A new industrial strategy for the continent aims to unlock €100 billion in private-sector funding through the use of targeted public-sector funding for R&D in the fields of nanoelectronics and microelectronics. Read more »
LogMeIn has launched a cloud platform that inventors and developers can use to create next-generation connected devices, and it’s partnered with ARM to provide a “Jumpstart” kit to speed up the process. Read more »
Quantenna has developed a 802.11ac chipset that uses multiple antennas and multiple frequencies to deliver up to 2 Gbps of bandwidth. The partnership with STMicro will expand Quantenna’s scope beyond home networking to other industries. Read more »
We upgrade our smartphones every one to two years. Why not our smart cars? Nvidia has developed a chip architecture that could let us boost the brainpower of our connected cars after they roll off the lot. Read more »
Qualcomm’s new RF360 radio chip cold be the answer to the problem of 4G fragmentation. It won’t produce a universal LTE phone just yet, but with 40 bands supported, it will get the industry close. Read more »
Altair Semiconductor may be the latest vendor to malign the term LTE-Advanced, but it does have an impressive new 4G chip. It’s new device silicon is the first we’ve seen that uses envelope tracking battery-sparing technology. Read more »
LSI is the latest silicon vendor to incorporate an ARM architecture into its mobile base station chips. And it’s going all out, combining 16 ARM cores onto a single module. Read more »
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang readily admits the lack of an integrated processor-modem is holding the company back in the smartphone market. Why? Integrated chips aren’t just easier to design around, they also consume less power. Read more »
Spending on chips actually shrank 3 percent in 2012, but was helped out by Samsung and Apple’s seemingly insatiable appetite for semiconductors. Read more »
The fourth quarter in cleantech saw attention paid to two prominent, publicly traded companies: EV maker Tesla and newly minted public listing SolarCity. It remains a transitional period for the sector as investment declines, with a shift toward those companies able to scale with little additional capital. Read more »
The “mobile first” philosophy is under way today. That means a new generation of mobile-centric data centers will arise over the next three years, with chips, servers, and power architectures customized for mobile workloads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Yet another report indicates that Apple might be aiming to move away from Intel chips in its Mac lineup. Bloomberg says the company wants to get its mobile and PC products on the same chip architecture. Here’s why that could actually happen. Read more »
IBM has developed a microscopy technique that lets it see the bonds between molecules. While that’s pretty esoteric for most of us, the tool could help develop graphene-based semiconductors that would result in better batteries, faster chips, nicer displays and more efficient solar panels. Read more »
Both Apple and Qualcomm were denied an investment opportunity and exclusive access. But it’s always surprising to hear a company like TSMC, so invested in the mobile device market, rebuff the most cash-rich tech company, and the world’s largest chip buyer. Read more »
Qualcomm may be late to the market with quad-core smartphone superchip, but now that it’s made its way into its the LG Optimus G, Qualcomm can probably make up for lost ground quickly. Qualcomm has technical and logistical advantages its competitors will have trouble matching. Read more »
Verizon must believe in the Internet of Things because it has pre-certified LTE chips from Altair Semiconductor. The action means that companies can build sensors and devices containing Altair’s chip and then avoid the lengthy testing process in order to get their gadgets on Verizon’s network. Read more »
Samsung makes Apple’s A5 custom-designed chips at its Austin plant, used in the iPad 2, iPhone 4S and new iPad. The part of the factory that’s getting a makeover could build even more A5 chips, or the next generation of Apple’s mobile chips. Read more »
Struggling British chipmaker CSR is selling its mobile business to Samsung in a deal worth $310 million, in what appears to be the latest episode in the ongoing global patent war. Read more »
AMD, ARM, Texas Instruments and two smaller chip firms have teamed up to create a nonprofit that will try to unseat Intel’s x86 dominance in computing. But this group isn’t just after Intel; it’s taking the CPU — the beating heart of computers today — down a peg. Read more »
Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web that you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: iPads and the Greek debt crisis, Kaspersky on iOS security, details behind Apple’s Monday stock surge, Apple’s spendy ways when it comes to chips, and TiVo’s iPad arrival. Read more »
Researchers at Rice University have built a chip that sacrifices accuracy in exchange for faster performance and energy efficiency. The chips is 15 times more energy-efficient that normal chips and will be in the real world next year in hearing aids. Read more »
The chip industry has a problem — can looking to the architecture of the web help? The tradeoff between faster performance and power consumption has led the chip industry to add more and more cores to each chip to keep delivering more speed and features to users. Read more »
Now that AMD has confirmed its purchase of low-power server maker SeaMicro, I bet its next move will be an announcement around licensing the ARM architecture. That’s right: AMD will do a deal with the company that provides the architecture for chips inside your cell phone. Read more »
Quantenna, a startup building chips for sending massive data over Wi-Fi, has built the first gigabit chip for Wi-Fi networks and devices. The chip is available now for use in routers, home gateways and even consumer gadgets. Products containing the chips could arrive in 2012. Read more »
In the past decade supercomputers were dressed-up versions of Intel’s x86 machines, but increasingly supercomputers are borrowing innovations (and silicon in the form of ARM-based chips or DSPs) from the mobile and big data realms to add speed without guzzling too much power. Read more »
ARM Holdings is trying to quiet speculation again that the UK chip designer might be acquired, this time by Intel or Oracle. The company has been the focus of rumors before, and with the rise of mobile devices and the slow growth of computers, it’s understandable. Read more »
After a century of making tabulation machines IBM has come up with a new chip that marries our brain’s architecture with silicon guts. The goal is to create a new style of computing aimed at making sense of big data without consuming a lot of power. Read more »
Those hoping for iPad lightning to strike twice this year might be disappointed by a new report out Friday. The A6 processor, cited as the central component for a new, more powerful iPad won’t hit the public until next year, sources say. Read more »
At the IEEE Technology Time Machine Symposium last week I listened to the world’s leading academics, engineers, executives, and government officials project what the world will look like in 2020. The future brings technology together for everything from enhancing the human experience to improving environmental sustainability. Read more »
Stealthy startup SuVolta has pioneered an improvement in the chip-manufacturing process that will help cut the power usage of semiconductors by half while maintaining their performance. The process, which it plans to license, changes a few of the ingredients used to make chips. Read more »
Intel is known for its ability to roll out chips speedily in giant factories. Can that knowledge help a solar startup? MiaSole announced Tuesday that it has enlisted the chip giant to help the company scale up its thin-film solar production. Read more »
An HTC smartphone with multiple cores is reportedly in the works, based on results found from a benchmark testing website. A powerful chip — likely from Qualcomm — would be welcome in smartphones, but might be better suited to Android tablets compete against Apple’s iPad. Read more »
Mobile health-care devices and applications are expected to surge in the next several years as smartphone connectivity comes to a host of medical and fitness gadgets. Like chip makers Texas Instruments and CSR, Broadcom is betting that Bluetooth’s low energy draw will help drive the segment. Read more »
ARM Holdings today said raised royalty rates for cores from its Cortex processor range. It’s a sign that ARM is confident it will build on its considerable momentum as our world becomes increasingly connected. With the move, the battleground of converged devices has heated up. Read more »
If you’re in the market for a netbook, it’s a good time to pay close attention to Intel’s new N450 processor — and some remarkable deals on the mini-notebooks based on the chip. New technologies may cause many more people to take netbooks seriously. Read more »
Qualcomm has joined its rival Intel in jumping aboard the open source bandwagon. The San Diego-based chipmaker today unveiled the Qualcomm Innovation Center, a subsidiary created to “optimize open source software with Qualcomm technology.” The QuIC, as Qualcomm has dubbed it, will be headed by Rob […] Read more »
Anant Agarwal, co-founder and CTO of Tilera, is tackling the Mount Everest of chips. His goal for decades has been to figure out how to build a general-purpose chip that offers better performance and power efficiency. Those are goals that many startups have shot for and […] Read more »
[qi:gigaom_icon_chip] As Microsoft prepares its upcoming Oct. 22 launch of Windows 7, it looks like the chip industry has several reasons to love the new operating system. Everything from its smaller footprint to better performance while running it from a solid-state hard drive could change the […] Read more »
A stabilizing economy, companies with larger cash piles, a general need for newer technologies (and products) and most importantly, revenue growth are among the reasons that we expect to see strong technology M&A activity in the coming months, as we noted two weeks ago. Since then, […] Read more »
