TI to partner with Asian foundries on chip R&D
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InfoWorld - Texas Instruments, the world&#39;s largest maker of mobile phone chips, plans to work more closely with its Asian contract chip manufacturing partners to develop new production technologies, a company spokeswoman confirmed.
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Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Corp and Japan's Elpida Memory Inc have announced a $1.23 billion dollar joint venture with plans to invest almost 14 billion dollars over five years.
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(InfoWorld) - Semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing CompanyÂ (TSMC) has opened an office in Bangalore, India, that it says will help customers to complete their chip designs faster and bring products more quickly to market. TSMC's new office will work with the semiconductor design subsidiaries in India of TSMC's North American, European, and Asian customers, the company said Monday. It will also work with the large number of Indian chip design companies that do not have their own manufacturing facilities. India has emerged as a key location for chip design, with a large number of multinational semiconductor companies such as Intel and Texas InstrumentsÂ setting up semiconductor design centers in the country. Chip companies that contract manufacture to other companies, like Broadcom, have also set up chip design centers in India. Besides these foreign companies, there are also a number of Indian chip companies and contract designers.
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The new company, which does not yet have an English name, will open early next year in an advanced 12-inch chip factory Powerchip started building in central Taiwan earlier this year.
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The chip company makes a major deal to reach a new market.
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Astronomy research organization Astron  on Wednesday said it was teaming up with International Business  Machines Corp. , the world's largest technology services  group, to design chips to be used as part of Astron's project  to build a radio astronomy telescope to look at evolving  galaxies.
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(InfoWorld) - Four Taiwanese chip assembly companies have won preliminaryÂ government approval for investments in China, including aÂ joint venture with Europe's NXP Semiconductors. The companies must still await final approval by the Taiwan Investment Commission before moving forward, an economics ministry official said Tuesday. Government agencies involved in China-bound investment decisions have already voiced agreement to allow the four companies to invest in low-end chip assembly operations in China. Final approval is expected within the next few months. Taiwan carefully regulates technology investments to China over fears the Chinese military could use the technology against the island, in addition to nervousness about job losses and losing its competitive edge. Taiwan and China remain enemies after splitting in 1949 amid civil war. Taiwan has developed a vibrant economy and a democratic government in the time since the separation, while China's economic development started more recently. Despite their strained relationship, China remains the favored destination for Taiwanese investment due to their shared language and culture, as well as China's lower costs and incentives for building factories. Among the four investments, Taiwanese officials have given a nod to a deal between NXP Semiconductors, the former chip division of Koninklijke Philips Electronics, and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), the world's largest independent chip packaging and testing company. Earlier this year, the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture in Suzhou, China. ASE will take a 60 percent stake in the venture, while NXP will hold the remaining 40 percent. The other three Taiwanese companies winning preliminary approval are Siliconware Precision Industries Co Ltd., Greatek Electronics Inc., and Walton Advanced Engineering Inc. As part of their China applications, the four companies all included plans to continue investing in Taiwan, the official said. In all, they promised to invest NT$75 billion (US$2.29 billion) in Taiwan over the next three years, including NT$40 billion from ASE, NT$20 billion from Siliconware, NT$10 billion from Greatek and NT$5 billion from Walton. ASE and Siliconware executives could not immediately be reached for comment, while Greatek and Walton both declined to immediately comment.
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The chipmaker appears to have met its most recent deadline for production of the smaller-featured chips.
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Advanced Micro Devices and IBM will work together to devise chip-manufacturing technology for three additional years, a deal that will bring about a quarter of a billion to IBM over four years and give AMD access to cutting-edge chip inventions.
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(InfoWorld) - News coming out the chip sector has been great so far this week, but analysts warn that economic woes such as the housing mess might still spoil the party. The consensus among analysts appears to be that corporate and personal spending on technology products will be hurt by the housing issues in the U.S., but nobody knows how bad the impact will be, according to Peter Sutton, head of research at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Taipei. Demand for technology products, especially computers and mobile phones, in the rest of the world is going strong, he said, but even that demand could pull back in the event of a U.S. slowdown because many developing countries depend on exports to the U.S. for income. By the end of this year, people should know how bad the loan and home foreclosure situation will be, according to Sutton. The housing market in the U.S., he said, is expected to bottom in the first quarter of next year. The fear is that the housing issues could hurt consumer spending at some point later this year, but so far the technology industry isn't showing any signs of trouble. The flow of good news started in Asia on Monday with the world's largest contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), reporting record high sales in August and revising up its third quarter financial guidance. The company, considered a bellwether for the overall tech industry because of the variety of gadgets it makes chips for, said consolidated sales in August rose 10 percent year-over-year to NT$30.02 billion (US$907.0 million), beating its previous record of NT$27.96 billion from July of last year. TSMC also predicted its third quarter revenue will likely hit between NT$87 billion to NT$89 billion, higher than a previous forecast of NT$85 billion to NT$87 billion, and said its gross margin would come out at the top end of expectations. Some customers asked TSMC to ship some chips earlier than expected, a spokesman for the company said, but the company won't comment on how that might impact the fourth quarter. Taiwanese chip designer MediaTek followed up TSMC's news, announcing an agreement to buy certain telecommunications chips products from Analog Devices Inc., of Norwood, Massachusetts, for US$350 million in cash. The deal itself isn't huge, but merger and acquisition activity normally takes place when companies see bright prospects for the future, and MediaTek is looking to use the acquisition as part of its mobile phone chip strategy. Among the products the company acquired is a chipset used in TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) basebands and radio receiver products, which will help it increase its presence in its main market, China. TD-SCDMA is the 3G (third-generation) telecommunications standard being pursued in China. Positive corporate news for chip makers didn't stop in Asia. As the work day opened in the U.S., technology industry watchers were treated to theÂ long-awaited launch of Barcelona, the new quad-core processors from Advanced Micro Devices. The Sunnyvale, California company announced a number of companies are already using the chips, including IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, and Gateway. The world's largest chip maker capped Monday with the biggest news of the day.Â Intel raised its third quarter revenue forecastÂ to between US$9.4 billion and US$9.8 billion from a previous range of US$9.0 billion and US$9.6 billion, and said its gross margin would be at the upper end of guidance due to stronger than expected global demand for computing products. Despite the strong chip news and outlook for the current quarter, which ends Sept. 30, the future remains uncertain. "Near term data shows little evidence of order cutbacks in the tech supply chain," said Warren Lau, chip analyst at Macquarie Research Equities. "But having said that, the question remains: will the sky come crashing down because of the meltdown in the U.S. subprime markets?"
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sameerdesai writes &quot;Seattletimes is carying this story on Intel helping major countries like China and India to help build Linux machines as an alternative to Microsoft Windows.
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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., a leading Chinese computer chip maker, plans to begin supplying chips using more advanced technology to major clients such as Texas Instruments Inc. beginning next year, the companies said Friday.
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TechWeb - Chipmaker provides Linux tools to reach growing market there.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft will step up its investments in AsiaÂ over the next two years as part of a bid to strengthen its relationship with partners and corporate customers in the area of mission-critical technologies. "Over the next two years, we're going to invest about $14 million in resources and facilities," said Chris Sharp, Microsoft's Asia-Pacific general manager of server and tools products, during a phone interview. As part of these investments, Microsoft will assign 100 technical specialists to work with customers and ISVs (independent software vendors) on mission-critical software products, including Windows 2003 Server and SQL Server 2005. The company also plans to open two technology incubation centers in Seoul and Bangalore, India. "These technology centers are there to showcase the capabilities of server technology and help people port their applications to mission-critical hardware," Sharp said. Microsoft's planned investments in Asia will boost the effectiveness of the company's enterprise sales team in Asia, said Dane Anderson, head of research at Springboard Research. From a technology standpoint, Microsoft's products are competitive with offerings from rival vendors but the sales cycle for enterprise products is longer and more involved than for sales of desktop operating systems or application suites, Anderson said. "These investments help to address that," he said. Customers that have an established relationship also expect to benefit from the added investment and new technology centers. "We think it's pretty good for us,"James Kang, the chief information officer of NTUC Income Insurance Cooperative, noting that the incubation centers are available to help his company run simulations and test new applications.
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(InfoWorld) - In the most significant easing of investment regulations for Taiwan's technology industry to date, the island's government will allow two chip makers to build factories in China and one more to invest in a Chinese rival, a high level official said Tuesday. Memory chip makers Powerchip Semiconductor and ProMOS Technologies will both be allowed to build chip factories in China, while Advanced Semiconductor EngineeringÂ (ASE) will receive approvalÂ for a plan toÂ buy a low-end chip assembly companyÂ based in Shanghai. ASE is the world's largest chip assembly company. "An official announcement will be made on Wednesday," said Joseph Wu, chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's official governing body for China relations. A group of government agencies agreed to the easing Monday during a committee meeting. The final step in making the decision formal is for the Taiwan Investment Commission, which is in charge of vetting China-bound investment applications, to give its stamp of approval and publicly announce the new measures. The easing is seen as a major breakthrough for Taiwan and China. For China, it could reinvigorate a chip industry that has slowed over the past few years as major chip makers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) posted a string of money-losing quarters. It also represents a token of goodwill by Taiwan to political enemy China. Taiwan and China remain enemies after splitting in 1949 amid civil war. The island fears China could use chip technology to bolster its military capabilities against Taiwan. Despite the strained relationship and tough investment rules, China remains by far the favored destination for Taiwanese investment due to their shared language and culture, and China's lower costs and huge potential market. The formal announcement expected Wednesday will likely fall short of hopes held by Taiwanese chip makers. Companies have been lobbying the government for years to allow them to transfer 0.18 micron chip production technology to China, but such an opening will have to wait, Wu said. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has made a strong push on the 0.18 micron issue, in part because Chinese rivals such as SMIC are already using the technology, and are able to win over customers because of it. Taiwanese regulations currently only allow its chip makers to use 0.25 micron technology in China. ASE's board of directors approved a plan to last month to invest $60 million in Global Advanced Packaging Technology, a Shanghai company.
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In an effort to encourage hardware vendors to build components for the blade platform they co-develop, Intel Corp. and IBM Corp. on Thursday will open up parts of the BladeCenter design specifications, according to documents obtained by IDG News Service.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Tuesday said it has entered a manufacturing agreement with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore.