ChipCrunch - Semiconductor Startup and Emerging Technology Blog http://www.chipcrunch.com Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:00:05 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.chipcrunch.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.chipcrunch.com ChipCrunch - Semiconductor Startup and Emerging Technology Blog http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Industry.Squibs/semicons.grow.fabless.might.be.the.way.to.go.html A couple of bulletins have been published last week concerning the semiconductor industry, and unlike the recent startup and venture capital news, these are actually on the positive side. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported (http://www.sia-online.org/pre_release.cfm?ID=492) that chip sales for the first have of this year are up a healthy 5.4 percent over the same period last year. The SIA attributes the sales growth mostly to strong sales of portable computers and mobile phones, both of which experienced double-digit unit growth. With emerging markets having significant growth in both of these areas, it is not surprising that the Asian-Pacific... Blogs - Industry Squibs Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:43:00 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Technical.Bits/Purdue.University.developing.creative.cooling.technologies.html Last year we wrote (Blogs/Technical.Bits/fight.the.heat.with.ionic.wind.engines.html) about ionic wind engine research that was conducted at Purdue University and allowed the team to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of a regular fan by 250 percent, thus significantly improving the cooling solution. Since then chips have definitely not become any cooler. The power envelope for individual cores might have decreased due to the re-emergence of simpler architectures with shallower pipelines, but with chip companies squeezing ever more cores into smaller packages, the heat problem is not going away any time soon. To compound the problem, keep in mind that for all these cores... Blogs - Technical Bits Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:26:14 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Industry.Squibs/one.day.two.strikes.against.semiconductor.companies.html We reported (Blogs/Industry.Squibs/venture.capital.anything.but.a.stellar.start.for.2008.html) earlier this year that 2008 was anything but a stellar start in terms of venture capital for semiconductor startups. It does not take a genius to see that the semiconductor market has been on shaky ground as of late, excluding a couple companies here and there. Nevertheless, running across two articles that highlight the negative and are published on the same day, while addressing the opposite sides of the semiconductor spectrum, is rather depressing.The first article, titled Why Chip Stocks are Down (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13555_3-9994502-34.html?tag=nefd.top) and written by Steve Tobak, focuses on established semiconductor companies and examines... Blogs - Industry Squibs Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:47:55 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Technical.Bits/3D-IC.Alliance.introducing.the.intimate.memory.interface.standard.html A little over a year ago we briefly discussed (Blogs/Technical.Bits/through-silicon.vias.a.little.primer.html) through-silicon vias (TSV). We examined some potential advantages and provided a link to a little TSV primer. Back then, the projection was that we ought to expect chips featuring TSV by the beginning of 2008. And while a few ICs here and there have been manufactured using TSV, a general standard was lacking thus slowing adoption across the industry. To overcome this problem, the 3D-IC Alliance (http://3d-ic.org), whose founding members include Tezzaron Semiconductor (http://www.tezzaron.com) and Ziptronix (http://www.ziptronix.com), has released a first standard (http://3d-ic.org/documents/IMIS%201.0.pdf) for 3D integration, dubbed... Blogs - Technical Bits Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:28:42 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/Black.Sand.Technologies.Susanne.Paul.s.Insights.html (http://www.blacksand.com) Last fall we profiled (Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/Black.Sand.Technologies.a.small-cap.genius.bet.html) Black Sand Technologies when they successfully completed raising $8.2 Million in Series A funding. Other than a few appointments of individuals to key positions, there really has not been much news regarding the company since. Needless to say, their web-site has also not been updated with any new product information. But thanks to Forbes.com and Clair Cain Miller who wrote the actual article (http://www.forbes.com/technology/forbes/2008/0721/048b.html?feed=rss_technology), we get a little insight on Black Sand’s chief technologist Susanne Paul and her thoughts regarding silicon based power amplifiers. If you ever wondered what it takes to... Blogs - Startup Blurbs Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:41:03 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/Montalvo.s.failure.a.postmortem.html Dean Takahashi, a regular contributor to VentureBeat.com (http://venturebeat.com), posted yesterday a very interesting article (http://theindustrystandard.com/news/2008/06/23/post-mortem-inside-story-behind-collapse-chip-startup-montalvo-systems?page=0) over at the Industry Standard regarding Montalvo Systems failure and what it might mean for future x86 startups. We wrote (Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/and.then.two.chip.startups.were.no.more.html) about Sun’s acquisition of Montalvo Systems a couple of months ago, highlighting the more than $70 million dollars that the company was able to raise and the rather paltry sum for which it was eventually acquired. Dean’s postmortem gives us a concise history about how Memory Logix evolved from their initial synthesizable cores charter to eventually become Montalvo. We get a good... Blogs - Startup Blurbs Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:02:12 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Chip.Ups/few.updates.many.upgrades.html There have been relatively few posts to ChipCrunch.com over the last few weeks, but do not worry, a lot of work has been happening on the backend. First, the site was moved to a new server in order to enable php5 support. And while conceptually this ought to be a rather simple process, in reality nothing is every this simple. Several parts of the site experienced minor issues after the move that needed some time to be worked out. While working on them, we also fixed a few bugs related to article commenting, cross-browser image alignment, and the mobile version... Blogs - Chip Ups Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:00:17 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/Startup.Agents.bringing.startups.and.talent.together.html (http://www.startupagents.com)Many individuals dream of working for a startup and striking it rich, but never seem to find the right opportunity for which they would be willing to leave the security of their current employer. On the other side of the spectrum are startups, which might have great ideas, but whether by choice or not, are little known and struggle in finding the right talent. For these individuals and startups, the major job-sites usually return less than satisfying results: Finding startups on these sites is not easy, and similarly the quantity of resumes received by startups is likely to trump... Blogs - Startup Blurbs Thu, 29 May 2008 18:58:18 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Startup.Blurbs/austin.emerging.100.quite.a.few.semiconductor.startups.html Austin, Texas is well known for live music, the always busy 6th street, the SxSW music festival, and most recently a slew of web startups. While often referred to as silicon-hills, Austin has recently produced relatively few semiconductor startups. All the established players are still there with AMD, Freescale, IBM and Intel all having major campuses in the city. Additionally TI, ARM, nVidia, Qualcomm and a few others can also be found scattered around the city. But looking for job opportunities with semiconductor startups is a little more challenging, unless you are leaning towards green technology. So it is good... Blogs - Startup Blurbs Thu, 22 May 2008 21:45:02 +0100 http://www.chipcrunch.com/Blogs/Industry.Squibs/Nick.Tredennick.computing.in.transition.html A few weeks ago Nick Tredennick published a rather interesting analysis (http://www.tredennick.com/ftp/pub/documents/Presentations/Computing%20in%20Transition.pdf) of the current state of the semiconductor market, titled Computing in Transition. Now why would you care about what Nick has to say about computing? Well, let’s say he has been around the block a few times. He worked on microcontrollers for Motorola in the late 70s, and then worked on the design of the Micro/370 microprocessor at IBM in the eighties before becoming the director of product development at Nexgen, followed by a quick stint as the chief scientists at Altera in the 90s. Currently he... Blogs - Industry Squibs Mon, 12 May 2008 22:17:12 +0100