This week in gEEk: Who's sour on Apple; gaga for GaN; Kilby's golden anniversary

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

Who’s sour on Apple? Just about everyone. The tech community was unimpressed with Apple’s iPod updates this week, as was the financial community, which sent the company’s stock, AAPL, down, down, down. 

But readers came to Apple’s defense in the above two linked blogs. Speaking of defense, Henry Samueli could use a new lawyer. The Broadcom co-founder and ex-CTO could go to prison now that a federal judge has rejected a deal with prosecutors that would have given the semiconductor industry pundit probation for lying to regulators about his role in the company’s alleged $2.2 billion stock-option-backdating scheme.

Samueli would have also paid a $12 million fine, but, as the normal fine for this crime is $250,000, the judge accused Samueli’s legal team of trying to buy his freedom. Samueli’s lawyers are expected to pitch another offer before his next hearing.

Vishay threw its second pitch at International Rectifier this week, upping its offer for the power management IC maker to $1.7 billion from $1.2 billion. Independently, IR invested in GaN. While keeping some of the details hush-hush, one thing is clear: IR won’t be growing the transistors on sapphire — this is GaN on silicon or silicon carbide, allowing the company to play in the low-cost power field as opposed to the high-cost RF transistor market. The IR patent calls out a bidirectional switch with multiple gates and a 100-times reduction in specific on-resistance for a 300-volt part.

Nvidia is continuing to keep its heat-cycling product failure issues quiet. But the withholding of information has attracted a class action suit. A New York-based law firm alleged this week that Nvidia knew about the issues for at least eight months before telling its investors.

More than eight months after stating it would go halogen free, Intel this week made good on its promise to move Xeons to such designs. Using its hafnium-based high-k metal gate formula, Intel expanded its 45-nm portfolio with the launch of four drop-in compatible halogen-free Xeon processors. In addition, all previously launched versions of the Intel Xeon 5200 and 5400 series will now be halogen free. Intel is confident, but the debate is still out on whether going halogen free is a good move for design.

The debate is also still out on patent trolls. After failing to get Congress to pass a patent reform bill, some large technology companies have decided that if they can’t beat the patent trolls, they can at least use some of the trolls’ own weapons against them. 

It’s sort of a "if you can’t beat them, join them" approach. The music industry has tried such approach when it comes to digital rights management. EDN’s Brian Dipert this week looked at the future of music in his blog, where he explores free tunes, Internet-based content distribution, and fiscal profit. (Suggestion: Play Radiohead’s "Just" while reading. The two pair nicely.)

Also pairing nicely this week are Xilinx and Synopsys, which together announced an extension of an existing agreement that will at last give a physical reality to the OpenSPARC program. The two companies have developed an OpenSPARC T1 Evaluation Kit based on a board carrying a Xilinx Virtex-5 LX FPGA and supporting hardware. Accompanying the board in the package will be Xilinx SystemACE software, as well as the OpenSPARC T1 RTL. 

Synopsys was busy this week. In addition to the above, it announced a deal with Ovonyx to create TCAD models for phase change memory (PCM). Under an agreement, Ovonyx will provide Synopsys with material and device characterization data to develop and calibrate TCAD models for PCM device simulation.

Also shaking hands this week were NEC and IBM. The two signed a multi-year joint development agreement under which they will develop next-generation semiconductor process technology. In doing so, NEC became the eighth semiconductor manufacturer in IBM’s joint development alliance working to advance performance and power improvements for next-generation silicon technologies. IBM’s other joint development partners include, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Freescale, Infineon Technologies, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Toshiba. 

Feeling the pressure of a difficult economic situation, NXP Semiconductors is undertaking a plan to achieve cost savings of $550 million per year, which includes closing or selling four fabs, centralizing R&D and support functions and affecting approximately 4,500 employees globally. Restructuring costs are estimated to be $800 million.

Finally, we’d be remiss if not to note the significange of today. September 12, 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of Jack Kilby’s demonstration of the first working IC. Without the event and the IC’s following evolution, much, if not all, of the above technologies, debates, and deals would not be where they are now. In honor of this day, Texas Instruments launched the Kilby Labs, aimed at supporting innovations in chips that ‘make a difference,’ the company said.

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 and Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor