BROWSING: chips
Sequans gets €11m from French government for 5G eRedCap R&D
French IoT chipmaker Sequans Communications, which saw its $249m takeover by Japan-based Renesas Electronics come undone at the eleventh hour at the end of last month, has been granted €10.9 million from the French government to go towards development of 5G-based ‘reduced capability’ (RedCap)...
O-RAN at MWC: A minimum viable profile, processors and more
BARCELONA—Open radio access networks have been a major theme at this week's Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2024. Not only was an O-RAN Alliance meeting held in conjunction with MWC, but a number of announcements indicate the continued development of the ecosystem.
According to O-RAN Alliance,...
Unabiz targets “ultra-cheap” Sigfox trackers with Taiwan chip tieup
Sigfox-parent Unabiz is working with Holtek Semiconductor to integrate Sigfox (“0G technology”) into the Taiwan-based design firm’s “ultra-cheap” BC68F2150 chipset. Unabiz said the initiative will bring “more energy-efficient and cost-effective” Sigfox-based IoT solutions to the logistics and supply chain sectors. The pair said they...
NXP intros new low-power MCUs for smart edge apps in industrial IoT
Chip design company NXP Semiconductors has released two new lines of low-cost and low-power microcontroller units (MCUs) to support intelligent edge applications in industrial and industrial IoT gadgetry, plus in sundry smart-home and smart-city devices. The MCX A14x and A15x are the first commercially-available...
CHIPS funding to expand facilities in Colorado, Oregon
The Biden administration announced an agreement with semiconductor producer Microchip Technologies to expand its domestic production capacity of legacy chips, supported with $162 million in financial incentives funded through the CHIPS and Science Act.
This is the second agreement announced as part of the...
Protected: Kagan: Qualcomm losses grow thanks to new Huawei and Apple 5G chipsets
Challenge Qualcomm faces today with Huawei Mate 60 Pro and Apple 5G chip
In recent years, Qualcomm has increasingly been under the gun thanks to several different factors in the wireless space. Unfortunately, things do not look like they are getting better for the company....
Arm files for US IPO
Ahead of its IPO, ARM's revenues took a hit from the global smartphone slow-down
Chip design powerhouse Arm has filed for a long-anticipated initial public offering in the United States.
The initial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission offered little in the way of...
Qualcomm unveils new suite of processors for IoT
The new suite of products include the Qualcomm QCS8550, Qualcomm QCM8550, Qualcomm QCS4490 and Qualcomm QCM4490 processors
Qualcomm Technologies announced new IoT solutions with the aim of expanding the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem and IoT use cases.
The announcement was made at the Hannover Messe...
Huawei already replaced 13,000 components due to U.S. sanctions
Huawei replaced these parts with components developed by itself and other Chinese companies over the last three years
Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies has replaced more than 13,000 components that had been affected by the restrictions imposed by the U.S government, Chinese press reported, citing the...
Samsung to put $230 billion into world’s largest chip-making cluster
Samsung Electronics plans to make a massive $230 billion investment in South Korea's chip-making capacity, in the form of a new "mega cluster" of silicon manufacturing that could end up being the world's largest such hub.
The investment, to be made over the next...
Additional chip restrictions could impact Nvidia, Qualcomm
The White House is pondering more extensive U.S. limitations on the sale of chips and chip-making equipment to Chinese companies, and those could have substantial impacts on Nvidia's ability to sell to Huawei and a lesser impact on Qualcomm, according to press reports on...
Qualcomm continues to grow automotive, IoT businesses
In Q1 of its fiscal 2023, Qualcomm revenues were down but diversification strategy seems to be working
Global macroeconomic headwinds, as well as weak demand and an inventory drawdown hitting the handset business, impacted Qualcomm’s Q1; the company reported a 12% year-over-year revenue decrease to...
Kagan: Qualcomm vs. Arm, chip battle between friends
Here we go again. Qualcomm has found itself in the middle of yet another grueling battle. This time with Arm, the chip technology company it has been working with. While no one knows how long this new fight will last, looking back on past...
Skyworks, Sequans combine on “smallest” LTE-M and NB-IoT system-in-package
Semiconductor firm Skyworks Solutions claims to have produced the world’s smallest dual-mode cellular IoT system-in-package (SiP) solution. The US outfit partnered with IoT chip and module maker Sequans Communications on the product, numbered SKY66431, to combine the France-based firm’s Monarch 2 modem with its...
NIST, Google to co-develop domestic R&D chips
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Google have signed an agreement to cooperate on semiconductor development for license-free, domestically produced chips to support technology and product R&D.
The chips will be manufactured in Bloomington, Minnesota, by SkyWater Technology, which has a chip...
Nowi, E-Peas strikes deals to expand energy harvesting in IoT, as market jumps 10%
A couple of interesting press notes about energy harvesting in IoT modules during the past week, all originating in the Low Countries; Dutch firm Nowi, a key supplier of energy harvesting circuits, has said Chinese IoT chip design company Telink Semiconductor is using its...
Arm sues Qualcomm and Nuvia for breaching license agreement
If the courts side with Arm, Qualcomm could be forced to destroy any designs it has produced with the licenses in question
Arm is suing Qualcomm and Nuvia, the startup that Qualcomm acquired in 2021, claiming that the companies violated the licenses they have to...
Behind the green curtain – Semtech reveals magic to merge cellular and non-cellular IoT
Note, this article is continued from a previous entry, available here.
So what happens behind the ‘green curtain’, exactly? What is the trick that non-cellular IoT leader Semtech is looking to pull off with its purchase of cellular IoT maker Sierra Wireless? Or rather, how...
Semtech on Sierra deal – ‘We are siding with the developer, and siding with the planet’
There is a temptation to view this deal as symbolic, somehow, suggests Enterprise IoT Insights; that with the purchase of cellular IoT champ Sierra Wireless, Semtech is stepping beyond the enduringly fragmented, slightly disjointed, vaguely dysfunctional unlicensed low-power end of the wide-area (LPWA) IoT...
Sweeping semiconductor bill passes the US Senate
The CHIPS Act proposes $59 billion of funding for semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed the CHIPS bill, or the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, which aims to estabish a competitive edge over China...
VW lines up ST for automotive SoC, TSMC for silicon, and whole chip-chain behind
Volkswagen-owned automotive software company CARIAD has appointed Franco-Italian semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics (ST) to develop a system-on-chip (SoC) for a new line of Volkswagen vehicles based on the CARIAD software platform. At the same time, the parties “are moving to agree” that silicon contract manufacturer...
Supply chain issues & the chip shortage: How dealers can navigate a changing landscape (Reader Forum)
The global microchip shortage has had a serious impact on the automotive industry over the last two years, and the pandemic's effect on supply chains have turned the scarcity of inventory into a bigger challenge than many expected. While there’s no definite timeline, analysts...
Huawei diversifies porfolio, hikes R&D spending amid global challenges
Huawei is diversifying its portfolio as well as increasing R&D spending and focusing on operational efficiency, given the growing challenges faced by the vendor this year, which are even higher compared to 2021, rotating chairman Ken Hu said in his keynote presentation at the...
Spain to invest $12.4 billion in semiconductors
An ongoing global semiconductor shortage, caused initially by the COVID-19 pandemic and made more pressing by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has gripped the world
On Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez revealed that Spain plans to invest 11 billion euros ($12.4 billion) to develop microchips...