Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Apple purchased a portfolio of eight granted and pending patents that belonged to Lighthouse AI, a smart home security camera startup that ceased operations near the end of 2018. The portfolio was acquired at about the same time, according to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office; financial terms weren’t revealed. Also not disclosed, as usual, is what Apple will do with t... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


M&A Samsung Electronics will buy Joyent, a provider of public and private cloud services. The Korean company said the purchase will give Samsung a cloud platform for the Internet of Things, mobile devices, and cloud-based software and services. “Samsung brings us the scale we need to grow our cloud and software business, an anchor tenant for our industry leading Triton container-as-a-ser... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers It’s been a difficult time for Intel. The chip giant recently announced a major layoff. It also ceased development on several cell-phone chip products. Intel hasn’t given up on Moore’s Law, but the nodes appear to be extending from 18 to 24 months or perhaps longer, at least at Intel. Here’s the latest: For 10nm production, Intel received the production fab tools in Ap... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Tools eSilicon uncorked a GDSII online quote system for TSMC, which allows chipmakers to pick a variety of information ranging from process technology to package to yield and tapeout and production forecast and get a quote within minutes. This is a new twist in the value chain provider market. Synopsys added program to speed up FPGA-based prototype creation, which includes approved third-pa... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Design, Test


Reports have surfaced that IBM’s semiconductor unit is on the block, and there has been discussion about the reasons and the aftermath. Sources say there are at least two potential buyers for the unit—Samsung and TowerJazz. Apparently, the talks between IBM-Samsung and IBM-TowerJazz have been going on for some time. Multiple sources believe that Samsung is interested in buying IBM’s advan... » read more