerned with ST’s ability to integrate. After all, ST has now announced two large wireless acquisitions within the space of a few months and does not have much experience in M&A. 

It also lacks creativity when it comes to naming its ventures. No word yet on if “ST-NXP Wireless” will change its moniker now that NXP is out. The news came in the same week that ST-NXP Wireless announced a third NXP exec would slide to the venture for a top level spot. 

Meanwhile, Motorola lost another exec this week, and as the wireless IC industry continues to merge, the company holds on to its third-place handset ranking by the skin of its teeth, and former Qualcomm exec Sanjay Jha settles in there as co-CEO, we asked: Will Qualcomm snatch up Moto’s mobile business?

We also paused this week to ask when America’s politicians will get a clue. As NATO struggles with an angry bear of Russia and mulls over the country’s weight as a major oil supplier to several of its participating nations, Bill Clinton kicked off the National Clean Energy Summit with a 10 point list of what he believes the United States government should do to help solve our energy crisis. When will our leaders get that energy independence is our path to prosperity and peace? And when will they accept that the solutions to energy independence will come from engineers, not slick handshakes and political debate?

Speaking of politics, the US, Japan, and Taiwan went to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to fight European Union tariffs on what they consider to be “information technology” goods, which are supposed to be covered by a duty free agreement signed in 1996.

Hynix also pointed itself toward the WTO this week. After the US announced it expects to remove the duties it currently imposes on Hynix DRAM, the South Korea-based memory maker reminded that the WTO has suggested Japan do the same. Hynix expects the duty lift to allow it to “gain a positive turnaround in the second half of this year," as the US remains the largest market for the memory.

DRAM overall, however, isn’t doing so hot right now price wise. And neither is NAND flash. ISuppli this week said the industry would be lucky to see flat growth when it comes to NAND revenue. 

There is flash growth expected from the video game market, though. Noting the memory, Databeans reported that the total served available market for semiconductors in the video-game market will grow from $7.5 billion in 2008 to more than $12 billion by 2013 – Thank you, Nintendo!

But the summer’s not serving up fun and games for semiconductor manufacturing equipment providers. July orders for semi equipment hit their lowest level since 2003 with a book-to-bill of 0.83, meaning that $83 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. The slump reflects the pronounced cutback in capital expenditures this year and saw North America-based semiconductor manufacturing equipment providers posted $905 million in orders in July, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International. 

Between the politics, the down markets, and the mergers, are you just about ready to throw your hands up in protest? Don’t. Instead, throw an LED. LED “throwies” (a lithium-ion button battery, an LED, and a magnet, all taped together) are being popularized by Graffiti Research Labs and were used at the Olympics to spell out  “Free Tibet” in English and Chinese as a sign of silent protest. 

Have something to say on the above noted happenings? Share your comments on this week's news and analysis below.

--Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News