The Future Of Sports Cars


The introduction of autonomous vehicles will have a huge effect on the car market, but not for the obvious reasons—and not necessarily in the time frame that most people expect. Numerous sources say one automakers are very concerned about what kinds of vehicles people will buy once cars are autonomous. What will differentiate one car from another? And what will become of brands such as Por... » read more

The Week in Review: IoT


Deals Rambus finalized its acquisition of the memory interconnect business at Inphi. The closing price was $90 million in cash. The former Inphi business became part of the Memory and Interfaces Division at Rambus. CyberX raised $9 million of private funding in a financing round led by Flint Capital. Glilot Capital Partners, Swarth Group, and GlenRock, all existing investors, were joined by... » read more

The Patent Aspect Of IoT


Wearing objects on the body that perform a function is, of course, nothing new — but the level of sophistication has exploded in the recent past. Along with this is the number of patent applications that have been filed in order to corner some aspect of the market that could be worth as much as tens of billions of dollars in five years. To note: 41,301 patents have been published on wearab... » read more

What Happened To GaN And SiC?


About five years ago, some chipmakers claimed that traditional silicon-based power MOSFETs had hit the wall, prompting the need for a new power transistor technology. At the time, some thought that two wide-bandgap technologies—gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon and silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs—would displace the ubiquitous power MOSFET. In addition, GaN and SiC were supposed to pose a t... » read more

The Week In Review: Sept. 9


By Mark LaPedus SK Hynix’ DRAM fab in China caught on fire. The fire caused one minor injury, but it did not impact the equipment, according to reports. SK Hynix will re-open the fab soon, according to reports. Bob Halliday, Applied Materials’ CFO, gave a presentation at an analyst event, saying: “I think there’s probably more technology inflections going on right now than in years.... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 26


By Mark LaPedus The evolving relationship between humans and machines is the key theme of Gartner’s most "hyped” technologies in 2013. Gartner has chosen to feature the relationship between humans and machines due to the increased hype around smart machines, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things. Gartner also released its updated chart of hyped technologies. SunEdison, formerly... » read more

The Week In Review: July 22


By Mark LaPedus ASML Holding has been under pressure to bring extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into mass production. EUV is still delayed. Now, in their latest roadmaps, leading-edge chipmakers are counting on ASML’s 300mm EUV scanner for insertion at the 10nm node. Yet, at the same time, ASML also is working on a 450mm version of the EUV tool. “EUV (on 300mm) is a higher priority th... » read more

The Week In Review: Feb. 25


By Mark LaPedus Is China set to bail out a U.S. government technology darling? Two Chinese automotive companies, Geely and Dongfeng Motor, are reported to have bid between $200 million and $350 million for a majority stake in Fisker, the maker of plug-in hybrid cars. If that happens Fisker—which has $192 million in U.S. federal government loan guarantees—could be headed to China, according... » read more

LED Firms Mull New Wafer Sizes And Materials


By Mark LaPedus Seeking to reduce the cost of solid-state lighting and related applications, LED manufacturers are taking a page from the IC industry: They are looking at larger wafer sizes and new materials in the fab. Today, the state-of-the-art LED fab is a 150mm (6-inch) facility, but a large percentage of these plants are still using 50mm (2-inch) substrates. The vast majority of LED s... » read more