Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is laying off 10% of its workforce in an effort to cut costs. The world’s second largest chipmaker will also terminate some contractual employees, resulting in about 1,400 total cuts. The move follows 1,100 job cuts last year. AMD will also end some contracts, resulting in roughly 200 additional layoffs. [...]

Qualcomm (QCOM) garnered a pair of significant wins this month as the chipmaker not only scored the main CPU for Nokia’s new Windows Phone 7 devices, but also supplies the baseband processor for the iPhone 4S. (A baseband processor is a chip or part of a chip that manages all the radio functions in a device.) [...]

Central Texas firefighters are battling the worst wildfire in the state’s history, and they’re relying on their portable radios to help them do their jobs and stay alive. The Motorola Solutions radios not only enable firefighters to communicate with one another, they also allow them to maintain contact with a location commander who can use [...]

Despite the flop that was Flow TV, Qualcomm does not seem ready to let go of mobile video, announcing today that it had picked up assets from Integrated Device Technology, Inc., (IDT) including the firm’s Hollywood Quality Video design team and Frame Rate Conversion (FRC) Video Processing product lines. A press release said Qualcomm had [...]

Austin Business Journal | August 29, 2011 Chip-maker MTPV LLC has received $6.5 million of a planned $8.5 million round of funding. …. Full article via Austin Business Journal

Chip making fab GlobalFoundries is stepping up its collaborative efforts with ARM alliance partner Samsung to jointly offer new 28nm HKMG technology, called 28nm-LPH, the firms said this morning. Just ahead of the Global Technology Conference (GTC) in Santa Clara today, both firms shored up their support for one another, noting that the new technology [...]

After Google Inc. (GOOG) announced plans to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) for $12.5 billion, executives from both companies jumped on a call with investors to offer more details about the pending transaction. Marking his first major acquisition since taking the reins at Google, CEO Larry Page talked about the major strides the Android [...]

The Semiconductor Industry Association said worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $24.7 billion for June, a 1.5% decrease from May and a 0.5% decrease from a year ago. Sales in the second quarter were down 2% from the previous quarter.     “Despite this month’s modest contraction in sales, the industry saw a 3.7% increase in the [...]

Exalt Communications announced that Will County 911 in Illinois has deployed the company’s microwave backhaul systems to connect its new dispatch center, also known as public safety answering point (PSAP), in Bolingbrook, Ill. with a regional switching center approximately 13 miles away. Bolingbrook PSAP dispatches emergency police and fire calls supporting the community’s 73,000 residents. [...]

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) has snapped up assets from Sunnyvale based GestureTek, which specializes in gesture recognition technology, for integration into its Snapdragon processors. Gesture recognition, once the preserve of science fiction films like Minority Report, is slowly making its real life debut in tablets and smartphones, with several firms attempting to find new ‘hands-off’ [...]