Electronic Business articles from May 2006

Electronic Business archives from May 2006

Blogs, an improved look and more variety in the EB pipeline.(Editor's Note)
May 1, 2006... As of mid-April, according to Technorati, a company that monitors the blogosphere, there were about 34.6 million blogs and 2.3 billion links connecting them. Several of the hot topics then were Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Rumsfeld and Iran,...

Innovation without execution is worthless: immaculate execution is essential ingredient for success.(electronics industry)(Column)
May 1, 2006... Innovation is the engine driving the electronics industry. It launches new products, opens new markets, builds successful business entities and creates new centers of wealth with which to fund further innovation. Even though innovation is the...

Midwestern views?(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... As a recent transplant to the Midwest, I am shocked by the myopic views that are common here. The letter that appeared in the April issue by Jack Ambuel, Electrical Engineer, University of Wisconsin, Madison ("Say what?"), is a glaring example....

Readers' reactions to Micron cover story.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Yea, I have some feedback on the Micron cover story. Great, with all that money Micron will be able to afford the huge damages they are going to have to pay after the Rambus anti trust trial finishes with them. And not to mention DRAM...

Wireless standards vex hapless end user.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I read your article, "Standards Bottleneck," (February 2006). It's a good article. At the end, you asked for reader opinions about the approval standards process. Speaking as an end user: It sucks. Actually, I don't know about the standards...

Corrections and clarifications.(Letters)(Correction notice)
May 1, 2006... In our Top 25 Distributors list, featured on page 60 in the April 2006 issue, Reed Corporate Research's estimate of Newark InOne's North American revenue of $715.1 million was incorrect. The actual North American revenue for Newark InOne for...

Mini versus mega: will minifabs finally come into vogue?(semiconductor fabrication plants)
May 1, 2006... The electronics industry's credo of "smaller, cheaper and faster" apparently doesn't apply to its semiconductor manufacturing facilities. When it comes to fabs, industry watchers say big is still better. Despite certain cost advantages,...

No flash in the pan: SanDisk rides the crest of the fast-growing memory card market.(PROFILE)(Company overview)
May 1, 2006... Once upon a time, whenever SanDisk got a $100,000 order, one of its employees ran around the office jubilantly ringing a bell, stopping at each cubicle to tell fellow employees who the customer was. Today the ringing sound comes from the cash...

Forever young? The high-tech industry shouldn't ignore workforce demographics.(FINANCE)
May 1, 2006... Although many workers may dread hitting the half-century mark of their lives for fear of being replaced by younger, less expensive employees, many companies are actively wooing older workers and offering perks to retain them. The main...

In the zone: Changzhou tech district promises less red tape for electronics companies.(Supply Chain Management)
May 1, 2006... Check out the list of companies operating in the Changzhou National High-Tech District (CND) in China, and you'll think you're reading from the Who's Who of the global electronics industry. Flextronics, Fujitsu, GE, Motorola, Philips, Samsung,...

Polysilicon shortage: a booming solar industry is competing for the chip industry's wafer supply.(Semiconductors)
May 1, 2006... Photovoltaic cell maker SunPower expects to more than double its sales, from last year's $80 million to $200 million-plus in 2006, thanks to booming worldwide solar energy demand. But CEO Tom Werner says an acute shortage of silicon wafers is...

Intel changes to its core: new microarchitecture gets good early reviews.(SEMICONDUCTORS)
May 1, 2006... Every four years, Intel creates a new microarchitecture--an innovation of x86 technology such as the Pentium 5, Pentium 6 or Pentium M. And with its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) breathing down its neck, the pressure was on Intel to...

Bring on the methodology shift: The complexity of system-level design is changing the design tools landscape.(Electronic Design Automation)
May 1, 2006... As convergence drives increasing complexity in consumer electronics, hitting ever shortening market windows, SoC designs must be targeted at a multitude of devices. Increased complexity is prompting chip designers to adopt new...

Vendors consider outsourced models: two top players outsource manufacturing to cost-effective Asia-Pacific.(Capital Equipment)
May 1, 2006... It's no secret that outsourced manufacturing models are becoming more prevalent in the automatic test equipment (ATE) arena. The cyclical nature of the test equipment market and its equally undulating effect on the bottom line are key drivers...

Learning from failure: the inside story on how IBM outfoxed Intel with the Xbox 360.(worked with Microsoft Corp.)
May 1, 2006... LEARNING FROM FAILURE IS A HALLMARK OF THE TECHOLOGY BUSINESS. Nick Baker, a 37-year-old system architect at Microsoft, knows that well. A British transplant at the software giant's Silicon Valley campus, he went from failed project to failed...

Protect your IP: in China and elsewhere, intangible assets are more at risk than most CEOs think.(INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION)
May 1, 2006... Bill Gates is no fool, but like many other technology executives, he foolishly underestimates the risk China poses to intellectual property. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier in 2006, the Microsoft chairman touted the...

The convergence war: two standards--Blu-ray and HD DVD--are fighting for the consumer mind-set for the next-generation DVD technology.(high definition )
May 1, 2006... In the battle for the high-definition DVD storage format of the future, two camps are fighting for leadership in the converged home. Although some believe there is room for both formats, there is also the likelihood that one may win out...

The secret of semi success: a mix of strategies is what propels the winners to the top spots.(TOP SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANIES)
May 1, 2006... It's always good to be a market leader, but these days, it's particularly good to be a semiconductor industry market leader. Take a look at the numbers. Industry giant Intel's sales climbed 14 percent in 2005, according to statistics...

India is not the new China: the two economies are following different electronics development paths.(MACROECONOMICS)
May 1, 2006... India is now attracting electronics hardware investments, after grabbing a major foothold in the world data processing and call center market and leveraging that into a growing stake in software development. The Indian electronics industry is...